One of the biggest problems plaguing my writing throughout my adademic career is not the topics, but about the "So What Factor." I define the "So What Factor," or swf, as the small yet essential element that asnwers, 'why should anyone care about this?' It is the reason why I wrote the paper, made the argument; it is the impetus. The swf makes the writing into a piece rhetoric rather than a listing of why's and whynot's, do's and don'ts, and especially not to show your dexterity with vocabulary. Without swf, what my writing attains is simply an eruditive exercise. Simply put, swf gives my writing a point. Not only does this "keep the audience engaged," but it gives me a point of reference: something I can keep returning to throughout the paper.
The way the Graff and Birkenstein's layout of the swf in the first paragraph of the first chapter calls to mind that this is self-refering piece: the give instructions of how to do it and compliment it by doing it themselves. By pointing out the foibles of not doing using the swf, they succussfully prove the point. The whole construction and use gives further credence and weight to the swf argument.
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Well put. The swf was personified well in that example in TSIS about the sociologist speaking at a conference. While listening to him and the speaker, obviously well-versed in Dr X's work, they were wondering what made him an expert. When he took questions from teh audience, they realized his work was "unsound."
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