10/30/08 Rhetorical Activitices 1,4, & 6 (ARCS, p.263)

1) This is an example of how I would attempt to persuade fellow WVU students to participate in my fundraiser for Children's Miracle Network.

Imagine a mother and child that just got into a car accident. The mother was fine, but when she comes to, she looks over in the passenger seat and realizes that her daughter's airbag did not deploy and she is unconscious. She calls an ambulance and the two are rushed to the hospital. One of the nurses asks what insurance policy the mother has, she replies, "I don't have any. My husband left me and my daughter, and my job doesn't provide healthcare." The nurse then explains that the proper proceedures that the doctors need to perform cannot be do without the health insurance. Her daughter may have mild retardation, and minor paralisase on her left side. What is the mother to do? She can't afford the proceedures, and she doesn't have the insurance to rehabilitate her daughter back to normal health.

The audience will want to know what can be done to help the mother. They will now be able to sympathize with the cause.

4) They do indeed. The latest Old Spice "Swagger" commercials insinuate that the product defines the boundaries between geek/dqeeb/dork/nerd from hero/suave/alpha male. This plays on the hopes and fears of many males in society.

Rhetorical Activities 1 & 3 (ARCS, p. 186)

1) In today's DA(10/23/08), there is an article on whether or not Obama will make an appearence in West Virginia. As of now, Obama has no intentions of visiting the state. His campaign manager establishes this through the us of an enthymeme. Because McCain leads the recent polls, and because Biden will be in Charleston on Friday, Obama will has no intentions as of now to visit WVU. Because the article is so short, there is no use of any other proofs.

3)

Plan for analyzing the information from my interview and on-site observation

The first thing that I want to look for and get a sense of the writing process that my subject takes. Evaluating his objectives, plan of attack, and means of rhetoric all are important to understand when look at his writing as a whole. Because my research will focus primarily on the use of rhetoric and general appeal, I will consider what the subject stated in the interview, "I write as if I am verbally presenting the report/proposal/etc." This gives insight to the actual writing process (ex. word choice, sentence structure, subject ordering, paragraph structure, etc.) When looking at his writings, I want to put myself into the reader's/audience's shoes and read his work as if it were addressed to me. What are the focal points? Why should I believe and agree with him? What does he use to back up his argument? Does he establish any rhetorical tools? From there I want to start making inferences (ex. He uses ethos to reinforce X; he establishes kairos here to emphasize Y)

10/2/08 Taking this week's lectures and applying them to my project

Obviously, analyzing genres, level of details, and explanations for details are important to any facet of writing. For me, these analyses will unquestionably be applied to my own research. It is important for me to establish ethos in my reports and papers, because this will show how I have kept my project under control.