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But when you think a bit more, you begin to consider the rights of those who stand accused. Maybe a close friend has been a victim of sexual harassment-and maybe another friend has been falsely accused. You begin to realize that the issue of sexual harassment on campus is more complex than you thought. Your commitment ... |
Find out what's been said about your topic Rhetorical thinking calls on you to do some homework, to find out everything you can about what's been said about your topic, to ANALYZE what you find, and then to use that information to inform your own ideas. In other words, you want your own thinking to be well informed and... |
You'll want to begin by considering the purchase in the larger context of your life. Why do you need a new laptop right now? If you're considering buying the newest model, is it for practical reasons or just because it seems likely to be the best? Do you want it in part as a status symbol? If you're concerned about the... |
Then you'll need to do some RESEARCH , checking out product reports and reviews. Don't just trust the information provided by the company that manufactures and sells the laptops you're considering. Instead, you should consult multiple sources and check them against one another. You'll also want to consider your finding... |
Such careful thinking will help you come to a sound decision, and then explain it to others. If your parents are helping you buy the laptop, you'll want to consider what they might think, and to anticipate questions they may ask. You'll also need to recognize and analyze how various rhetorical strategies work to persua... |
To answer that question, you'll need to study it closely, determining just what qualities-a clever script? memorable music? celebrity actors? cute animals? a provocative message?-made the ad so persuasive. Once you've determined that, you'll want to consider whether the laptop will actually live up to the advertiser's ... |
Give credit Part of engaging with what others have thought and said is to give credit where credit is due. Acknowledging the work of others will show that you've done your homework and that you want to credit those who have influenced you. The great physicist Isaac Newton famously and graciously gave credit when he wro... |
-ISAAC NEWTON In this letter, Newton acknowledges the work of Hooke before saying, with a fair amount of modesty, that his own contributions were made possible by Hooke and others. In doing so, he is thinking-and acting-rhetorically. You can give credit informally, as Newton does in this letter, or you can do so formal... |
Academic writing, for instance, usually requires documentation, but if you're writing for a personal blog, you might embed a link that connects to a work you've cited-or simply give an informal shout-out to a friend who contributed to your thinking. In each case, you'll want to be specific about what words or ideas you... |
Such care in crediting your sources contributes to your credibility-and is an important part of ethical, rhetorical thinking. Be imaginative Remember that intuition and imagination can often lead to great insights. While you want to think carefully and analytically, don't be afraid to take chances. A little imagination... |
One student athlete was interested in how the mass media covered the Olympics, and he began doing research on the coverage in Sports Illustrated from different periods. So far, so good: he found plenty of information for an essay showing that the magazine had been a major promoter of the Olympics. While looking through... |
This hunch led him to make an imaginative leap, to study that difference even though it was beyond the topic he had set out to examine. On closer inspection, he found that over the decades Sports Illustrated had slowly but surely moved from focusing on teams to depicting only individual stars. A hunch is creativity try... |
-FRANK CAPRA This discovery led him to make an argument he would never have made had he not followed his creative hunch-that the evolution of sports from a focus on the team to a focus on individual stars is reflected in the pages of Sports Illustrated . It also helped him write a much more interesting-and more persuas... |
Like this student, you can benefit by using your imagination and listening to your intuition. You just might stumble on something exciting. The cover on the left shows the 1980 US ice hockey team's miracle on ice victory over the USSR; the one on the right shows the 2018 MVP in the Stanley Cup playoffs. REFLECT! Think ... |
Draw a picture that captures your topic, or compose a brief rap, or create a meme. If you made a movie about your topic, what would the title be-and who would star in it? In other words, use your imagination! Put in your oar So rhetorical thinking offers a toolkit of strategies for entering a conversation, strategies t... |
Whatever you say, give some thought to how you want to present yourself and how you can best appeal to your audience. Following are some tips that can help. How do you want to come across-as thoughtful? serious? curious? something else? What can you do to represent yourself as knowledgeable and CREDIBLE ? What can y... |
