Post 13

For project 4, I wanted to interview people in the Student Alumni Board.  It is an organization dedicated to bring back alumni to the campus of Ohio University.  I really think it would be interesting to see how cohesive the executive board and the members of the board are.  I want to see if their values match.  I am interviewing at least two different people.  I will interview one person who is on the executive board to see if they feel that everyone is on the same page as well as asking them what they feel is important in their personal opinion.  I then want to interview a board member who is not in a leadership role and see how they feel about if they are cohesive and then see what they think the values are.   I have a strong feeling that the two interviews will not match up.  On top of this, I really want to find out what you have to do to be apart of this group.  What qualities do you need to possess? How do you need to act? Talk? Dress? I think it will be interesting to really dig to a deeper level within the group and get an understanding of how they work.  The organization may appear one way, but be different once you find out its discourse.  I feel it may be important to interview even more people to really get a sense how each “side” feels.  I think I will really have to keep my opinions to myself since I am a part of this discourse community as well.

Post 12

In Elizabeth Wardle’s “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces,” she states that there are three related modes of belonging.  They are engagement, imagination, and alignment.  These are each used in order for newcomers of new organizations to “find their own unique identities.”  Engagement is when new comers and older members pursue “interpersonal relationships and “a sense of interacting trajectories that shape identities in relation to one another.”  Defining a common enterprise does this.  An example of this is when someone starts a class on the first day of school and is trying to talk about the class in order to make a relationship with other peers.  Imagination is “ a process by expanding self by transcending time and space and creating new images of the world and self.”  This means that newcomers need to find their engagement in a broader system.  An example of this may be if I student is thinking about how they will get an A in a class, but may in turn not work as hard assuming they will do well no matter what, making them perform poorly.  Alignment requires “negotiating perspectives, finding common ground defining broad visions and aspirations and walking boundaries reconciling diverging perspectives.”  In laymen’s terms, I would define this as people forming common views and agreeing on ideas, but this can cause someone to lose their sense of self.  An example of this may be a group of jurors may decide it is most important to have a unanimous decision causing some people to lose their sense of voice.  This can cause beliefs to change to fit the others.

            The discourse community I plan on writing about is my professional organization, Student Alumni Board.  These three modes of belonging definitely apply to this organization.  An example of engagement is how new members must apply and interview to be on the board then most try to build relationships in order to fit in.  An example of imagination is some people may feel they are really attending a lot of event s for the board, but in reality may not be participating in them to their full potential.  An example of alignment is we must agree on changes for the constitution.  People may just agree in order to get it done, but may lose their voice in the organization since they didn’t say any concerns when it happened.

Post 11

 What Gee is talking about when referring to tests that members of dominant Discourses perform on other members is that we are basically judging people to make sure they fit into our Discourse.  He even leads the journal off by making examples of how you would expect your buddies to talk and act at the bar.  If they are very proper, they are using a very wrong language.  This could lead to out casting them and not accepting them into your primary Discourse.  If they came into the bar and used improper grammar and didn’t worry about what was on their seat, they would be acting appropriate.  For those who are not natural or born into our Discourse, we are always watching and making sure they are following our “rules” per say, such as these, in order to be a part of our discourse.  Personally, I have seen this in an organization I am in.  We are meant to be professional and the minute someone does something to risk their professional reputation, we reject them.  Everyone is constantly being tested by being expected to have appropriate behavior 24/7.

            When talking about this organization, Swales proposes 6 defining characteristics that are necessary for it to be a discourse community.  The first is a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.  My organization definitely meets these requirements.  We have events we all work towards each year and have to each get ten points a quarter in order to stay an active member.  The second characteristic is it has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.  The organization meets this standard.  We send out emails with updates and emails highlighting points from meetings.  The third is it uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide info and feedback.  We meet this characteristic as well.  Even if you pay your dues, you cannot just be a member.  You have to attend 2 weekly meetings in order to stay up to date with everything and know what is going on.  The fourth characteristic is it utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.  The organization also does this.  We have a very structured way of doing things and keep it at a professional level at most all times.  The fifth is it has acquired some specific lexis.  We accomplish this by using abbreviations. The last characteristic is it has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.  We accomplish this by having new members come into the organization in fall and spring and old members leave by graduating.

