I envy Joseph Harris; not because of his unprecedented literary advice in Rewriting, but because of his eye catching, graphic design expertise by way of the cover of this book. The maroon on maroon, with a kind of halo-esque gold around the title is the reason I put this book among my page turners; I cant put it down.
In all seriousness, however, he does make some good points. Its not like his ideas are revolutinary for the art of writing, more so he points out some things that everybody (should) know(s), but articulates them in a way that maybe will make more sense for a college student transitioning from the thesis, five paragraph paper to the more intellectual, professional kind of writing demanded in college. In discussing reading and comprehension as the precursor to analyzing and eventually rewriting the authors thoughts to reflect your own, Harris suggests "you need not only to explain what you think it means but to say something about the perspective from which you are reading it". His methods, however simple, might just help some late night in the future when Im stuck trying to write a paper for class the next day. (Just kidding, who procrastinates that long?)
In Harris' discussions about how to write, it is clear that Sullivan could use the same kinds of tools to get his ideas out on the blog. As we have already established, blogging is writing, just a little more free form and impulsive. That being said, Sullivan, along with most other bloggers probably wouldn't go into as much depth when using Harris-like strategies, but I can certainly see him utilizing the same kind of method, maybe like doing a math problem in his head as opposed to writing it down.
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