Analysis Of On Keeping A Notebook By Joan Didion

ON KEEPING A NOTEBOOK RHETORICAL ANALYSIS The point of keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. Author, Joan Didion, in her essay, â€Å"On Keeping a Notebook† explains how to keep a notebook and why. Didion’s purpose is to inform us on how she keeps a notebook and why notebooks are useful in helping us to remember events that happened in the past. She adopts a sentimental tone in order to emphasize how many memories are kept alive by keeping a notebook. Didion uses ethos, pathos, and different rhetorical devices in her essay to explain her point. Didion uses ethos appeals. She explains in the first paragraph all of her accomplishments. She is the author of novels, short stories, screen plays, and essays. She began as a staff writer for Vogue Magazine in New York in 1956. Run River was her first novel published in 1963. Her collection of essays includes â€Å"On Keeping a Notebook†, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, published in 1968, The White Album, Salvador, Miami, After Henry, Political Fictions, Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11, and Where I Was From, were all written and published within the next twenty four years (paragraph 1). In the essay â€Å"On Keeping a Notebook†, Didion uses pathos appeals to reveal emotions. In the second paragraph Didion states â€Å"I write entirely to find out what’s on my mind, what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I’m seeing, and what it means, what I want and what I’m afraidShow MoreRelatedEssay on On Keepin a Notebook783 Words   |  4 PagesAnalysis on On Keeping a Notebook Joan Didions tone in her essay On Keeping a Notebook, is explanatory and a little sarcastic. She wasnt so much explaining how to keep a notebook as she was explaining why she kept hers the way she did; which made the reader interested in reading it. Didions sarcasm comes from her explanation. Joan Didions diction in her essay was informal and abstract. Since the note is in my notebook, it presumably has some meaning to me, (pg. 79) In fact I haveRead MoreThe Effects Of Imperialism In George Orwells Shooting An Elephant1633 Words   |  7 Pageslast their families a lifetime, or perhaps even longer.    Process Analysis: Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook   Ã‚  Ã‚   In the selection On Keeping a Notebook, Joan Didion uses her experiences in day to day life as a writer in order to demonstrate the importance/methods of keeping a daily notebook. Didion appeals to her audience by displaying her expertise in the subject at hand, especially by stating, â€Å"So the point of keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record