Post 6

According to Grant-Davie, exigence is the matter and motivation of discourse.  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 picture above, 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.  Grant-Davie then describes what a rhetor is.  In his opinion, it is the people responsible for the discourse and its authorial voice.  In this case with the picture above, I would guess that the rhetor is both a corporation and an advertising company.  Both of these had a part in producing this image.  When it comes to audience, Grant-Davie defines it as those people with whom rhetors negotiate through discourse to achieve the rhetoric objectives.  This means that anyone who reads or see 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 smoke.  Grant-Davie then describes constraints as factors in the situations context that may affect the achievement of the rhetorical objectives.  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.  After reading Grant-Davie's article, I feel that he gave a better in depth understanding of what each of these terms mean.  I really was able to get views from different people on what each term meant since he talked about other people's ideas.

Post 5

Everyday, I see many forms of rhetoric.  The most places I see them are on TV.  One particular commercial I see is the Sun drop soda commercial where the guy takes a pop and then dances oddly the rest of the time because he is so pumped to have a sip of this new and exotic soda. It makes him want to get up and move!  It is definitely meant to be humorous and is also meant to get people's attention.  The audience has a lot of influence on making this commercial persuade.  The target audience are males and females from the ages of 12-25. Also, they are middle class because they can afford to spend money on soda. If they don't have enough money, then they are most likely not spending it on soda. The commercial is aimed at young adults because the actors in the commercial are young and trying to make you laugh. They are trying to come at young kids at a viral video perspective. The point of the commercial is to persuade you to switch from Mountain Dew (which is a similar drink that dominates this target audience and market) to Sun Drop. There is and will always be a high demand for pop in general. Kids today are drinking more pop than water or any other healthy beverage, such as milk and orange juice. This means that there is a demand for Sun Drop. The constraints of this commercial could be that not everyone finds this type of humor in the commercial funny. A parent could be turned off of the product because it depicts raunchy dancing in its commercials. The song "Drop it like it's hot" can also turn the consumers off of their product. The song its self is vulgar and the dance moves with it just make it too sexy for some parents.  I feel that no matter what, rhetoric will always persuade someone even if its not everyone.  I personally find the commercial funny, but do not purchase the drink itself.  It all depends on many other factors than just these 3.

Post 4

According to Porter, the harm in imaging writing "as individual, as isolated, and as heroic" is that it is not a realistic view.  He says that there is really no such thing as a writer who is original, has a personal voice, is exercising a free, creative will, and whose writing comes from within.  This becomes "the" picture and then students easily start to overlook the vital facets of discourse production.  Some other problems that this can cause is the important questions of "To what extent is the writer's product part of a larger community?" and "How is the writing influenced by discourse communities?" are overlooked by the students.  Bartholomae says that the student should not be struggling to to bring out what is within, but they need to carry out the ritual activities that grant them entrance into the closed society of writing.  Students are too focused on being original that they do not see what writing really is and what it is based on.  When students are taught to bring out what is within, undermining our own efforts is risked.  What students need to be learning and focused on is to write for the discourse communities they choose.  Many students are stuck in what Joseph Williams calls "pre-socialized cognitive states."  This means they cannot produce competent discourse because they are not fully immersed in their discourse community.  If being taught what Barthalomae suggests, students may feel more at ease when writing and have a new outlook on it.

Post 3

In Stuart Greene's article "Argument as Conversation," the type of research he is talking about is conversational inquiry.  Conversational inquiry is when an issue and situation contribute to framing a problem in a particular way and researchers seek not to collect information, but to generate new knowledge in a social process.  In Michael Klein' article "What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This," the type of research he is talking about is heuristic.  Heuristic is a problem solving pattern approach used to research.

It seems that Greene prefers to use inquiry to start conversation, while what Klein prefers to use is the pattern of researching first, then writing as well as using peers and colleagues as other resources.  He has also seemed to adapt to writing as he researches as a way to gain knowledge.  I feel that Greene is writing to a new group of college students who are just starting to write research based articles and Klein is writing to those who are experienced, but tying to find the best way for them to research and write.  I feel that these audiences are different, because Greene's audience may not be experienced and may be looking for a place to start, where as Klein's audience is working to find what will make them successful.  The content or style of the writing may change just by making the research personal and fitting it to the style that each person prefers and getting advice and input from others.

Post 2

Before reading the post, I had a neutral view on Wikipedia.  I have always found useful information on it.  I even used it today to help me with my anatomy homework.  Even though I use it, I always hear about how bad it is as a source and how it should not be used at all when writing papers.  Hearing that made it sound very negative.  I knew that some of the information could be incorrect, but it seemed pretty reliable. I knew that it could be incorrect because anyone can easily edit the page, but it seems that most pages were kept up to date.  After reading the article, I learned a lot about Wikipedia that I did not know.  I did not realize how much could actually be done on the site such and conversing and finding many reliable sources.  Now, I think of it more as a starting point.

My thoughts have definitely changed.  I see Wikipedia as a resource I can use to help me find what I'm looking for.  It can lead me to information, while providing me an overview.  I can also connect to others and see what their opinions are as well as use them to help correct any wrong thoughts I may have on a topic.

What we can learn about when it comes to research-based writing is we need to revise everything continuously.  Information can change over time so we need to correct it when something new is determined.  We also can review others work and talk to them in order to get more research.  We also use sharing as a way to get feedback on Wikipedia as well as in research papers.  It can allow us the chance to correct any information and question it as well.

Post 1

My name is Olivia Hibler and I am a Child Life major at Ohio University.  As a child life specialist, I will be working in a children's hospital advocating for children and their families as well as normalizing their hospital stay the best I can.  I am from Pickerington, Ohio, which is a little over an hour away.  I am a junior this year and should graduate on time, but will then have to do an internship the summer after.

I really enjoyed my ENG 151 class.  We wrote many papers, but they were all around movies such as a movie analysis, synopsis, review, and a research paper.  We did a lot of peer reviewing and would all review one person's paper a week.  I felt it was good to get a lot of feedback.  What I thought was beneficial was we were able to choose what movies we wrote about most of the time.  It made the papers more enjoyable to write as well as made peer reviewing more enjoyable.  What I did not like was a lot of our grade was based on discussion.  I don't mind speaking in class, but some things I did not know the answer to, so it felt like I was being penalized.

From looking at the syllabus, I am really glad that we are using technology as a basis to the course.  I think it will make things easier to relate to and more enjoyable.  I think that the work does not seem too difficult, but not too easy either.  I am interested to find out more about the presentation and hoping we can choose our own topic.

What I hope to gain from this class is a new outlook on english.  When I think of an english class, I worry about how boring it may be and all of the papers I will have to write.  This class seems like it will provide me a better outlook.  My only concern is that I like having a guide on what papers should look like our be about, so when given free will, I worry that it will be wrong.