
The text Introduction by Joseph Harris explains to the reader the concept of “rewriting” (Harris 2). Harris discusses this idea, and says there are three steps to rewriting: “… drawing from, commenting on, adding to…” (2) the work of others. Harris goes on to say that many pieces of writing contain sources of previous texts, and this is credited to rewriting. Drawing from a piece helps the writer provide the reader with background information, which is vital in regard to the reader knowing what they are reading about. Commenting on the piece is when the writer provides his/her insight on what is being written about, and mostly about things above the surface of the piece and not heavy in-depth analysis. Adding to the piece is where the writer shows off an ability to critically read. This step is when whoever is analyzing the piece of writing creates their own ideas from what they read. Adding to a piece means underlying meanings are determined and analyzed by the writer, and is probably the most crucial step in rewriting. Rewriting also has aspects referred to as moves and practices, such as which are also crucial in effectively rewriting.

The term “rewriting” can potentially be interpreted to mean copying someone’s work or something along those lines, but Harris explains why he chose this term: “Like all writers, intellectuals need to say something new and say it well. But unlike many other writers, what intellectuals have to say is bound up inextricably with the books we are reading and the movies we are watching, the music we are listening to, and the ideas of people we are talking with. Our creativity thus has its roots in the work of others – in response, reuse, and rewriting,” (Harris 2). So, while rewriting is rather centralized around using other works to creates one’s own, it is really a method of writing creative, unique pieces. 

When explaining his method of rewriting, Harris refers to Sylvia Scribner’s idea of “social practice: the use of certain tools in a well-defined context to achieve a certain end or make a particular product,” (Harris 2-3). He determines rewriting to be a certain practice, and relates it to other common practices in life, such as ways of farming and gardening, interviewing and counseling, etc.: “A practice describes how the members of a particular craft or trade get their work done,” (3). Rewriting is a practice dedicated to readers and writers, and all those looking to critically read and write about a piece. While not commonly referred to by the exact term “rewriting,” many writers do stick to this practice on a consistent basis, as it is a very efficient way of critically reading and writing, and will get the job done when one is looking to analyze a piece of writing. That is what he believes is really the only purpose of many different techniques involved with critical reading: does this do what I am trying to get done? Harris reflects on how he is disappointed with some certain writers and pieces of writing, and how they neglect to recognize their methods as practices, and instead “… tend to alternate between offering advice that is specific but trivial…and exhortations that are as earnest as they are vague,” (3). At first, I struggled to understand this difference that Harris was trying to illustrate. What the previous quote is trying to say is that many times pieces of writing may have instructions to perform a certain task, but fail to truly see this as a practice, or something that should be done consistently. Harris tells the reader that looking at academic writing as a whole to be a social practice and set of strategies, one will be able to use the practice consistently and see his/her work in regard to critical reading improve significantly. 

In order to correctly perform rewriting, one must be aware of certain “moves” Harris says, and he alludes to a piece of writing called How to Do Things with Words by J.L. Austin. Harris says that words are useless if they are not being used for a specific purpose: “… philosophers have long been overconcerned with decoding the precise meaning or truth value of various statements – a fixation that has blinded them from considering the routine yet complex ways in which people use words to get things done…” (Harris 3). He recognizes that Austin refers to this as words having “performatives.” What all of this means is that, when analyzing a text, a reader should first determine what the author is trying to do with the words he/she is writing, and not immediately jump into the meaning of the words, which relates back to Harris’s Coming to Terms where determining the author’s purpose or project is the first step to reading critically.  How is this in any way related to rewriting? The first step of rewriting is to draw information from the piece, and that is where Austin’s ideas fit in. When drawing from the piece, the reader must be able to determine the author’s purpose of the piece in order to complete the rest of the steps. 

Harris writes about how he structures his books to fit his preferred form of rewriting perfectly. Introduction is the introduction chapter for Harris’s book, in which each chapter is named after a certain rewriting move: coming to terms, forwarding, countering, taking an approach, and revising. While these are the titles of the chapters, Harris is sure to let the reader know that this is not quite a required, set order of rewriting moves, and how working on any piece of writing can bring upon its own set of rewriting moves: “… I am sure that as you work on different pieces, you will find yourself using these moves in varying ways and for shifting reasons – sometimes making several moves almost at once and other times focusing on a particular use of a text, sometimes making sustained use of a certain move and other times not employing it at all,” (Harris 4-5). While Harris’s chapters are not chosen to show the reader a specific order that must be used, he does mention that they are strategically ordered, so that it is made clear that intellectual work will often begin and end in the reader recognizing how other perspectives can also be useful. Harris refers to this idea of recognizing the strength of how other people look at the same piece of writing as “generous,” and says this should probably be done before getting too in depth with analysis: “And so I begin with what might be called generous aspects of working with texts before turning to more critical forms of rewriting,” (5).

One of the big reasons Harris developed the idea of rewriting is this: most academic writing is done in response to someone else’s writing, or the writing someone else did in response to that original piece of writing: “In the academy you will often be asked to situate your thoughts about a text or an issue in relation to what others have written about it,” (Harris 1). Most, if not all, pieces can be rewritten using the rules Harris’s rules he explained early in the text: draw from, comment on, add to. The idea of rewriting is more or less a whole, broken down into different steps and moves that eventually do a job in critically reading a piece of writing and delivering an effective analysis. 
