Dawkins

Dawkins

Before You Read:
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My sister’s tree house, which was made of wood scraps and cardboard, made a great place to play with her friends. 

In this sentence I used comas to join the two sentences together.

Made of wood scraps and cardboard, my sister’s tree house made a great place to play with her friends.

I used comas in this sentence to set off the introductory elements.

My sister’s tree house made a great place to play with her friends, even though it was made of wood scraps and cardboard.

In this sentence I used a comma to connect what the tree house was made of and how it was a great place.

Summary:

In John Dawkin's article, "Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool", He attempts to explain how people get confused with the punctuation rules and end up making their own rules. Better instructions on grammar will encourage "good" behavior instead of not discouraging the bad. Dawkin argues that grammar should be based on principles, not rules.

Synthesis:

Dawkin's article is similar to Porter's because they both deal with intertextuaity and how to make what you write your own. Dawkin's article is also similar to Berkenkotter's because they both deal with how writers make mistakes when writing and that we can revise our papers and make changes to our grammatical errors.

QD:
5. I no know a lot more about punctuation that I didn't know before. The examples Dawkin's gives with raising and lowering helped me better understand this concept.

MM:
My teacher wants me to read this because you should know the correct way and rules of punctuation before you can follow our own principles. Reading this gave me a better understanding of how to punctuate.

Thoughts:
I liked this reading and feel that I learned a lot from it. The examples gave me a better understanding of how to use punctuation.

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Response	Quote
I believe many people have problems with understanding punctuation rules. There are so many rules, which end up confusing people.	“These results show we are dealing with tendencies which, while clear enough, are by no means rules.”
I agree with this and believe that it should raise questions about the rules. The rules can be confusing and unclear at times, which lead to people using whichever punctuation seems right to them and what needs to be emphasized.	“Fragments and comma splices, violations of the coordinate clause and elliptical coordinate clause...these and other failures to follow the rules are frequent enough to raise questions about the rules themselves.”
This quotes shows that you don’t always have to follow the rules, but you can follow principles instead.	“Conventional punctuation is grammar based…but what “good writers” do, writers like Orwell, is punctuate according to their intended meaning, their intended emphasis.”
This is very true and I agree that all writers want this. This can be hard to do sometimes because of all the rules you have to follow. The rules make it hard for you to say what you intended it to say.	“All writers, evidently, want a sentence to say what they intend it to say.”