Lindemann and Podis: Finding Form.

Both Lindemann and Podis have opinions on how a student should arrange a paper. I found useful ideas from both authors, but I found the Lindemann article a tadd bit more cohesive than the Podis article. This may be because she writes very conversationally, but the Podis article seems like much more scholarly. I know I wasn’t supposed to write on the way they wrote, but I had to get it off my chest. 

Moving on, I still found beneficial information from the Podis article. Podis approached this with a much more of a “There’s no right or wrong way to organizing an essay”, but then goes on to explaining helpful strategies at trying to achieve the “right way” of organizing a paper.  Leondard Podis himself says, “My suggestion in this essay…is that as teachers of arrangement we must directly explore for our students the relationship between essay organization and logic rather than working on the teaching of basic logic per se”(Podis 201). Thus, Podis wants to spark critical thinking in the student in terms of making a cohesive and strategized paper. Using progression, “…is to lend a sense of controlled, orderly motion to an essay”(200). By using this logical rationale, the writer is able to think out a strategic way of putting their thoughts on paper so they’re sequentially plotted out. This approach is different than the Lindemann way of going at essay development.

Lindemann wants the students to discover the form of their paper through writing, and this is possible threw prewriting.  She claims that “writers discover form at every stage of composing”(Lindemann 132), this is very true. She wants us to get rid of the 5 paragraph model, because there are times when this just doesn’t suit the situation, and 5 can simply not be enough. Lindemann tells the writer to use form so the reader can follow along. Erika also suggests that students read other argumentative essays in preparation for their own paper. This allows the student to be influenced and understand the way their paper should be approached in terms of creating a proper form. 

Like Lindemann suggests, we are supposed to get inspired from other people ideas and thoughts. This is happening for me already, and I plan on using things such as promise sentences,  blocking, progression,  and “consciously crafted scheme of arrangement”(Podis 197). By constantly revisiting my stasis for my paper, I’m already trying to craft an arrangement in my head of how this will all fit together. I finally understand the function of these blogs; they’re a form a prewriting.  And I believe that’s the point of much of this—to get us think about our papers. A lot of prewriting can happen in your head, not on paper. So with a mixture of both, I’ll be better off within the coming weeks.