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It's been complete craziness, stress, and chaos this week with the Early Music Concert just over the horizon. This week of craziness has been fun but now it's time to get this blog post out. I'm sorry if it's late.

Harris describes writing as a collective effort: no one person's ideas are entirely original. Rather, writers use each other's writing and incorporate them into their own work. Giving this process the name "forwarding," Harris divides the process into four parts or "moves": illustrating, authorizing, borrowing, and extending. Illustrating is where the author supplies examples of other writers to prove his point. Authorizing is similar in that the author uses the expertise of another author. In borrowing, the author uses the ideas or motifs of another writer. Finally, extending is where the author puts an idea or motif in a different light or perspective. At the end of the chapter, Harris notes that the best writers are ones who can combine two or more of these "moves" in their writing.

I found an example of "forwarding" on Powerline. The article was about Israel confiscating weapons from an Iranian ship headed for Syria. In it, there was a block quote from the Jerusalem Post, followed by a six minute YouTube video from the IDF. At the end of the article, there was an official statement from President Obama. The quote from the Jerusalem Post is an example of illustrating and authorizing. Using an Israeli paper illustrates what happened and gives the blog post more authority since an Israeli paper might have more access to firsthand information than an outside source. Having a video further strengthens the article not only because it's another source, but another media as well. The video was footage and documentation of the actual discovery of the weapons. The quote from a White House statement is an example of extending because the blog post uses the statement to prove why America should take a stronger position against Iran even though that is not what the statement actually said. Here is the article if you're interested. It's the second story down.