Writing for the Public

-Present your three major documents and possibly blog

-Offer a discussion of revision plan

-Offer a definition of the issue

-Offer a discussion on the cohesion among documents

-Offer a discussion on the distinctions among the documents

-Highlight (on the documents) points in the document you found interesting, moments of cohesion, moments of distinction

A comma goes

·      between items in a series.

·      after introductory material.

·      around words interrupting the flow of thought.

·      between complete thoughts (independent clauses) joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, or, for, nor, but, so yet).

·      before direct quotation.

·      with everyday material (dates, numbers, openings and closings of letters, addresses, direct address)

As a physician I often hear from patients who have read about a new medication and want me to write a prescription. To them I must sound like a stick in the mud. Unless their medication is not working however I’m generally reluctant to change. They assume that newer drugs are better I assume the old ones are fine.

                                                            –“Are Old Drugs Better than New?,” Sanjay Gupta

To those who aren’t with the program California Breath Clinics which treat halitosis will send a gentle email from an anonymous complainer letting the offenders know that their breath needs freshening.

                                                            –“A Breath of Fresh Air,” Lisa McLaughlin

When we last visited The Matrix computers had taken over the planet and imprisoned the human race in a computer-generated “reality.” Keanu Reeves played Neo a hacker turned superhero recruited to save his fellow man and the movie ended with him literally taking flight. [. . .] The movies won’t come out until 2003 but the hype has already begun.

                                                            –“The Matrix Reloads,” Jess Cagle

Lifetime bills itself as Television for Women but some critics have dubbed it as Television for victims. [. . . ] “Women escape by empathizing and feeling they are empathized with” says Black.

                                                            –“What Women Watch,” Michele Orecklin

Writing jokes and creating droll characters takes ambition ingenuity and energy and after decades of devotion to this voracious muse a fellow can get pooped. [. . .] Woody Allen’s obsession is just a job he’s confecting comedy not from inspiration but from habit.

                                                            –“Deconstructing Woody,” Richard Corliss

She won five Grammy’s including album of the year and sold 12 million records but ever since she has been cruising on fame’s darker side. First she was sued by members of her band who demanded Miseducation production credits. Then she disappeared from the spotlight sparking rumors that had her fighting with her former band members in the Fugees becoming an Evangelical Christian or dealing with serious marital problems.

                                                            –“Unplugged and Unglued,” Josh Tyrangiel

Evaluate the “Be Your Own Advocate” Newsletter considering the following criteria:

Group #1: Arrangement

Group #2: Alignment

Group #3: Visuals and Tables

Group #4: Proximity

Group #5: Enclosure

Group #6: Similarity

Group #7: Contrast

Introduction: Your introduction should

• Engage readers in the issue
• Set up the problem
• Designate purpose
• Speak to specific and identifiable audience
• Offer logical, emotional, and/or ethical appeals
• Establish rhetorical distance
• Preview what’s to come in the newsletter

Individual Sections: Each section should

• Connect to overarching purpose
• Handle a new topic, extend a previous conversation in a new way. In other words, avoid repetition
• Add insight to the issue at hand
• Speak directly to audience’s needs and concerns
• Include specific and detailed information
• Offer logical, emotional, and ethical appeals
• Set up the pathways to action: Readers need to see how the issue or problem will be addressed through the pathways to action
• Keep rhetorical distance established in introduction
• Draw from, but not repeat, information in fact sheet, profile, and blog entries

Arrangement: The arrangement of your newsletter should

• Offer necessary information in a logical order: what do readers need to know first, second, third, and fourth
• Establish strong connections from section to section: it should make sense why one section follows the previous one
• Establish larger groupings of sections: for example your first four sections might be on benefits of transportation; or you might create a grouping of sections dedicated to the health services provided through Pitt. These similar sections should be grouped together.

Pathways to Action: The pathways to action you designate should

• Address the problem established throughout the newsletter
• Offer specific and detailed information
• Take the form of one or more sections
• Be found at the end of the document or you may suggest and present pathways to action after each section

Document Design: Your document design should

• Reflect and reinforce the purpose and tenor of your newsletter
• Engage audience’s concerns
• Consider issues such as
  • Visuals
  • Pictures
  • Images
  • Colors
  • Graphs
  • Maps
  • Positive and negative space
  • Proximity
  • Similarity
  • Font
  • Contrast
  • Enclosure

Document Design

Group #1:

Discuss the rhetorical nature of document design. How does design affect and create both emotional and ethical appeals? Find examples in the two newsletters read for class.

Group #2:

What are design objects? How are they used? What is their significance? Find examples in the two newsletters read for class. What is the effect?

Group #3:

What is positive and negative space? What functions do these kinds of space serve? Find examples in the two newsletters read for class. What is the effect?

Group #4:

Define the visual variable of shape. What shapes are used in the newsletter examples? What is the effect?

Group #5:

Define the visual variable of color. How is color used in the newsletter examples? What is the effect?

Group #6:

Define the visual variable of size. How is size used in the newsletter examples? What is the effect?

Group #7:

Define similarity as a principle of design. How do the writers use similarity in the newsletter examples?

