Write replies to your three peers below, expand your peers’ ideas and continue thinking about the topics of author, audience, and evidence critically. You may choose to agree or disagree with your peers, but be sure to back your ideas with evidence from the text or from your own research.
Be sure to write complete at least one academic paragraph in each of your three required replies (you can reply more than three times and additional replies can be quick responses).
Response by Ryan
Authors use evidence to support the ideas that they are trying to convey to their audience. The evidence used can exemplify what the author is trying to say and make it understandable for the reader. William Zinsser utilizes evidence in his text by giving examples of statements that have been said and hypothetical statements that support his argument. Zinsser uses many pieces of evidence that show how many times a statement is made that is far more lengthy and wordy than it needs to be. Zinsser uses an example of a dentist trying to sound very professional, stating the dentist would say “are you experiencing any pain” instead of “does it hurt” (Zinsser 13). Zinsser argues that theses extra words are unnecessary and feel insincere.
Zinsser’s main argument is that writing is best when there are no unnecessary words. Zinsser argues that a writer should get rid of any word that does not add to the understandability of the sentence. Zinsser mentions that clutter is used to cloud the message. He supports this with evidence of the “Pentagon calling an invasion a ‘reinforced protective reaction strike'” (Zinsser 14). The cloudiness of these extra words are there simply to confuse the audience and that is why there should not be any of these extra words when writing. A writer does not want to confuse the audience, so no unnecessary words should be added.
Response by Burnett
An author uses evidence to reach an audience by giving the audience what they are asking for. Throughout the text that the reader may be reading, there should be a connection between the audience and what the author is trying to get across. Nevertheless to say authors can do this differently but still have the same concept of trying to catch the readers attention. Also when the author uses evidence it shows the reader that there is proof and something to back up the authors words. William is giving us a background and a reasoning on clutter writing. His intended audience would be people who may not know how to not clutter their brain with too much.
The effect this author has on his audience would be words of encouragement. He gives us short stories on how he relates to his topic on clear thinking and tell us that good writing does not come easy. He wants us to have a clear mind when writing and take precautions. Writing is not easy, however there are tips and tricks to help us better our writing. Your writing has to be set up in a way where you do not give too much information and put unnecessary words that don’t belong or could switch out a sentence or phrase to shortening it.
Response by Lily
“Simplicity,” “Clutter,” and “Style” are all written by the author William Zinsser. Zinsser was a well known author, educator and an editor for magazines. In general authors will use evidence in their writing to help make whatever argument stronger. Evidence and examples are used for readers to visualize the author’s argument. Zinsser used an example from George Orwell to back up his claim about unnecessary word clutter. This is a good piece of evidence as George Orwell is also a well known writer. Orwell wrote many classic high school books and satirical novels. Having Owell back up Zinsser’s claim makes Zinsser’s argument stronger.
“Simplicity,” “Clutter,” and “Style” are argumentative pieces from William Zinsser. Zinsser is arguing in the pieces that simpler, less wordy pieces of writing are better. Zinsser believes the more concise the work is, the better it is. Zinsser included examples of writing tips he would give out during his time teaching at Yale. Being a teacher at a well known and studious school adds credibility to not only Zinsser’s evidence but also his argument.
