Giving a Reteat

Of the three chapters, Id have to agree with other classmates in saying that it was probably the most jumbled and poorly written. Although, eventually after a little bit of re reading, I was able to figure out the jist of the chapter. Id be willing to chalk up the poor performance to Harris' editor having the stomach flu during the week designated to revise this chapter and due to their extremely tight schedule, they were not able to go back and take a second look at it.

Ultimately, what I drew from this chapter, "taking an approach" is taking somebody elses work and giving it your own signature flare to appeal to whatever audience you are trying to reach. The best example of this would be the cover of a song. There is a station on XM radio that my mom (thus, in turn, I do as well during road trips) called the Coffee House, whose entire agenda is to play acoustic music covers. Take John Mayer covering the late great Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry". When I think of Bob Marley and John Mayer, I think of weed smoking musicians with glorious voices. Not at all the same style, though. But in his cover, John Mayer takes Bob's song and his signature reggae style and turns it into a piece of his own acoustic brilliance.

In terms of writing, this could be seen when news stories are stretched to evoke a different emotion from the audience. I feel like this would be much harder for an publication such as the NYT, seeing as they have an image of professionalism and honesty to uphold, but for something like the Onion, I think taking an approach fits right in. They are transforming headlines and articles to appeal to a different audience. Just like a cover of a song, the Onion takes the story from a reputable publication and then generally tweaks it just enough that its obvious what the first story was on, but leaves the reader with something completely different than they would have gotten if they had just been boring and read NYT.