Imagine you want to create a campus food pantry and are preparing a presentation for your meeting with the dean and the director of food services. You'll want to come across as knowledgeable and well informed, to show them that you've done your homework. |
You'll need to present evidence of food insecurity on your campus and of what other colleges have done-statistics about how many students often go hungry, anecdotes about students you know, examples of food pantries that similar schools have created, and so on. You might want to put this information on a PowerPoint sli... |
That means thanking them for meeting with you, being well prepared, and keeping to the time allotted for the meeting. And you'll want to show that you're aware of the stakes involved and to acknowledge that they have many other issues to deal with. Finally, you'll want to listen carefully to what they say, and with an ... |
You might say you wish to suggest that opening a food pantry is one way to help students who are food insecure-rather than expecting your audience to come up with a solution and insisting, perhaps too strongly, that something needs to be done right now. This is not to say that you should underestimate the problem; but ... |
This kind of rhetorical thinking will go a long way toward making sure you will be listened to and taken seriously. As the examples in this chapter illustrate, rhetorical thinking involves certain habits of mind that can and should lead to something-often to an action, to making something happen. And when it comes to t... |
They have listened attentively, engaged with the words and ideas of others, viewed their topic from many alternative perspectives, and done their homework. This kind of rhetorical thinking will set you up to contribute your own ideas-and will increase the likelihood that your ideas will be heard and will inspire real a... |
Indeed, the ability to think rhetorically is of great importance in today's global world, as professors Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein explain: The ability to enter complex, many-sided conversations has taken on a special urgency in today's diverse, post-9/11 world, where the future for all of us may depend on our ... |
Listening carefully to others, including those who disagree with us, and then engaging with them thoughtfully and respectfully . . . can help us see beyond our own pet beliefs, which may not be shared by everyone. The mere act of acknowledging that someone might disagree with us may not seem like a way to change the wo... |
-GERALD GRAFF and CATHY BIRKENSTEIN, They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing In the long run, if enough of us learn to think rhetorically, we just might achieve Wayne Booth's goal-to use words (and images) in thoughtful and constructive ways as an alternative to violence and war. REFLECT! Spend a ha... |
Glossary ETHICS, 14-15 Right or moral conduct, practices, or choices that guide us in life. THINKING RHETORICALLY, 12-28 Listening to others with an open mind, trying to understand what they think and why-and then examining your own beliefs and where they come from, before deciding what you yourself think. POINT OF VIE... |
See also PERSPECTIVES COUNTERARGUMENT, 16, 90-91, 265 In ARGUMENT , an alternative POSITION or objection to the writer's position. The writer of an argument should not only acknowledge counterarguments but also, if at all possible, accept, accommodate, or refute each counterargument. CONTEXT, 17, 27-28, 59 Part of any ... |
STANCE, 17-19, 26-27 A writer's attitude toward the subject-for example, reasonable, neutral, angry, curious. Stance is conveyed through TONE and word choice. ANALYSIS, 132-56 A GENRE of writing in which you look at what a text says and how it says it. |
Key Features: a SUMMARY of a text or other subject - attention to CONTEXT - a clear INTERPRETATION or judgment - reasonable support for your conclusions RESEARCH, 83, 103, 159-60 A process of INQUIRY -of gathering information from reliable sources to learn about something, find an answer to a question that interests yo... |
See also FIELD RESEARCH CITATION, 283-94 In a text, the act of giving information from a source, for example, by QUOTING , PARAPHRASING , or SUMMARIZING . A citation and its corresponding parenthetical DOCUMENTATION , footnote, or endnote provide minimal information about the source; complete information appears in a l... |
IN-TEXT DOCUMENTATION usually appears in parentheses at the point where it's cited or in an endnote or a footnote. Complete documentation usually appears as a list of WORKS CITED or REFERENCES at the end of the text. Documentation styles vary by discipline. See also APA STYLE ; MLA STYLE RHETORICAL SITUATION, 25-28, 81... |
CREDIBILITY, 164-66, 297-98 The sense of trustworthiness that a writer conveys through the text. AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text. Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION . |
THINK ABOUT YOUR OWN RHETORICAL SITUATION Whatever you're writing-a text to a friend, a job application, an essay exam, a script for a presentation-will call for you to consider your rhetorical situation: your purpose for writing, your stance toward your topic, the audience you want to reach, a genre and medium for doi... |