Post 10

I feel that one change I have seen in literacy due to the computer is that people are acting more illiterate because online, they are not required to use grammar or punctuation.  On websites, people use many different abbreviations.  LOL is a common abbreviation used on the Internet.  Another is JK.  One that tends to pop up in students papers is the abbreviated version for night, which is nite.  I’m not going to lie, I have been guilty of this, but I always catch it when proof reading.  It is just so much easier to quickly write abbreviated words in informal situations such as facebook or a blog.  I really think that these informal websites and devices such as cell phones are decreasing literacy, but formal sites such as nytimes.com or magazine websites promote literacy.  I think it depends on what the technology user is interested in to decide if it is helping or hurting literacy.  I definitely agree with the authors of “The Future of Literacy” when they talk about how using other forms of technology such as videos, sound, and photographs to create meaning for literacy.  Personally, I like to compose by modeling for my friend’s photography shoots.  She is a photography major and I love being able to create the vision she has in her mind in order to get a point across.  If I am not modeling for her, I really enjoy going along with her and helping her think of new ideas.  I also really enjoy watching videos and looking at videos to trying to understand their meaning.  Even though I am not the one creating them, I am giving them meaning by thinking about it and creating my ideas about video or photograph

Post 9

According to Shirley Heath, she defines a literacy event as “a conceptual tool useful in examining within particular communities of modern society the actual forms and functions of oral and literate traditions and co-existing relationships between spoken and written language.”  She also states, “It is any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes.”  Heath identifies many literacy events in Trackton.  One was negotiating how to put a toy together.  Another was how to fill out a voter registration form.  Form a younger perspective, some events were distinguishing brand names from product descriptions on boxes or bags, knowing how to find the price on a label which contained many other pieces of written information, and recognizing cars, motorcycles, and bicycles.  When thinking about Sherman Alexie, the Indian boy who taught himself to read using a superman comic book by the age of three, we can identify the literacy events in his life.  The obvious one is reading comics and recognizing or identifying the characters.  Reading comics was apart of Sherman’s society, especially at home.  A major literacy event for the Indian society was powwow songs.  The children in his class could not always answer the teachers’ questions, but Sherman says they were able to recite some of their cultures powwow songs.  They were also able to tell complicated stories and jokes.  That is what society focused on while the family would be spending time together such as when they were eating dinner.  Sherman Alexie encountered and wrote about the many literacy events in his life.  When considering my own, I realize how different every person’s are.

This is Marlboro Country

            When looking at an image, a visual argument is presented.  In both “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” and “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents,” exigence, rhetor, audience, and constraints are focused on and needed in order to provide an argument. 

            According to Grant-Davie, “exigence is the matter and motivation of discourse,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  He suggests that when talking about exigence, we ask three questions.  They are what the discourse is about, why is it needed, and what should we accomplish.  The ad is about how smoking Marlboro cigarettes will lead to your death.  I feel that this ad is needed now because we are much more aware of health effects that different products can cause, especially cigarettes.  I think that many people understand how unhealthy cigarettes are and that these companies may portray them to be better than they are.  This ad is obviously showing a drastic change from the normal ads of Marlboro that focus on being in the clean air of the country.  This is contradicting since smoking would pollute the air.  Lastly we can answer what should we accomplish?  This is when exigence is revealed.  In the picture, the goal is to scare people away from buying Marlboro cigarettes.  It is raising awareness of the dangers of smoking by using the shock factors of harsh reality.

            The rhetoric is “the way we use language and images to persuade,” noted by Laura Carroll (Carroll, 2010).  Therefore, the rhetor is who would be putting out the message.  Grant-Davie describes it as “the people responsible for the discourse and its authorial voice,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  In this case with the Marlboro ad, I would guess that the rhetor is both a corporation/organization and an advertising company.  Both of these had a part in producing this image.

