Chapter 3

On pages 34 and 35 Warnock says, “Indirection is the way we find direction; only rarely do we live by the straight and narrow, travel the direct route, or know where we're going before we begin.” I know everyone has heard something like this before, but I still find it comforting to hear because this happens in life and in writing. And in the case of personal, the story is probably a little messy. The only thing you can clean up is the non-quoted diction and syntax. 

I also highly enjoyed this section on page 36, “You never have to start writing because you are always writing, and you never have to stop writing because you're always working on many things at once. In addition, you're always learning, figuring, and doing rhetoric; your work is never done.” For one, it gives me an excuse to not be someone who is always writing a novel or writes five pages every day or something. I’m a worker writing when I write for school or online, and then I am also a passive writer when I tuck away ideas for later. Either way, there is the constant question to life events or ideas: "how am I going to arch this?" Isn't there a story everywhere?

Another quote on page 37 sticks out, “Our arguments do not rely on claims to truth or on logical absolutes. Rather, our arguments rely on common grounds between writers and readers who are willing to give a little in order to come to terms, since that is the aim of their rhetoric.” This really speaks to the relationship between writer and reader and allows the writer to tell his/her point of view. Many of what we write is about how we feel, and though it is not fact, within the POV lies a certain truth in which the reader can choose to accept, empathize, sympathize, and/or reject.