Didion

Alexandra Contreras
Professor Epstein-Corbin
English 101
2 September 2014 Joan Didion “On Keeping a Notebook” In “On Keeping a Notebook,” Didion writes about the importance in keeping a notebook to record events and personal feelings. She makes it vital to write in the moment that these events, thoughts, and feelings occur. Although, the point isn’t to be accurate or persuasive but rather personal to reflect and reveal what she discovers about herself in the process while still applying rhetorical devices of ethos, pathos, and logos in her essay. Her notebook includes personal experiences written erratically, versus to writing in a diary daily. Some of the entries jotted down have little to no significance to her life and this format enforces the effects to writing in a notebook the same way any average person would. Some of these stories are questionable to her and are used to make a point of how writing in a notebook isn’t about finding a meaning but keeping in touch with yourself in the end. Didion’s writing structure is informal to the way it’s written with random stories and using casual language that is easy to understand as if she were speaking to the reader. This makes for the persuasive method of ethos that enables the reader to trust her writings to make a point in using the notebook usefully and efficiently. She asks the reader questions throughout the essay that makes the reader think about how a notebook comes in handy. “Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores.”(76). As she continues to keep the reader questioning, she successfully resumes authority over the reader when she adds in another personal entry. Didion does not make against any argument, but comes to avoid it as she successfully attempts to inform the reader that “…sometimes even the maker has difficulty with the meaning,”(79) while bringing in playful sarcasm to her explanations, “…yet there it is in my notebook, labeled “FACT.” (79) causing the reader to respect her point of view. Overall, what she tries to get across to the reader isn’t to record, analyze, or conclude but to keep bits of mindful thoughts.