These are all things to think about early in the process of writing. The following guidelines will help you do so: What is your purpose for writing, and what motivates you to do so? What drives you to write? In college, it may be an assignment. Even then it's likely that you'll write about something that matters, that ... |
Most likely it will be some issue you're passionate about, and that inspires you to speak up, to add your voice to the conversation. It's worth taking time to explore your purposes for writing: Do you want to explain a topic, to help others understand it? To persuade someone to agree with your position on an issue? To ... |
Whatever your purpose, it affects your choice of genre, medium, design, and content: the material needed to entertain is not the same as that needed to explain a theory or to persuade an audience to support a certain cause. So your purpose becomes your guiding light, one that helps you stay on track. What audience do y... |
Today, that audience might be as narrow as your instructor or as wide as anyone with access to the internet; but the more you can know about who you're writing to, the better chance you have of connecting with them. If your audience is an instructor, for instance, you know that they value clarity, so you should choose ... |
If you're tweeting to friends, however, you can probably assume that they want information about you and your thoughts-and that they won't hold you to a high bar in terms of correctness or precision. Here are some questions for thinking about your audience: What do you and your AUDIENCE have in common? Where do you di... |
What do they know about your topic, and how much background information will they need? Can you assume they'll be interested in what you say-and if not, how can you get them interested? What do you want your audience to think or do in response to what you say-take your ideas seriously? Take some kind of action? If yo... |
For these audiences, best to take a calm and respectful stance, hoping that they will respond to you in the same way. What is your stance on your topic, and what do you want to say about it? Think of stance as your attitude toward the topic. If your topic is one about which you have some depth of knowledge, you may tak... |
Or you might take a reporter's stance, laying out information you've researched so that others can understand it. Or your stance may be that of a critic who analyzes a text and raises questions about it. On other occasions, you may take up the stance of an advocate, a skeptic, even a cheerleader for an issue you're pas... |
In each case, your stance will guide the TONE you adopt in your writing: whether passionate, objective, curious, outraged, or something else, you'll want to make sure that it reflects your stance and is appropriate to your AUDIENCE and PURPOSE . What genre(s) will you use? Academic genres include many of the assignment... |
In some cases, you may be assigned to write in a specific genre (Write an argument related to the maker movement). But if not, you'll need to decide which genre best matches your purpose, audience, and stance. Then you'll have to make sure that you understand the characteristic features of your chosen genre, including ... |
Do your purpose, stance, and audience call for a written print text, perhaps with illustrations? a password-protected website? an oral presentation with slides or handouts? Whether your medium is oral, print, or digital, you'll need to consider questions of design: what you want the look of your text to be-informal or ... |
What VISUALS , video clips, or audio clips might enhance your text? Consider context: What do you need to know? Answering this question calls for taking an inventory of what you know about your issue topic. For an assignment that asks you to ANALYZE a text or image, you'll need the ability (and the time) to do a detail... |
For an ARGUMENT on Bollywood films, you might need to research the history of Bollywood, its rise in popularity, and what's already been said about it. For a presentation on the need for more lighting on campus to make it a safer place, you might conduct a survey of student opinion, carry out observations on poorly lit... |
Consider your answer to this question in context: How much time do you have to complete the project, and what sources will you need and find available in that time frame? If you've thought about the questions in this chapter for considering your own rhetorical situation, you should have a pretty good grasp of the circu... |
It's important to recognize that your writing doesn't come out of nowhere but rather occurs in a particular time and place, in response to particular things others have thought and said, and in relation to those who will be receiving your message. It's also important to recognize that the advice offered here is itself ... |
That's one more reason to analyze the contexts you're working in as well as the audience you're trying to reach. Wherever you are, think of yourself as being at the center of an ongoing conversation, one in which what you have to say matters. Then start to write! REFLECT! Look over something you've written, and think a... |
Then think about what you would have done differently if your rhetorical situation had been different-for example, if you'd written in a different genre or medium-and write a paragraph or two about how your writing would have been different, and why. Glossary EVIDENCE, 85-90 In ARGUMENT , the data you present to suppor... |
