Project 1 Introduction and Synthesis

Texts inherently “mean” something- the same “something”- regardless of who’s reading them. This statement can be seen as fallacious because everyone has their own way of thinking and interpreting. We frequently try to connect what we read to everything we already know, resulting in people interpreting what they read differently from others. The way you interpret the meaning depends on who you are and your situation. Not everyone has to agree upon a text meaning the same thing. However, most readers should get the same basic meaning from the author’s intended audience.  Many factors come into play while figuring out if two or more readers get the same meaning out of a text. Some of these factors include how the reader comprehends the text, if the text is poorly written, or the point of view the reader has.

Comprehension is very important when reading and being able to understand the significance of the text. If the text is not written well the reader will have a hard time interpreting and will probably get a different meaning out of the text. David N. Rapp and Paul van den Broek, in “Dynamic Text Comprehension,” talks about how “They depict reading comprehension as an ongoing process involving fluctuations in the activation of concepts as the reader proceeds through the text, resulting in a gradually emerging interpretation of the material. Features of texts and characteristics of the reader jointly and interactively affect these fluctuations, influencing and being influenced by the reader’s understanding and memory of what is read” (276). Comprehension is very important when interpreting the meaning of an article and if one is unable to do this it will result in an unclear and different meaning than what another person interprets it as.