Writer.Thinker.Maker

Ch 1: Understanding Rhetoric and Rhetorical Situations

• Its goal is to influence human choices on specific matters that require immediate attention. (14)

• rhetoric is a capacity for recognizing the power and effects of language in the world and for coordinating strategic action with words symbols and images(15)

• rhetorical situation is the context in which you are composing, which includes all variables from the situation, that informs the writing choices you make (15)

• rhetorical awareness is being able to identify different variables in your life/world such as your own purpose experiences, political and economic status of the world and the timing that you say your message in (15)

  • 1. Developing RA can help figure out your audience and what genre might work, tone, and how you can organize your argument

Rhetorical Triangle

• Audience: to learn more about your audience; When writing ask these; who is my audience? What do I already know? Does my audience know me?

• Message: To refine your message to best suit the equation; Ask these;what should be given in the context what reasoning should I use? What are the values and logic of my message?

• Context:Ask these questions; What context will i be communicating, who is involved in this situation or tied to this issue

• Ethos:to appeal to one's character, credibility, identity or reputation

• Logos: the appeal to reason and various forms of logic

• Pathos: the appeal to emotion

Chapter 10: Crafting persuasive arguments

Types of arguments

-Arguments to convince and Inform: used to convince lead audience members that their claim is factual and reliable based on their info and evidence. Where it is used: News Reports and analysis, academic arguments,(220-221)

- Arguments to persuade: best achieved by apples to emotions, and draws upon all the appeals of rhetoric tp motivate people to act on the information and do something with it such as buying a product (221-222)

-Arguments to make decisions: closely allied towards arguments of convincing and persuade, it's an argument that examines the options on different important matters, both self and personal (picking majors, elections, civil rights(223)

-Arguments to understand and explore Examining choices/opposite positions in open-ended ways. Helps explore and look at options without constraints of prejudices, used to help see other sides of the debates on the same topic ex) economy(224)

Occasions for Argument

-Arguments about the Past: Debates about past events, this can include court cases on any police tickets, investigations, or any other court case where the actual court meeting argues about the past subject. In an academic perspective, it can be used when arguing different subjects of history, philosophy, and ethics(226)

-Arguments about the Future: debates about what should/would happen i the future, for example when creating different pieces of legislation, in school boards, or even in different committed, in this case they are usually used to address making different laws or policies (227)

- Arguments about the present: explores and debates current values of a society, positive and negative, Usually made in public and formal events such as inaugural address sermons, eulogies, and grad speeches. Usually listened to when looking for wisdom(227)

-Appealing to audiences: Intended audiences-the ppl the writer expects to address   Invoked readers are leaders that are imagined ad fashion by writers within their texts (229)

      -Depending on the argument and the writing on hand it can influence the way the reader responds, for example it can bring people who would argue against, or even groups who the author didn't expect to reach(229)

-Ethos pathos logos in an argument

-Emotional appeals; Pathos; Emotions used in a claim to persuade a reader into accepting the authors claim

-Ethical Appeals: Ethos; When writers or speakers come across as trustworthy which helps audiences listen and accept the arguments. Helps emphasize that you can share values and respect with your audience. (230-231)

-Logical appeals: Logos; appeals to logic, says the facts straight with evidence and reason

- Academic Arguments; Writing usually done in an educational environment that's based on research evidence, written for a professional/academic/school audience, fairly formal essay, follows a layed out format, and documents 

     - have to bell well thought through and detailed with relevant evidence and reasoning

-Dev and Academic argument

-Choose a topic; look for topics that interest you but are specific enough to look for accurate articles in the time period given

-Know the convos around your topic;familiarize yourself with the topic, test pieces of evidence and decide if you want to use it or not

-Take care with documentation; keep track of what quotes you want to cite and where they came from, develop a bibliography(author, city of publication, publisher, the date of publication) or keep a digital record with the link, online source, title of article, author, page numbers.

-Organization; as soon as you have some research materials start drafting to get a rough layout of your essay, keep all your evidence organized, look into your draft and ask questions like “Does this article open w an abstract, summarizing its context? Or how does the article report its results and findings?”

-Consider genre design and visuals; is there any visuals such as charts, or graphs that can be added to your argument that makes a strong contribution to your message

-Reflect and get responses; go back to your draft and look through and do a “reverse outline” of the essay and find peers to read your essay and ask them questions about your draft.

-Edit and proofread your text; proofread at least 3 times 1) make sure all main points are sporting evidence that makes sense and fits. 2) check spelling and punctuation, quotes, citing, grammar 3) check that every source mentioned in the academic argument appears in the work cited or references list and all citations are correct

Chapter 14: Structuring and organizing arguments

Rogerian and invitational arguments

• • Rogerian Argumentations: a willingness to think about opposing positions and describe them fairly; acknowledge other counterclaims to your argument, emphasize on how all parties can benefit from working together instead of budding heads work together to see both sides

  • Argument super important when successfully collaborating to get things done(321)

  • Invitational Arguments; a direct argument based on one side that goes right from into to conclusion, giving space for lots of perspectives and presenting that thesis clearly and thoroughly.