Such data may include statistics, calculations, examples, ANECDOTES , QUOTATIONS , case studies, or anything else that will convince your readers that your reasons are compelling. Evidence should be sufficient (enough to show that the reasons have merit) and relevant (appropriate to the argument you're making). COMMON ... |
Writers build common ground with AUDIENCES by acknowledging their points of view, seeking areas of compromise, and using language that includes, rather than excludes, those they aim to reach. TONE, 27, 96 The way a writer's or speaker's STANCE is reflected in the text. AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-t... |
AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text. Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION . PURPOSE, 25 In writing, your goal: to explore a topic, to express an opinion, to entertain, to report information, to persuade, and so on. Purpose is one element of the... |
Key Features: a topic carefully focused for a specific AUDIENCE - definitions of key terms - trustworthy information - appropriate organization and DESIGN - a confident TONE that informs rather than argues. See also IMRAD ; PROFILE ANALYSIS, 132-56 A GENRE of writing in which you look at what a text says and how it say... |
Key Features: a SUMMARY of a text or other subject - attention to CONTEXT - a clear INTERPRETATION or judgment - reasonable support for your conclusions ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY, 272-76 A GENRE of writing that gives an overview of published research and scholarship on a topic. Each entry includes complete publication inf... |
A descriptive annotation summarizes the content of a source without commenting on its value; an evaluative annotation gives an opinion about the source along with a description of it. Key Features: complete bibliographic information - a brief SUMMARY or DESCRIPTION of the work - evaluative comments (for an evaluative b... |
A GENRE that uses REASONS and EVIDENCE to support a CLAIM . Key Features: an explicit POSITION - a response to what others have said - appropriate background information - a clear indication of why the topic matters - good REASONS and EVIDENCE - attention to more than one POINT OF VIEW - an authoritative TONE - an appe... |
The singular of media is medium. DESIGN, 96-97, 448-58 The way a text is arranged and presented visually. Elements of design include FONTS , colors, illustrations, LAYOUT , and white space. VISUALS, 455-57, 459-67 Photos, graphs, maps, diagrams, pie charts, tables, videos, and other images. Visuals can be used to suppo... |
ANALYSIS, 132-56 A GENRE of writing in which you look at what a text says and how it says it. Key Features: a SUMMARY of a text or other subject - attention to CONTEXT - a clear INTERPRETATION or judgment - reasonable support for your conclusions ARGUMENT, 99-131 Any text that makes a CLAIM supported by REASONS and EVI... |
Key Features: an explicit POSITION - a response to what others have said - appropriate background information - a clear indication of why the topic matters - good REASONS and EVIDENCE - attention to more than one POINT OF VIEW - an authoritative TONE - an appeal to readers' values PART 1 RHETORIC / JOIN THE CONVERSATIO... |
-CONDOLEEZZA RICE WHERE SOMETHING STANDS, SOMETHING ELSE STANDS BESIDE IT. -IGBO PROVERB In the late spring of 2017, Oprah Winfrey stood before a cheering crowd of graduating students at Agnes Scott College, urging them to learn to engage respectfully with others. |
She told the assembled crowd that two weeks after the election last year she had invited a group of women voters-half on the right and half on the left, politically-to join her at a diner for great croissants with jam. But no one wanted to come, saying they'd never sat this close to someone from the other side and didn... |
Winfrey eventually prevailed and brought the women together, even though they came in all tight and hardened. But as she goes on to say in her speech, it worked. After two and a half hours . . . the women were sitting around the table, listening to each other's stories, hearing both sides, and by the end they were hold... |
So I want you to work in your own way to change the world in respectful conversations with others. . . . And I want you to enter every situation aware of its context, open to hear the truths of others and most important open to letting the process of changing the world change you. -OPRAH WINFREY, Agnes Scott College co... |
You have probably encountered views that differ a great deal from your own in your college classes: after all, that's one good reason for going to college-to learn about people and cultures and places other than those you call home. And some of your instructors may have focused on how to engage in critical conversation... |
Students who were serving as peer reviewers were reading a narrative essay called The Little Squirrel in which the author described finding a small, helpless squirrel caught in a trap on his family farm. His descriptions of the squirrel were empathetic and emotional as he contemplated his choices: What should I do now?... |
