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The “rhetorical situations and their constituents”
Rhetorical situation and their constituents
The “rhetorical situations and their constituents”
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To paraphrase the opening of my midterm portfolio, I came into this class believing that it would just be a review of my AP English classes. By week five, I realized that my expectations were wrong. Within just those five weeks, I learned what a rhetorical situation is, what role it plays in a text, how to identify and analyze its components to understand the argument of a text. I slowly began to uncover how the components of rhetorical situation such as genre, genre convention, and audience all interact to reinforce the argument. With a completed RA and RIP under my belt, I am in a great position to reflect on all the skills that I have learned, improved upon, and struggle with during this quarter.
One major skill that I have learned and improved on this quarter is analysis of the rhetorical situation. From the small exercises to the RA, I have gained a better understanding of rhetoric in text. But, a substantial
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improvement came as I worked on my RIP project. Some strategies I used to aid me include: making notes as I go through readings, using the rhetoric-text-audience -context as a guide to get me thinking about the text’s rhetoric, and thinking about genre conventions. Two skill that I still have to improve on are word economy and time management. Throughout the quarter, these two problems were my biggest hindrance for . Throughout the quarter, word economy was the silent killer of my work. If I had not come across Exercise #7, I may have kept repeating the mistake of giving too much superfluous information. During the latter half of the quarter, the problem of time became more apparent. Since my new drafting process was very time intensive, it limited the amount of time I could spend revising my drafts. Taking the experiences learned here, I hope to apply them next quarter in Writing 39C. One of the most useful strategy I have been reintroduced to is active reading. As I explained in my midterm portfolio, I used to think that active reading was only meant to distract me from my work. However, after reading Colorless Tsukuru by Haruki Murakami while actively taking notes, I began to soften my stance on this practice. Those notes were one of the main resources in giving evidence for my analysis. In terms of my RIP, I used active readings of my reference texts and sample essay to quickly gauge how those texts used rhetorical devices, and learn how to incorporate it into my RIP project. I also use active reading when reading my creative component. In doing this, I picked up on points where my message felt too explicit and where the paragraphs drifted away from my argument. What I have found most surprising about active reading is how easy it is now that I have had practice doing it. I am sure to use this skill when I move on to 39C. The exercise that I kept coming back to throughout the quarter was #7 on Word Economy. As I explained in a previous paragraph, word economy for me was something that would silently crop up. Prior to the exercise, my RA drafts suffered from wordy sentences and fluffy paragraphs. At that time, I still had the mindset of overdoing the details. After practicing through the exercise, I began to pick up how sentence fluff and repetition hindered getting my message across concisely. Even after working on word economy exercise, I have still kept the sheet and referenced it for my midterm portfolio, RIP (both creative and the companion essay), and even this final portfolio. Through this exercise, I have been able to focus more on providing deeper analysis without the need to overly explain the analysis. My drafting and revision process through this quarter has shifted from slowly building up draft revisions to restarting each new draft and then revising.
This new way of draft, despite being time-consuming, has allow me to work through ideas first, then think about what words to use. This goes hand-in-hand with word economy, since understanding ideas first helps decide how best to present the idea. By targeting ideas, my overall analysis of rhetoric has become stronger. However, a major issue with this process is not giving enough time to revise a draft. In retrospective, I think this is the area I improve if I had more time, especially comes after the way I drafted my RIP. The main reason I would need to improve on this is because I only revised my draft a couple of times, which means there are most likely lots of errors that could be corrected. Taking my experiences with the RIP drafts, I will do my best to create a balance between creating new drafts from frameworks of the old and putting in the time and effort to revise my
paper. Through all of the peer reviews, I was able to develop a better eye for critiquing mistakes in others works and my own work. Initially, it took me around an hour to complete just one peer review. In class, I struggle to write down all my comments and suggestion. Now, it takes a total of an hour and twenty minutes to complete both peer reviews, and I can get all four suggestions down with in ten minutes during workshop. As I gotten more and more practice, I have picked up on a few patterns that plague many papers. Some traps that many papers fall into include repeating concepts in different paragraphs, being vague/lacking details, and terrible word economy. In this way, peer reviewing has helped me approach my own paper with objectivity. By looking for the same traps others fell into, I have been able to catch areas where I have made similar mistakes. I have also used criticisms in peer review to help point out when I have fallen into those traps. Though I still struggle with reviewing my work without any bias, practicing with peer reviews has helped me improve on that skill. One negative feature of my writing I found over the course of this class is my tendency to repeat topics throughout paragraphs. During the beginning of the year, my first RA draft had paragraphs two and four with the same topic, just with different wording and examples. However, working through exercises #6 (line-item veto/ax-murderer) and #7, I was able to remove the repeated paragraph and write a new paragraph describing Tsukuru’s journey. One positive attribute I have gain with this class is a greater understanding of the nuances of rhetoric. While working on my RA, I got practice with how an author uses rhetoric to argue their message. In that project, I came to understand how rhetoric interacts with the argument. My RIP project allowed me to see how rhetoric is used to shape a work. By building my own rhetorical situation, I was able to improve my grasp of the components of rhetoric. If I was giving myself a grade objectively, I would say that I would give myself a solid B. In more specificity, I would give my rhetorical ability something between B+ to an A-. Though I have a good sense of the rhetorical devices within a work, I still need to push myself when it comes to developing my analysis. For my literary and textual ability, I would give myself a B- at the best. I have only gotten practice with Murakami’s text, which may explain why I am still lacking in this field. Given this, I will continue practicing this analysis until it meets up with my rhetorical ability. Though I started out the quarter overconfident in my abilities, these ten weeks have shown me my writing capability. Through doing weekly exercises, discussion posts, or Twitter post, I can see a progression from someone lost and clueless about the rhetorical situation to some who has a conceptual grasp on it. The RA and RIP projects have tested my ability to not only explain the rhetorical situation, but also to analyze the deeper meaning behind it. Through all the triumphs and struggles, I have gained a renewed confidence in writing ability.