            Audience is another major factor when trying to persuade.  When it comes to audience, Grant-Davie defines it as “those people with whom rhetors negotiate through discourse to achieve the rhetoric objectives,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  This means that anyone who reads or sees the writing is the audience.  When it comes to this ad, the audience is those who see this picture.  Although the audience is assumed to be everyone, it is really aimed at those who smoke and are consumers of Marlboro cigarettes.  In this case, the people who work for the corporation/organization and ad company may be their own audiences if any of them smoke.  They may also be focusing towards a younger audience by using this picture as a scare tactic.  By seeing this picture, many young adult might be more aware of the dangers concerning cigarettes.  Many people don’t like to think about death because of the fear of the unknown.  This ad can easily scare some into not smoking anymore or trying to persuade a loved one from smoking because of the fear of losing them or their own life.  On the other hand, some people may just not care how cigarettes can affect them and will continue to smoke anyway.  This is a reason that there are constraints on this visual argument.

            When it comes to visual arguments, I feel like constraints are very important to be aware of.  I feel that you need to really think about them before putting your visual out there for people to see in order to make sure the message is given and reaches as many people as possible.  However, there will still be people who are unwilling to be reached.  Grant-Davie describes constraints as “factors in the situations context that may affect the achievement of the rhetorical objectives,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  With this picture, the constraints may be that Marlboro may be claiming their cigarettes are not that dangerous and this is an over exaggeration.  Another constraint may be that people who smoke may not get a chance to see this ad before considering buying another pack.  This ad may or may not be shown on television where many other people could get a chance to see it.  I never see anti-cigarette commercials on TV.  Even in movies, if someone is seen smoking, the rating of the movie has to automatically be at least PG-13.  One other constraint may be that some people feel that they cannot be harmed from the smoke and that nothing could happen to them.

            What really prompted the making of this argument is the knowledge the public has on the terrible side effects that can harm not just yourself, but other people through second hand smoke.  It has been known for a while what the side effects are on those who smoke, but it was more recent on the research showing how much damage second hand smoke can cause.  Also, more and more anti-cigarette organizations are being created due to this newly discovered information.  They are trying to raise awareness.  I really think that the main argument the rhetor is trying to make is that if you smoke cigarettes, your will die early and painfully.

            The rhetor uses artistic appeals to make their argument.  These are logos, ethos, and pathos.  Logos is the argument from reason.  These would be facts, statistics, and logical statements.  This ad does not directly have logos, but is backed by them.  We know that facts show smoking is dangerous and causes cancer since it is printed on every pack, but the picture does not say it itself.   Ethos is the credibility of the rhetor.  We would assume the rhetor is credible just by the tone of the visual.  It is making a bold statement that cigarettes cause death.  We know they are dangerous, so we assume that the rhetor is knowledgeable for providing the information.  When it comes to pathos, it is the emotional appeal.  This visual is exactly that.  It is pulling on emotions by providing the possible reality of a smoker to scare them as well as those who may consider smoking.  So many people are afraid of death because we are not sure what it entails.  This ad is using a scare tactic to evoke fear and get their message across.

            In my opinion, I think this ad is doing exactly what it means to.  It is establishing it’s meaning in a bold way without confusion.  It is simple, yet has much meaning behind it.  The only thing I do not feel it was effective in was logos and a little ethos.  It was lacking in logos because there is not statistic or facts that show that smoking causes cancer on the ad.  I think it could have used more ethos by stating the company or organization who made the ad to provide more credibility to the rhetor.  I think this is appropriate for all people.  It could have been done in so many ways that people could find offensive such as a disgusting picture.  It was a good idea and made its point.

References:

Carroll, L. (2010). Backpacks vs. briefcases: Steps toward rhetorical analysis.

Grant-Davie, K. (1997). Rhetorical situations and their constituents.

(n.d.). This is marlboro country. [Print Photo]. Retrieved from

http://sallini.com/rumors/rumors_in.php?id=33

Post 7: Rhetorical Analysis Draft

When looking at an image, as visual argument is presented.  In both “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” and “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents,” exigence, rhetor, audience, and constraints are focused on and said to be needed in order to provide an argument. 