  • Use F Douglas as an example, he used a broader address that included listeners to listen to a different POV

  • Toulmin Argument; acknowledges the different complications of life, helps shape an argument for the real world

• Toulmin Structure(323-324)

•  1) claim; the argument you wish to prove\

• 2) Qualifiers; any limits you place on your claim

• 3) Reason(s)/evidence; support your claim

• 4) Warrants underlying assumptions that support your claim

• 5) Backing; evidence for a warrant

• Warrant: The connection between the claim, the reason and the data supporting said claim is a warrant(327)

• Backing; evidence you offer to support a warrant, claim and warrant can help determine how much backing you will need in an essay (331)

• Qualifiers: when you acknowledge limitations to your argument. ex) few, it is possible, typically, one might argue, possibly, etc. (332)

• Rebuttals; are potential objections to an argument, it's essential to know how to respond to all of these conditions can help show you where your claims are weak and understand reasonable objections others might have. (333)

• Reflection; I think the most important thing when creating an argument is 2 things, your claim and your structure. Your claim is so important because that is what is going to get your audience excited or even uninterested to read/listen to your argument, you need to have a strong claim in order to hook your audience in. I also think structure is so important because depending on what kind of argument you are making (formal/informal) that can influence how your argument flows, if you are writing an argument to a large company you need to have a strong essay with good organization to win this big group over.

Chapter 7 Analyzing and composing multi dial arguments

Visual Rhetoric

• Can influence the media and how they. Play in our life

• Can be used to trigger different emotions, attract your eye and attention

• Can use media like photos and videos to make arguments of your own for example visually showing whats wrong with an issue

• Visuals have to work in favor of your argument

• The edits you use when picking your medias visuals can help make an identity and personality of your writing

• The design you pick send signals to the readers (typography, colors, placement etc)

• How to use design in your writing: use headings to make a guide, use typography, place images/illustrations strategically.

• Visual rhetoric examples; pie chart, diagrams/drawings, maps, timelines

•  Multimedia Arguments

• Online news source, blog posts, editorial cartoons, ads, maps, infographics,stickers

• Old media; physical info like books newspapers journals,

• Pros of digital medias: updated instant context easy to find annotation info cons negative comments

• New media; can be anything shared/introduced onto an electronic platform; Pros: good way to show opinions, very diverse

• New Audiences; different social platforms can influence different groups of people, and activity in said platforms can be very powerful and influential

• Key components; pay attention to.creators  and distributors, the medium, the viewers/readers, the content and purpose, and its design

• Strategies

  •  Know your audience- to make an effective design your media has to appeal to the audience your appealing too 

  • Showcase what you want to explain using distinct features

  • Use collaboration pages/ shared database when in group projects

  • Create an interactive page such as blogs to engage in arguments

  • Use social media to see how arguments are supported and connected, but keep in mind biases

Reflection: I make multimedia arguments everyday simply by using social media, every time I use some sort of social media platform there is always at least one article or topic online that intrigues me, whether it's something based on my social views or completely opposite. I think social media has impacted my generation a lot politically, because we have access to all these stories and posts about different events. It causes us as a generation to be exposed to these social issues much earlier than what my parents might have experienced. Because of this it is causing my generation to create more social/political/economic opinions.

Ch 9  Practicing intertextuality: Joining the conversation

Reflection: If your own words, what would be the major differences between the 4 and when would you use each?

• Intertextuality: the conversation created when you position your ideas in purposeful relations with those of others, and when you set text,idea, and perspectives in relation to one another.

• Strategic Summary

  • The Uses: to agree/disagree with various perspectives, support your argument about a related issue, offer background or historical context, provide a broad overview of the core positions important texts/key arguments before getting into more detail later

  • Length depends on your own emphasis on your own text and the genre your writing in

• Guideline for writing a summary

  • Understand your own rhetorical situation: what is your purpose for writing? What’s the Genre? What are the most important details of your writing?

  • Actively Read the text: Identify main ideas, authors pov, key terms/phrases

  • Choose what/what not to include: if your audience isn’t familiar with the source add some context, create a central claim (main i), key terms/phrases if applicable, use examples/piece evidence that are useful to your argument, add citations

• Strategic Paraphrase

  • Paraphrases can be used to capture a specific aspect of a text that doesn't require a quotation, it makes the language clearer and more accessible than the original text.

• Guidelines

  • Understand your audience and genre; clarify language that is too specific or hard to understand, select a passage that would benefit your reader if stated differently

  • Be responsible; experiment with ways of rephrasing make sure it's not too close to the original, reference and cite source text

  • Original text; recognize the text triggered by characteristics.

• Strategic quotation

  • Deciding whether to include quotes or none at all

• Guidelines

  • Write context for your quote (author title publish date ect)

  • Evaluate your evidence right after the quote. Explain what it means

  • Analyze the quote show how it’s relevant to your quote

  • Align the Quote, show how it matches with others conversations

  • Cite the quote using MLA or APA

• Synthesis

  • The use of of brief summaries, evidence(quotes, paraphrase) that are put in writing to create text or arguments

• Guideline

  • Make it to the point but sufficient, in context for each evidence, simplify main ideas, and citation

  • Create connections, patterns & relationships, ask questions, create reasoning and connections to other evidence or medias, create understandings

  • Explain the stakes, Show how your contents connect to your claim, Establish your position and make it Clear to the reader in your writing

  • Use transition words

• Reflection: A summary is your whole writing in a shorter format while still compelling the same main points as your normal writing. Paraphrasing is similar to a summary in terms of shortening the main points, but instead of the whole essay paraphrasing is the shortening of a quote/media from a piece of evidence. A synthesis is a combo of the stated methods but more specific to evidence, in a synthesis you can use all of the evidence as a quote whereas in a summary you might just mention the main point. I would use a summary in my writing when wrapping up an idea in my writing and moving onto a different topic, I would use paraphrasing when trying to bring in evidence that may not be a quote such as describing the specifics of a historical event. I would quote when trying to use specific numbers like a result of a lab. I would use a synthesis when trying to convey specific data in a short to the point way.