--------->FORWARDING<----------(replying)

Technically I'm talking about forwarding, while I'm forwarding, awkward. Whatever that means. Harris describes as taking words, images, or ideas from a text and putting them to use in new contexts. That’s pretty general if you ask me, and I probably could’ve made up something similar without having any knowledge of Harris in the first place. I do like that in the opening pages of this chapter he references academic writing as a conversation. As to say, when you comment or respond to someone’s work of writing, you aren’t trying to get the last word or final say. To be the end-all-be-all comment on someone’s paper makes you seem like kind of an asshole. The purpose of commenting on someone’s paper is, as Harris put it, “to push it forward, to say something new, something that seems to call for further talk and writing” (36). Viewing writing as a conversation between many people helped me grasp the idea of forwarding because it made me realize writing is just a back and forth discussion.

I’ve been following the Grantland Sports Blog, and luckily forwarding is a huge part of sports. In the post about how the Detroit Red Wings aren’t really that deserving of their 21 home game win streak the authors uses Harris’s technique of forwarding a lot. After going on his rant about the Red Wings he focuses more on what been going on in the NHL the past week. He uses video clips of two players who scored hat tricks, goalies who got dangled, and defensemen with big hits to better illustrate (also a method or forwarding) what happened this weekend. I think the use of video clips is a positive on the author’s behalf. Harris would agree just as he did with Todd Gitlin’s writing piece in this chapter. Harris states, “Quoting the lyrics of a song doesn’t always get at how it feels to hear it preformed” (41). Rather than a song, the author used video clips of the athletes getting their hat tricks. It would be very different to read that two players scored hat tricks with the third and final goal coming on an empty net Tuesday night than to actually watch them make a fool of the opposing goalies. I think the addition of video clips to blog posts makes them much more interesting, and it also gives us the opportunity to take a break from reading since out attention spans are getting much shorter these days.

To see what I'm actually talking about, I'll forward you the link (pun intended)..
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7583076/coldhearted-red-wings-win-streak-looming-trades-rest-week-nhl