Group #8:

Define contrast as a principle of design. How do the writers use contrast in the newsletter examples?

Group #9:

Define proximity as a principle of design. How do the writers use proximity in the newsletter examples?

Group #10:

Define alignment as a principle of design. How do the writers use alignment in the newsletter examples?

Group #11:

Define enclosure as a principle of design. How do the writers use enclosure in the newsletter examples?

Purpose: What is the purpose of the newsletter? How do you know? What cues do you gain from the text?

Audience: Who is the audience for the newsletter? What expectations does the writer have concerning the audience? What values, beliefs, or emotions does the writer call on as she composes the newsletter?

Arrangement: How is the newsletter organized? How does the organizational strategy support the purpose?

Sections: What is the purpose of each section? How each section connect to the overarching purpose of the newsletter?

Ethos: What kind of ethos does the writer establish for herself? Identify evidence in the text to support your claim.

Additional Points of Discussion: Identify five other issues or points of interest you want to discuss.

Draft Workshop #2: Profile

Trade #1: Give your profile to a partner who has not read your profile. Read as an interested audience member, thinking about the following questions. Respond to the questions in the space below

·       What did you learn?

·       What were you confused about?

·       Where might the writer elaborate?

·       Where did the profile go off track?

·       Pinpoint three concerns you have as a reader. 

Trade #2: Give profile to a new partner—one who has not read your profile. Discuss global issues of the profile.

Attention to Audience: Here are strategies the writer might use: calling on commonplaces (places, people, events familiar to the audience), speaking directly to audience’s needs, connecting to audience’s state of mind or values (these are also emotional appeals). How is the writer attending to his/her audience? How might the writer better attend to his/her audience?

Purpose: What’s the goal of the profile? How is the writer achieving that goal? How might s/he fine-tune the purpose of the document? What are you learning about the issue and the person under study?

Emotional Appeals: How might the writer better appeal to the audience’s emotions or values? How might the writer create a dominant impression through enargeia, examples, similes and metaphors, anecdotes, qualifying words (adjectives, adverbs), connotative and denotative language, and references?

Logical Appeals: How does the writer support claims with evidence, facts, statistics, and reasons? How might the writer create more persuasive logical appeals?

Ethical Appeals: What do you think about the writer as you read the profile? How is s/he cultivating a reliable ethos through showing good will to the audience, doing his/her homework, or presenting him/herself as a reliable source? How might the writer compose a more persuasive ethos?

 Trade #3: Trade profiles with a new reader. Consider the more local issues of the profile

 Title: Review the title of the profile. How does the title explain the purpose and subject of the profile? Offer ideas for a better title.

Topic Sentences: How do the topic sentences signal to readers what’s to come in the paragraph below? Highlight the effective topic sentences; pinpoint topic sentences the writer might work on.

Transitions: How does the writer link one paragraph to the next? Highlight the effective transitions; pinpoint transitions the writer might work on.

Arrangement: Now that you’ve focused on the topic sentences and transitions, assess the arrangement of the profile. What organizational/arrangement strategy is the writer using? What suggestions do you have for better arrangement and organization? Which paragraphs or arguments seem out of place?

Quotations: Review the quotations the writer uses in the profile. Are they distinctive and noteworthy? Do they say something interesting about the profile subject? Give suggestions as to which quotations to keep and which to get rid of. Also, how is the writer introducing the quotations? Give suggestions for effective introductions.

Introduction and Conclusion: How does the writer interest the reader in the introduction? Give suggestions that would inspire readers to keep reading. What strategy does the writer use to conclude? Remember the writer might link the reader to his/her blog.

Using Quotations

Introduce All Quotations

Writers always introduce their quotations; they do not let quotations stand alone. If they do not introduce them, readers might be confused as to where the quotation is coming from and where the writer is going with it. Thus, you want to avoid placing complete quotations into your text without signaling to your reader the quote’s origin.

There are a variety of ways to introduce a quotation.

Example #1:

In A Natural History of Love, Diane Ackerman writes, “Love is a demanding sport involving all the muscle groups, including the brain.”

Here, the writer uses an attributive phrase to introduce the writer’s words (Ackerman writes). For your profiles, you might use constructions like “she claims,” “argues,” “points out,” “explains,” “remembers,” “said,” “recalled,” “exclaimed,” etc. Use your thesaurus for variety.

Example #2:

You might also create variety by placing the attributive phrase at the end of the quotation. Or, you may place it in the middle of the quotation.

“The Tempest was my most difficult production,” she recalled.

 “The Tempest,” she recalled, “was my most difficult production.”           

Example #3:

According to Dr. Leon R. Kass, in The Ethics of Human Cloning, the actual process of cloning is simple: “The nucleus of a mature but unfertilized egg is removed…”

 In this example the writer uses an attribute phrase (according to). In addition, he also uses a colon (:) to introduce the quotation. The colon is used to join two independent clauses (clauses that can stand alone). The second clause explains or elaborates the first.

 Clause #1: “According to Dr. Leon R. Kass, in The Ethics of Human Cloning, the actual process of cloning is simple.”