The peer reviewers, expecting him to free the little squirrel, were quite startled when he continued the essay by saying that with only a few seconds hesitation, he pulled out his gun and killed the squirrel. How could you do that to a little squirrel? two students demanded, one coming just short of calling him a murde... |
The author responded defensively and said he thought they were being wimps. At this point, they weren't even talking about the essay anymore, until another student who'd been quietly observing the scene said, Hold on now! This isn't getting us anywhere. We need to step back and give each other a little space-and a litt... |
In his view, he had done the right thing. Giving him their attention enabled the group to understand his motives better. In addition, they noted that if the author had explained his rationale in the narrative, rather than arousing their empathy for the little squirrel, they might still disagree with his decision but wo... |
In this case, paying respectful attention didn't lead to unanimous agreement, but it did lead to defusing a very contentious situation and to learning about differing views of responsibility and action. The goal of this chapter is to encourage and guide you as you engage with others: respectfully listening to their sto... |
Get to know people different from you It's a commonplace today to point out that we often live and act in silos, places where we encounter only people who think like we do, who hold the same values we do. Even though the internet has made the whole world available to us, we increasingly choose to interact only with lik... |
It can be easy, and comforting, to think this is the real world-but it's not! Beyond your own bubble of posts and conversations lie countless others with different views and values. To make sense of the world, look to those who see it differently. - THE ATLANTIC So one of the big challenges we face today is finding way... |
But simply encountering people who think differently is just the start. Breaking out of our bubbles calls for making the effort to understand those different perspectives, to listen with empathy and an open mind, and to hear where others are literally coming from. As we see in the story Oprah Winfrey tells in her comme... |
Once they did, things changed: they realized that it's not as easy to dislike or dismiss someone when you're sitting face-to-face. That's certainly what one Canadian student found when she spent a semester in Washington, DC. |
She had expected the highlights of her semester to be visiting places like the Smithsonian museums or the Library of Congress, but her greatest experience, as she describes it in a blog post, turned out to be an unexpected gift: While in DC, I became close, close friends with people I disagree with on almost everything... |
So I couldn't look down on them. I couldn't even consider it. And when you can't look down on someone who fundamentally disagrees with you, when you're busy breaking bread, sharing your days, laughing about the weather . . . well. |
-SHAUNA VERT, Making Friends Who Disagree with You (Is the Healthiest Thing in the World) During a conversation with one of her housemates, a deeply conservative Christian from Mississippi, Vert mentioned that she was pro-choice, realizing as she did so that this was dangerous territory. To her surprise, she met not re... |
We laughed at nuance, we self-deprecated, we trusted each other. And we liked each other. Before the conversation, and after the conversation. To recap: Left-wing Canadian meets Bible Belt Republican. Discusses controversial political issues for over an hour. Walks away with a new friend. Read Shauna Vert's full blog p... |
This kind of careful, responsible, respectful exchange seems particularly hard in today's highly polarized society, where anger and hate are fueled by incendiary messages coming from social media and highly partisan news organizations. Just finding people outside our silos to talk with can be hard. But, like Vert, some... |
One group aiming to create conversation rather than conflict is the Living Room Conversations project, which offers guidelines for engaging in meaningful discussions on more than fifty specific topics-free speech on campus, the opportunity gap, and more. |
The founders want these conversations among people who disagree to increase understanding, reveal common ground, and allow us to discuss possible solutions. Visit livingroomconversations.org to find the resources to start a living room conversation yourself. We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the sam... |
And this means becoming familiar with sources other people read, too. Get out of your comfort zone, and look beyond the sources you know and trust; look carefully at what the other side is reading. Sites like allsides.com that present views from left, right, and center can help. It's time to shut down the echo chambers... |
Practice empathy Many of the examples above suggest the power of EMPATHY , the ability to share someone else's feelings. Dylan Marron is someone who directly addresses empathy and shows how it works. |
As the creator and host of several popular video series on controversial social issues, Marron has gained quite a bit of attention and, he says, a lot of hate. Early on, he tried to ignore hateful Comments, but then he started to get interested and began visiting Commenter profiles to learn about the people writing the... |
