Text Reflections: Non-Fiction

Chapter 12: Non-Fiction

                Non-fiction is a hard thing to describe. It seems to be anything that is about factual events; anything that is not fake.  It can be confused with historical fiction and realistic fiction but those are just fake events in a real world. Non-fiction is characterized by real events in a real world.

                When reading or recommending non-fiction there are a few things we have to be sure of: who wrote it and if they are qualified, and what kind of bais the text/author might have. A Holocaust survivor might write a book about his life during Hitler’s regime, but there would be bias as he was very negatively affected by this time. In the same way, an ancestor of a Nazi soldier might have a skewed viewpoint when writing a great grandfather’s biography.

                Writing style is still just as, if not more, important in non-fiction as it is in fiction. If the text is not interestingly composed, then not many readers will persevere through it to find the value. Illustrations and text features play a great role in the value of non-fiction, especially in younger audiences. 

image borrowed from:  http://blog.questia.com/2015/02/fact-vs-fiction-research-paper-topics-on-nonfiction-authors/