In "Learning to Read Biology: One Student's Rhetorical Development in College" by Christina Haas I read a quote that I thought really worked well with the ideas of Bartholomae. One of these ideas is expressed when talking about a case study and her development over her four years in college. Haas writes, "A strong knowledge explanation for Eliza's development would maintain that her increased facility with the terms and concepts of biology (and its subfields of immunology and molecular biology) led to her increased rhetorical sophistication" (Haas, p. 372). Haas is saying that the more Eliza reads about, and becomes familiar with, the writing of biology, the more advanced her reading and writing skills become. Bartholomae writes about something similar in his essay "Inventing the University." He states, "Or they [students] must dare to speak it, ore to carry off the bluff, since speaking and writing will most certainly be required long before the skill is 'learned'" (Bartholomae, p. 511-512). In this quote Bartholomae mentions a few of his ideas, but the one that I connected with the quote from Haas is the idea that you must imitate the skill of writing academically before you learn it completely.

Bartholomae writes about the idea that when you start writing academically you must fake your way through it until you become more familiar and comfortable with the style and are able to write successfully. He delves into this idea further throughout his essay, and it can be summed up into the idea that you must read and write a lot of academic essays in order to become a decent writer in your field. It's the idea of immersing yourself into the subject matter so that you understand and can use the rhetoric consciously. Haas, though speaking about reading academic texts specifically, also says that learning more about the subject of the essays (in her case Biology) will increase your ability to critically read and analyze academic essays. It's the same idea of practice makes perfect and immersing yourself into the subject. The more you read about and take in, the better able you will be able to analyze things in the future.