Thlog #6

This week we worked on getting ready to write our WP2s and coming up with ideas for possible topics to write on. On Monday we learned some helpful writing tips about other words that we can use instead of "says" and when to use hedged or qualified language. By making a list of words that can be substituted for "says" we now have a comprehensive set of words that can help us avoid repeating "the author says" over and over again in our writing. We also learned that different words can be used under different circumstances, such as "questions" being used when the author is unsure rather than when they are making a statement of certainty. Hedged claims are considered to be safer because they prevent the author from "over-generalizing." This kind of language is often used in the social sciences because they are essentially studying people and it is very difficult to know exactly what is going on in everyone's minds.

For our journals on Wednesday, we had to discuss the differences between conventions and moves, and student 14 wrote "conventions are common features of a genre, whereas 'moves' are choices that each specific author decides to use in their own writing. In order to write in a specific genre, you don't have to make use of all of the conventions, so choosing to use certain conventions and not others is a 'move' within itself." I thought this was very interesting because I had not thought that the selection of using a convention could be a move in itself. I had previously thought of moves and conventions as two separate ideas without any overlap. We also learned about parallelism and that it consists of the "similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses." We practiced making sure that sentences include parallelism, and I am now more conscious of ensuring that my writing has this structure so that I can ensure that it is easier to read for my audience.