READING AND ANALYSING NONFICTION

Nonfiction is an area of literature that includes biographies, autobiographies, diaries and essays.

A biography is the story of another person's life. The writer bases the report on records of what the person did and said. An autobiography is the story of a person's own life. A diary is the day-by-day record a person keeps of his or her own activities and thoughts. It is meant for the writer alone. A diary is written in fragments: it tells of events after they have happened. An autobiography, in contrast, is a connected story of an entire life.

Nonfiction also includes works which simply explore an idea in much the same way people do in conversation. This type of nonfiction is called an essay. An essay is a short composition that discusses a topic. Essays can be a few sentences long. They can be many pages long. They can be serious, meant to teach or inform. They can be humorous, meant to amuse and entertain. They can be based on fact or imagination. Just as conversation can go in different directions, essay can be written about almost any topic. Like conversations, essays can include narration, description and persuasion when discussing a subject or presenting an. idea.

Since essays include many kinds of writing, it is helpful to break them into smaller groups. The most useful way to classify- essays is to separate them into formal essays and informal essays.

Informal essays reflect a writer's feelings and personality. Informal essays that discuss the writer's personal experiences are like other autobiographical writing. Their organization may seem like that of a friendly conversation.

Formal essays examine a topic in a thorough, logical manner. A serious, formal essay intended to inform or persuade is called an article. It is written from a background of compiling and organizing facts. They are not drawn from personal experiences. The author of the article gathers facts by reading, observation and talking with experts. The author of the article may be an expert on the subject himself or herself.

In fiction, such as myths and short stories, the subject matter is imaginary. In nonfiction, the subject matter is factual. The writer of nonfiction writes about actual people, places, and things.

There are two basic approaches to the subject matter. The writer can try to report facts with as few personal opinions as possible. Or, the writer can present his or her personal opinions about some facts. Often, nonfiction writing falls somewhere between these two approaches.

Like fiction, nonfiction has characters, plot, and setting. However, these elements are real, not made up. The main character in an autobiography or biography is called the subject. The subject's words, thoughts, and actions are presented.

Formal essays do not have characters, setting, or plot. Informalessays often do. Another element often found in informal essays, but not in formal ones, is humor. In both types of essays, structure and style are important.

Different types of nonfiction have different purposes. Biographies and autobiographies, for example, have the purpose of informing the reader. They use explanatory, descriptive, and narrative paragraphs. Other types of nonfiction, such as newspaper editorials, are intended to win readers over to a certain opinion. They use persuasive paragraphs. Sometimes a piece of writing combines purposes.

Distinguishing Between Fact and Opinion. One purpose of nonfiction is to inform. Therefore, it often contains many facts. A fact is a statement that can be proved. From reading nonfiction selections, you can learn many facts. However, a nonfiction selection is tricky to read. One reason is that some of its statements may be facts, but not all of them.

Identifying Opinions. Most nonfiction presents both facts and opinions. An opinion is a statement that cannot be proved true. Note the difference between these two sentences: My cousin wrote me a letter. My cousin wrote me a boring letter. The first sentence is a fact. The second sentence, however, is an opinion.

Judging Opinions. Every writer must have opinions. Opinions help the writer put the facts together in some meaningful way. Without opinions, a piece of writing would have no organization. The reader's job is to identify the opinions and decide which are worth accepting.

One guideline for making that choice is seeing how closely the opinion matches the facts. Does the writer support each opinion with facts? Can you think of other facts that do not support the opinion?

Another guideline is considering the qualifications of the writer. That is, you decide whether the writer is likely to know what he or she is talking about. You might trust a scientist writing about science.

A third guideline is considering the writer's purpose. You know, for example, that the purpose of an ad is to sell something. This should make you cautious about accepting any statement in an ad.

Slanted writingis one-sided and biased. The writer has a definite opinion. However, he or she pretends to be impartial and fair to both sides. A reader who is not careful might think that the selection is telling the truth.

In slanted writing, the writer gives only the facts that agree with his or her opinion. Other important facts are ignored. Also, the writer uses words with strong connotations. The favored opinion is discussed with positive words. The opposite view gets negative words.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 951