FORWARDING

Joseph Harris describes forwarding in the context of 4 main principles. In general, forwarding is a process of writing in which a writer shifts the focus from the author of the forwarded text to his/her own project. A writer forwards a text by directing his/her comments to the public sphere. In this, a writer loses some control of its uses. Forwarding is a process of recirculating another author’s writing using 4 different but often overlapping strategies.  

      1. illustrating

            2. authorizing
            3.  borrowing
            4. extending

Illustrating is often seen as a recount of a particular scene or image from a movie, TV show or advertisement to begin an essay. These visual descriptions are then connected to the author’s main argument. Illustrating can be hard because “quoting nonprint media highlights the central problem of dealing with the texts of others”. In illustrating, writers must ensure their depiction is clear to increase the possibility of their work to be recirculated.

Authorizing is used to implore the expertise or status of another writer to support your thinking. Authorizing uses key words and concepts from other authors to support a different or similar idea.

Borrowing is one of the key moves of intellectual writing. Borrowing other’s ideas and making them into “tag phrases” to understand your ideas is an important skill in writing.

Extending takes place when a writer puts his/her own spin o the terms/concepts he/she borrowed from other writers. Often, the goal of extending is not to criticize but to add to the range of another text’s meaning.

The idea of forwarding is common in blog posts, particularly in Andrew Sullivan’s blog The Dish. He commonly tags links of works he forwards. This Saturday, he forwarded a work from Smithsonian.com and NPR combined. He titled his forward Drunk on Diet Soda. The Smithsonian version presents the evidence of a study that proves a person’s BAC is higher after an alcoholic drink mixed with diet soda than regular soda. The NPR email-interview with the cognitive psychologist who authored the new study, Cecile Marczinski.

In this forwarding, Sullivan doesn’t illustrate borrow or extend but he does authorize. He uses the expert’s quote about why she chose to study this topic and he uses Joseph Stromberg’s (of the Smithsonian) explanation of the results.

Part of Sullivan’s forwarding that Harris would be irked about is that he simply presented the quotes. He did not add his on opinions or ideas or even explanations for that matter.


NPR interview
Andrew Sullivan Blog

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