Soon after launch on January 28th, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart and shattered the nation. The tragedy was on the hearts and minds of the nation and President Ronald Reagan. President Reagan addressed the county, commemorating the men and woman whose lives were lost and offering hope to Americans and future exploration. Reagan begins his speech by getting on the same level as the audience by showing empathy and attempting to remind us that this was the job of the crew. He proceeds with using his credibility to promise future space travel. Ultimately, his attempt to appeal to the audience’s emotions made his argument much stronger. Reagan effectively addresses the public about the tragedy while comforting, acknowledging, honoring and motivating his audience all in an effort to move the mood from grief to hope for future exploration.
In 102 Minutes, Chapter 7, authors Dwyer and Flynn use ethos, logos, and pathos to appeal to the readers’ consciences, minds and hearts regarding what happened to the people inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. Of particular interest are the following uses of the three appeals.
Palmer, William. "Rhetorical Analysis." Discovering Arguments: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, Writing, and Style. Boston: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2012. 268-69. Print.
Throughout the course of this novel, Ishmael Beah keeps the readers on the edge of their seat by incorporating interchanging tones. At the beginning of the novel, the tone can be depicted as naïve, for Beah was unaware to what was actually occurring with the rebels. Eventually, the tone shifts to being very cynical and dark when he depicts the fighting he has endured both physically and mentally. However, the most game changing tone is towards the end of the novel in chapters nineteen and twenty. His tone can be understood as independent or prevailing. It can be portrayed as independent because Beah learns how to survive on his own and to take care of himself. At the same time, it is perceived as prevailing and uplifting because Beah was able to demonstrate that there is hope. Later in the novel, Beah travels to
“He say Mr. Parris must be kill! Mr. Parris no goodly man, Mr. Parris mean man and no gentle man and he bid me rise out of bed and cut your throat!” (Miller 47).
20 were executed” (Blumberg). The Crucible setting is based on The Salem Witch trials, but the plot is based on The Red Scare. The author employs strict tone and rhetorical questions to convey power. This connects to the purpose of how a occurring can devastate a whole community and the people in it. Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible, employs empowerment by expressing the challenges within each character and their influence on the trial through the characters John Proctor, Abigail, and Danforth.
The Stases and Other Rhetorical Concepts from Introduction to Academic Writing. N.p.: n.p., n.d. PDF.
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a pamphlet called “A Modest Proposal”. It is a satirical piece that described a radical and humorous proposal to a very serious problem. The problem Swift was attacking was the poverty and state of destitution that Ireland was in at the time. Swift wanted to bring attention to the seriousness of the problem and does so by satirically proposing to eat the babies of poor families in order to rid Ireland of poverty. Clearly, this proposal is not to be taken seriously, but merely to prompt others to work to better the state of the nation. Swift hoped to reach not only the people of Ireland who he was calling to action, but the British, who were oppressing the poor. He writes with contempt for those who are oppressing the Irish and also dissatisfaction with the people in Ireland themselves to be oppressed.
The impact and effectiveness of using proper rhetoric was a strategy of “good” writing that I was not aware of until my senior year of high school. While taking AP Language and Composition my junior year, my fellow students and I believed that we had survived countless essay workshop activities and writing assignments with emphasis on word choices, grammatical structure, syntax, punctuation and spelling. By the time we had entered AP Literature our senior year, we felt we could achieve success; we already knew how to write in the correct format and structur...
“This Course prepares students for reading, research, and writing in college classes by teaching students to consider the rhetorical situation of any piece of writing while integrating reading, research, and writing in the academic genres of analysis and argument. This course is said to teach students to develop analyses and arguments using research-based content with effective organization, and appropriate expression and mechanics”. (1)
Student's Book of College English: Rhetoric, Reader, Research Guide and Handbook. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2012. 402-405.
Looking back at my rhetorical analysis in writing 150, to sum it up, it was horrendous. It became exceedingly obvious that I had skipped the prewriting step. Forgoing this step caused choppy sentences, multiple grammatical errors, and horrendous flow. The rough draft ended up looking like a collection of jumbled up words. The first attempted felt so bad, I started over entirely. After the review in class, I used the examples to focus my ideas and build off what other people had done. For example, the review helped me to clarify my knowledge and use of Kairos. Once done, it was peer reviewed by my group again. All the other group members commented that I had good ideas, but bad flow and grammatical errors. After revising their respective points and
Rhetoric is the art of effective speaking or writing, and persuasion. Most people use rhetoric numerous of times in their everyday life without their concern or knowing.
Imagine, you’re sitting on your couch tired from a long, stressful day at work. You look up only to find your dog or cat staring at you with their huge, glimmering eyes and you instantly feel better. Many people have experienced this feeling at least once in their lifetime. Having a pet in the home has many beneficial components, some you may not have even known about. Pet ownership comes with a lot of responsibility, but many have found it to be rewarding. The brochure, used to inform people of the benefits of pet ownership, has a good range of color, display, credibility, logic and appeal to emotion.
Rhetorical situation means writing accords to a particular reason, for example, a response for a event, or an appealing of an opinion. In my past eighteen years’ education , the most frequented “rhetorical situation ” is writing for exam. At that time, teacher is the reader and my goal is to show my ability of using language and got a good score. The language exam in our country like Chinese exam always make a essay as the last part of text which take half part of grade. Our education believes that asking students to write a passage is a effected way to determine our ability of using language. On the essay, we can show our level of untilizing vocabulary, grammar, and organization.