In one of these talks, Marron learned that Josh, who in a Comment had called Marron a moron and said that being gay was a sin, had recently graduated from high school, so Marron asked him how was high school for you? Josh replied that it was hell and elaborated by saying that he'd been bullied by kids who made fun of h... |
At the end of another conversation, a man who had called Marron a talentless hack reflected on the ubiquitous Comment fields where such statements often appear, saying that the Comment sections are really a way to get your anger at the world out on random strangers-an insight that made him rethink the way I interact wi... |
More than that, his work demonstrates the power of practicing empathy and how it can help us to see one another as human, even in the most negative and nasty places. Watch Dylan Marron's TED Talk and listen to his podcast at letstalklibrary.com . |
In his 2018 TED Talk, Marron stresses the importance of empathy, noting, however, that empathy is not endorsement and doesn't require us to compromise our deeply held values but, rather, to acknowledge the views of someone raised to think very differently than we do. That's the power and the promise of practicing empat... |
Franklin added two now-famous lines along with a chorus to Otis Redding's original song, transforming it into an anthem for all those who are demanding R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Franklin's message is still a timely one today, when dis respect seems so common, especially among those who don't agree. But respect is a two-way street... |
So just how can you demonstrate respect for others? Aretha Franklin onstage in 1968. Listen with genuine interest and an open mind, and without interrupting or making snap judgments. Be helpful and cooperative. Build bridges instead of shutting others out. Represent other people's views fairly and generously-and ac... |
Be sincere , and remember to say thank you. Be on time : even that is a sign of respect. Do what you say you'll do . Keep your promises. This advice largely holds for writing as well as speaking. Whether online or in print, our written words will usually be more effective if they come across as sincere, cooperative,... |
These acts help build bridges in our writing, connecting us to members of our audience, including those who may not agree with us on all things. If you respect others in these ways, in both writing and speaking, it's more likely that you'll earn their respect in return. Remember that respect can engender respect in ret... |
As the French philosopher Voltaire is reported to have said, I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Search for common ground Even children learn pretty early on that digging in to opposing positions doesn't usually get very far: No you can't! Yes I can! can go on forever,... |
Rhetoricians in the ancient world understood this very well and thus argued that for conversations to progress, it's necessary to look for and establish some COMMON GROUND , no matter how small. If No you can't! moves on to Well, you can't do that in this particular situation, then maybe the conversation can continue. ... |
One member set off alarm bells when she said she was shocked by the glossy cover photo, showing the former First Lady with one shoulder bare. Another member of the group responded, saying she was equally shocked that anyone would make a fuss about what's on the cover rather than focusing on what's inside the book-and w... |
But then someone said, Well, like it or not, it's a story well worth reading. That comment established some common ground they could all agree on-and the conversation continued. In this case, the stakes were not high: all members of the group were friends, and whether or not they all liked the book, they liked and resp... |
That was certainly the case when Daryl Davis, a Black blues musician, decided to do some research on the history of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group that had terrorized-and lynched-Black people in the past. Davis's research led him to decide to try to meet with some Klansmen, and to listen to them and try to... |
Davis has written and lectured widely about these experiences (which eventually led over 200 members to leave the Klan), about the importance of finding common ground, and how the rest of us can go about doing so: Look for commonalities. You can find something in five minutes, even with your worst enemy. And build on t... |
But if you say how do you feel about all these drugs on the street and I say I think the law needs to crack down on things that people can get addicted to very easily. . . . and you say Well, yeah I agree with that. You might even tell me your son started dabbling in drugs. So now I see that you want what I want, that ... |
And as we focus more and more and find more things in common, things we have in contrast, such as skin color, matter less and less. -DARYL DAVIS, How to Argue We're in this boat together. We sink or swim together. And when there's a leak in the boat and people are at risk, it puts all of us at risk. -SUSAN RICE Davis r... |
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