Joseph Harris gets to the point in the first chapter or Rewriting. He offers students a set of strategies for making strong and generous use of the work of other writers in their own prose. He explains what it means to come to terms with another author’s text. Generally, Harris states that coming to terms with a text is more than just understanding the author’s ideas. According to Harris, academic writers must also learn to recognize their own response to that text. This self-awareness in the academy is essential to a responsible engagement with a text. Harris writes that “In coming to terms, you need both to give a text its due and to show what uses you want to make of it” (15).
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OK, sounds good, reminds me of another book on either rewriting, or writing assessment that I read a cou;ple years ago that I think was called “Coming to Terms: A theory of…” something, probably assessment, and I can’t quite remember the author’s name right now, but I still have the book, so I can look it up, and compare these two ideas of coming to terms. However, I would like to know what you think of the text, of the theory, if it is interesting or useful to you, something more than just a brief summary that proves you read it. I am actually interested in what you think, and what you might have to say, and so I was sort of dissapointed that there was not more here. I’m not trying to be mean, I was honestly hoping for your opinion.