Taking an Approach in Writing

Harris’ idea of “taking an approach” seems more complex than the previous ways of rewriting: coming to terms, forwarding, and countering. It is also more difficult to notice in other’s writing because it isn’t as straight forward as the others. Its almost hidden within the style of writing. In his exact words, taking an approach is “working in the mode of another writer.” Three ways of positioning your own work to other writers are acknowledging influences, turning an approach on itself, and reflexivity.
To acknowledge influences in writing, the way of writing and thinking of the influential author is described, rather than describing the author himself. Also, showing how your writing style differs from theirs, though borrowing their style, is important. Turning an approach on itself is “[taking] both your subject and method of analysis from the texts you are working with.” This involves applying the author’s own views to their work. A method of taking an approach that is less about the writing characteristics of the other writer and more about the choices in taking an approach that you make is reflexivity. Reflexive moves in writing acknowledge how your writing has changed based on outside influences.
In my opinion, the New York Times doesn’t really “take an approach” in the sense of acknowledging any outside influence on the style of writing because literally noting an writing style influence in a news article would be rather odd and hard, if not impossible, to pull off. The Artblog has few posts that are written from a personal perspective that would allow for rewriting by “taking an approach.”