Thinking Rhetorically 6i624h

Thinking Rhetorically “The whole world is an argument”

Simply defined, rhetoric = strategies we use to influence the opinions or beliefs of other. Or another way to think of rhetoric is any organized, strategic attempt to accomplish something with language. -

It can be persuasive It can be informative It can be just for fun

(I want to convince you to attend KSU) (I provide you with reports and profiles about life at Kent) (I create a photography portfolio about my Kent experiences)

We can divide most writing into one of two areas: informative (academic) and recreational (personal) In previous classes, you learned about mostly organizational topics: -

Paragraphs Topic Sentences Introductions

- The 5-Paragraph Essay Format - Thesis Statements - Conclusions

This semester, you will learn how to think rhetorically. You will learn to be a more effective writer. Traditionally, taking a rhetorical approach to writing places emphasis on these key areas: -

Genre: What type of writing is this? Where will it appear? How does this affect my audience’s expectations, the amount of time they will give to me, and what they want to hear? Audience: Who will read this? What are they expecting from me? What do they already know or think about my subject? How can I get them to listen to me and believe what I am saying is true? Ethos (voice): Who am I? How do I want to be perceived by my audience? How do I control this? Structure (organization): Where do I place important information? How can I organize my work for the greatest effect, or ease of use? Should I include photos, graphs, charts or other information? Setting: Usually, this is easy (KSU). But what if I put my work online? What if I submit my work to be published? How do current or past events effect what I do or don’t write?

Course Organization -

First, we must examine rhetoric in context. We will look at real-world examples (mostly from ads). We will experiment by creating our own rhetorical products (arguments, posters, websites, etc.) and learn to explain the rhetorical functions of our work (why we included certain things, etc.) We will practice doing our own quantitative research that may give us additional insights. We will analyze a literary work (“Meet the Natives”) and hopefully use rhetoric to help explain it.

So what do you mean by, “The whole world is an argument”?

OK, I don’t mean everything is an argument. But, I think that much more of the world is an argument than we usually consider. First, let’s define argument as any time when people are working to achieve different goals. For example, if I think that students should go to class for 8 hours a day, but you disagree… we have created an argument. We can shape this argument as we wish. For example, in an attempt to avoid going to class for 8 hours, a group of students might create a proposal that includes only 5 hours of class, but also 2 hours of homework every night. Another group of students, in order to convince me that 8 hours of school is not a good thing, writes a report that includes results from scientific studies about student efficiency. It turn out that as students get tired, they don’t learn very well, so my idea may result in 20 sleeping students. Finally, in order to gain for their cause, a third group of students create a Facebook group called “Students Against 8 Hours of School!” In the “information” section of the page, they write three paragraphs of reasons why students should not be in class all day. We might call this a statement of that group’s position, or a position paper.

Now, consider these different types of arguments. They are all tied together by their topic. But they each use a different genre to accomplish their goals. Each genre is slightly different. A proposal is not the same as a position paper (it includes a solution to the problem). And the types of evidence that are appropriate for a Facebook group page would probably be laughed at if they were included in an academic report. So what genre you use will affect the content you end up creating.

Consider the audience, ethos, organization, and types of evidence that are appropriate for the two genres listed above (position paper or report). In different settings (Facebook vs. an academic setting), how do the various concerns of the writer change?

Audience Facebook Page position statement Academic Report providing facts

Ethos (voice)

Organization

Acceptable Evidence

What is a Genre?

Simply defined, a genre = a type of something (writing, music, etc.). Sometimes, things can have qualities from many genres, like music that mixes rap and rock, or a Daily Kent Stater article that is designed to inform you about pollution problems around Kent as well as persuade you to take action. Certain genres require things. For example, college papers must have sources cited. Position papers require that you take a side in an argument and defend your position with reasons and evidence. Papers for Professor Niles must be in MLA format. In the rhetorical approach to writing, we write to achieve goals. Some of those goals are tied directly to the type of writing you are doing. For example, a main goal of a newspaper is to inform the readers. Another important goal may be to appear trustworthy. Sometimes, newspapers can also have secret political or business goals. When we read, we can figure out some of the goals of the author by knowing what genre he or she is writing. When we write, we can get a clearer idea of what’s expected from us if we know about the genre already. The word genre can describe the differences between two types of writing that are very different—for example, academic writing vs. recreational writing—or very similar. For example, very good students learn that each teacher requires slightly different things. Last semester, a business student wrote a report about Walmart, and included a page evaluating the efficiency of their business model. Normally, a report does not require the opinion of the author, but the business student knew that the professor wanted her to apply the concepts from class.

So genres can be thought of as a hierarchy, or as mixture of elements:

Academic Genres

Report

Report for Dr. Jones

Report

DKS article about pollution (and what you should do to stop it)

Position Paper

Report for Dr. Smith

Opinion article for Daily Kent Stater

Position Paper