Post 4

“Intertextuality means looking for traces, the bits and pieces of Text which writers or speakers borrow and sew together to create new discourse.” (88) After reading Porter’s article Intertextuality and the Discourse Community I quickly saw that the idea behind his writing was that all text is intertextual. He used Thomas Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration of Independence as an example. Porter states that Jefferson used previously written information to build his own writing and by doing so, made him a successful writer.

Porter also says that intertextual writing is the basis of discourse communities. Students however need to be taught to write properly by becoming “socialized writers” and experienced members of their discourse community in order to be successful. That is the reason why Porter thinks writing as an individual, as isolated, and as heroic is harmful. He also believes that it can lead to plagiarism.

I can agree with some of the points Porter is making throughout his article, but I argue that some of his expectations are impractical. Not every piece of writing can be put into a discourse community and sometimes writers may not agree with what they are writing about. As students we do not get to choose most of our assignments, so expecting us to fit-in with that writings specific discourse community is unrealistic. I do however agree that most writing is based off of previous writing. When I am assigned an essay or letter I know what expectations are required and how to go about writing it because of previous assignments. I agree with the intertextuality part of Porter’s article, just not the discourse community part.