            According to Grant-Davie, “exigence is the matter and motivation of discourse,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  He suggests that when talking about exigence, we ask three questions.  They are what the discourse is about, why is it needed, and what should we accomplish.  When talking about the ad I selected, I want to answer what the discourse is about.  The ad is about how smoking Marlboro cigarettes will lead to your death.  The second question can then be answered, why is it needed?  I feel that this ad is needed now because we are much more aware of health effects that different products can cause.  I think that many people understand how unhealthy cigarettes are and that these companies may portray them to be better than they are.  This ad is obviously showing a drastic change from the normal ads.  Then lastly we can answer what should we accomplish?  This is when exigence is revealed.  In the picture, the goal is to scare people away from buying Marlboro cigarettes.  It is trying to raise awareness of the dangers of smoking.

            The rhetoric is “the way we use language and images to persuade,” noted by Laura Carroll (Carroll, 2010).  Therefore, the rhetor is who would be putting out a message.  Grant-Davie describes it as “the people responsible for the discourse and its authorial voice,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  In this case with the Marlboro ad, I would guess that the rhetor is both a corporation and an advertising company.  Both of these had a part in producing this image.

            Audience is another major factor when trying to persuade.  When it comes to audience, Grant-Davie defines it as “those people with whom rhetors negotiate through discourse to achieve the rhetoric objectives,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  This means that anyone who reads or sees the writing is the audience.  When it comes to this ad, the audience is those who see this picture and is really aimed at those who smoke and are consumers of Marlboro cigarettes.  In this case, the people who work for the corporation and ad company may be their own audience if any of them smokes.  They may also be focusing towards a younger audience by using this picture as a scare tactic.  Many people don’t like to think about death because of the fear of the unknown.  This ad can easily scare some into not smoking anymore or trying to persuade a loved one from smoking because of the fear of losing them or their own life.  On the other hand, some people may just not care how cigarettes can effect them and will continue to smoke anyway.

            When it comes to visual arguments, I feel like constraints are very important.  I feel that you need to really think about them before putting your visual out there for people to see in order to make sure the message is given.  Grant-Davie describes constraints as “factors in the situations context that may affect the achievement of the rhetorical objectives,” (Grant-Davie, 1997).  With this picture, the constraints may be that Marlboro may be claiming their cigarettes are not that dangerous.  Another constraint may be that people who smoke may not get a chance to see this ad before considering buying another pack.  This ad may may not be shown on television where many other people could get a chance to see it.  I never see anti-cigarette commercials on TV.  One other constraint may be that some people feel that they cannot be harmed from the smoke and that nothing could happen to them.

            I feel that what really prompted the making of this argument is the knowledge the public has on the terrible side effects can have on not just yourself, but other people through second hand smoke.  It has been known for a while what the side effects are on those who smoke, but it was more recent on the research showing how much damage second hand smoke can cause.  I really think that the main argument the rhetor is trying to make is that if you smoke cigarettes, your will die early.

            The rhetor uses artistic appeals to make their argument.  These are logos, ethos, and pathos.  Logos is the argument from reason.  These would be facts, statistics, and logical statements.  This ad does not directly have logos, but is backed by them.  We know that facts show smoking is dangerous and causes cancer that kills, but the picture does not say it itself.  Ethos is the credibility of the rhetor.  We would assume the rhetor is credible just by the tone of the visual.  It is making a bold statement that cigarettes cause death.  We know they are dangerous, so we assume that the rhetor is knowledgeable for providing the information.  When it comes to pathos, it is the emotional appeal.  This visual is exactly that.  It is pulling on emotions by providing the possible reality of a smoker to scare them as well as those who may consider smoking.  So many people are afraid of death because we are not sure wait it entails.  This ad is using a scare tactic to evoke fear and get their message across.

            In my opinion, I think this ad is doing exactly what it means to.  It is establishing it meaning in a bold way without confusion.  It is simple, yet has much meaning behind it.  The only thing I do not feel it was effective in was logos and a little egos.  It was lacking in logos because there is not statistic or facts that show that smoking causes cancer.  I think it could have used more egos by stating the company or organization who made the ad to provide more credibility.  I think this is appropriate for all people.  It could have been done in so many ways that people could find offensive such as a disgusting picture.  It was a good idea and made its point.

References:

Carroll, L. (2010). Backpacks vs. briefcases: Steps toward rhetorical analysis.

Grant-Davie, K. (1997). Rhetorical situations and their constituents.

(n.d.). This is marlboro country. [Print Photo]. Retrieved from

http://sallini.com/rumors/rumors_in.php?id=33