Summary: This piece by Janet Boyd is about rhetoric in writing and how to decipher it. Boyd talks about writing as detective work and asks the audience to get in touch with their inner detective. She pushes readers to ask questions while reading in order to gain deeper understanding of the text and understand it on a level deeper than just the surface. Not only should readers be looking for the answers to these basic questions but should be looking for the answer to why the author would want to persuade the audience of a certain thing. She connects everything to murder and all the steps needed to solve the murder to an aspect of writing, reading or analyzing .

Response: I enjoyed how Boyd’s writing was metaphorical in the sense that she connected murder and detective work to what reader’s should be doing in their reading to figure out the author’s thoughts and intentions when writing the piece. I have seen many other authors do the same thing metaphorically, so it is more her writing style that impresses me. It wasn’t an easy piece by any means, it was very deep and well written. I don’t think anything was confusing necessarily, just smart.

Reflection: This text gives readers very good advice on how to read and analyze rhetoric in writing. I haven’t worked with this since high school so it was a nice refresher. Boyd gave me good ideas to incorporate into my reading. In turn, that allows me to be a better writer. I will know what to look for when I am reading a piece of writing. Then when I go to write I will think of the questions as guidelines to know what I need to be putting into my writing. This will ensure that my pieces, essays, etc., will be deep and complex. I want to make sure I have deeper meaning to my work.