Rhetorically speaking, the title of Shitty First Drafts is a very eye catching title that stands out in a book complete with other mundane titles such as The Composing Process of Unskilled College Writers. The title Shitty First Drafts immediately catches the interest of the reader who then is drawn further into the article by the effective hook “Now practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts.” (528, Writing About Writing, Shitty First Drafts). This hook implies to the reader that the subsequent article will cover a topic that they will enjoy and will include, compared to the average article on the subject of writing, offbeat humor, as displayed by the word choice of 'shitty' instead of a more professional, mundane word such as 'awful', 'terrible', or even worse 'bad'. Furthermore, Lamott limits the length of the
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Likewise, Lamott further draws her audience into the depths of her paper by writing it in a way so that it reads more like a narrative than an essay. Lamott accomplishes this by, again, declining to cite other writers or outside sources to support her claims, which provides her article a personal touch, as if she is speaking directly to any given reader. The word choice and sentence structure is a very important aspect of Shitty First Drafts for Lamott as she is competing with not only other writers, but also with multiple other means of entertainment for the attention of a reader. If Lamott is unable to convince people to read her work in the first place, she would no longer have a job or be considered a well acclaimed writer, which obviously would hurt her livelihood. That final point directly connects to an aspect of the motivation Lamott built for writing Shitty First
Likewise, Lamott further draws her audience into the depths of her paper by writing it in a way so that it reads more like a narrative than an essay. Lamott accomplishes this by, again, declining to cite other writers or outside sources to support her claims, which provides her article a personal touch, as if she is speaking directly to any given reader. The word choice and sentence structure is a very important aspect of Shitty First Drafts for Lamott as she is competing with not only other writers, but also with multiple other means of entertainment for the attention of a reader. If Lamott is unable to convince people to read her work in the first place, she would no longer have a job or be considered a well acclaimed writer, which obviously would hurt her livelihood. That final point directly connects to an aspect of the motivation Lamott built for writing Shitty First