Clause #2: “The nucleus of a mature but unfertilized egg is removed…” (an elaboration on how the cloning process happens).

Example #4:

Engineers are also improving runways, lighting, communications, storage and housing at bases in Uzbekistan and Pakistan where American forces are stationed, signaling a long term commitment, or at least the ability to redeploy forces quickly.  “The job is still not done,” said Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, senior spokesman at the United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla.  “There is great value, for instance, in continuing to build airfields in variety of locations on the perimeter of Afghanistan that over time can do a variety of functions, like combat operations, medical evacuation and delivering humanitarian assistance.”

 The first quotation is attributed to Quigley. Since the second quotation follows so closely to the first, readers should also deduce that these words are Quigley’s as well.

Example #5

He recalls an awakening in his life when everything became “crystal clear,” and he knew exactly “how his life should go.”

Here, the quotations complete the message of the sentence. There is no move to step back and designate who is saying what. There is no attributive phrase. Given the content of the sentence, readers know that these quotations come from the “he” in the sentence. When writers do not use attributive phrases (he said, he claims) to introduce the quote directly, they need to be sure readers will understand the quote’s origin. 

Punctuation

 When writers use attributive phrases such as “said,” “writes,” “comments,” there should be a comma after this attributive phrase. Commas and periods are placed inside quotation marks:

 “Amanda,” she said, “We need to talk.”

 “I don’t know why my CD player does not work,” she said.

If the quotation completes a thought and is not attributing the quote to the speaker directly, then a comma is not needed to introduce the quotation:

She spoke of “the gothic tale.”

She remembered a time of “restlessness” when she could not decide what to do with her life.

He recalls an awakening in his life when everything became “crystal clear,” and he knew exactly “how his life should go.”

Semicolons and colons are placed outside of quotations marks:

She spoke of “the gothic tale”; I immediately thought of the “The Dunwich Horror”: H.P. Lovecraft’s masterpiece is the epitome of “gothic.”

1. Now that you have accomplished the interview, what will be the purpose of your profile? What angle might you take for the profile?

2. Who is your audience for this profile? Why would they be interested in this profile and purpose? What specific aspects of the interview will be important to them?

3. The project for your profile should be to shed light on both the person and the issue. What will your readers learn about the issue through this profile on this person?

4. What did you find interesting or compelling about the interview? What new news came out? Notate information that you found new and compelling.

5. What are the key ideas that surfaced in the interview that you want to cover?

6. What background information did you discover? How will this information aid in the support the purpose of the profile?

7. A profile relies on deep description and detailed information concerning the person under study. What descriptions and telling details might you include about your subject?

8. What research might you do to help you to compose the profile?

9. What information turned out to be extraneous? What won’t you use? Why?

10. What questions do you have about the profile?

Pathetic Appeals have to do with the ways a writer incites or arouses emotions in the audience.

When you are composing emotional appeals, you want to think about the emotional state of the audience at that moment, and the ways the rhetor is attempting to build on or shift that emotional state.

Emotional intensity alters in accordance with the special and temporal proximity of the people or situations that arouse them.

Emotional intensity also shifts depending on who else shares in the emotional event.

·      Think about how TV helps and hinders this spatial proximity: What was our proximity to 9-11 and Katrina as opposed to earthquakes in China.

The question becomes how does the rhetor create emotional/pathetic appeals? 

1. The rhetor must study the audience, thinking about their past, their values, and their beliefs.

2. The rhetor must assess the audience’s attitude toward the issue: hostile, indifferent, accepting. When audiences are indifferent, they are the most difficult to move.

3. The rhetor might also consider how emotionally attached the audience is to the issue and how that audience associates that issue with their identities.

4. When the rhetor composes an emotional appeal it must be directly related to the audience’s level of interest.

Kinds of Emotional Appeals

Enargeia: a figure in which the rhetor pictures events so vividly that they actually seem to be taking place before the audience. It is a vivid depiction of events or a moment.

Ex. You are walking down a cobbled street in an old village during the fall. A few leaves are falling from the trees, while others hold on to their branches in brilliant colors of gold and red.

Honorific Language: words used by the rhetor that honors an issue; that place the issue in a positive light.

Ex. The beloved principle cast a knowing smile onto his adoring students as they awaited his  unwelcome retirement speech.

Pejorative Language: words used by a rhetor that diminish an issue; that place the issue in a negative light.

Ex. The hated principle grimaced at his cowering students as he distributed undeserved detention slips.

Anecdotes: Enable the writer to tell a story that might arouse emotion in the reader

Ex. To help a struggling student with his speech, the teacher stayed after class three days a week for five weeks, working with the students revised essays, cheering him on, and helping him improve.

Simile/Metaphor:

Ex. My boss is like Ghandi.

Ex. My boss is Hitler.

References

Ex. We cannot forget September 11, 2001. We must defend our country.

Examples

Sarah visits her grandmother every afternoon, preparing her dinner and taking care of household chores her grandmother can no longer do. After this visit, Sarah often checks in on her grandmother’s neighbors just to make sure they don’t need anything.