Post 4

Imagining writing "as individual, as isolated, as heroic" can be harmful according to Porter. Intertextuality is the notion that all texts contain 'traces' of information from other texts. That no text is genius or completely made up in the writer's mind. They must have gotten some of their details from another source. I agree with Porter on this subject. It seems as if whenever I go to write something, even if it's a subject I am knowledgeable about, I need proof from somewhere else. He also brings up the idea of Discourse Communities. "A 'discourse community' is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated" (Porter 91). This was a concept that was hard for me to understand. However, I believe he means that when you are an experienced writer you have opinions and view points that put you into a category or 'community' of others who have the same view points. Within these 'communities' you are supervised on what you can say, what has been said, and who can say it. So then you wonder, how can an individual writer surface from this discourse community? I'm not sure the answer of my own question. Genuine originality is something that can be lost within discourse communities because there are so many restrictions.