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Nov 29th

Page history last edited by Jared 12 years, 4 months ago

  • More Proposal Tips 
  • Writing Abstracts and Rhetorically Descriptive Outlines to Solicit Peer Review and Instructor Feedback: Response 14

 


Today's tips: Audience, Common Ground, Pathos and Ethos

 

For the proposal section of your project 4/5 to be successful, you will really have to carefully define WHO your audience is, and address them fairly specifically.  Who is it that you are trying to convince to act on your proposal?   You should direct your proposal to them early on as you transition into this section of your project.

 

Fundamental strategies: 

You've been asked to find a specific forum or to create a public sphere by blog-rolling.

 

Once you've done this you can use typical AUDIENCE ANALYSIS questions to generate a strong sense of audience.

 

You should try to assess the scope of the responses to your evaluation by the people who you are trying to reach with your proposal 

 

You should then try to explain how your proposal relates to your audience's needs, and then, as your proposal progresses, give them evidence that it is a workable solution.

 


Here are 3 different strategies towards working WITH YOUR AUDIENCE as you shape your proposal. All three center on finding common ground...

Creating Common Ground in 3 ways: 

Dissoi logoi, Intersubjective hopeEthos (or "the good in everyone")

 

1) Dissoi Logoi

 

Much of this semester we've been training to anticipate audience reaction and adapt to it.  To transition into your proposal, perform a DISSOI LOGOI (which in ancient Greek means "clashing talks" or "different words" and it refers to the ancient rhetorical practice of arguing "both" sides of an issue).

 

Briefly consider your opposition's point of view...Where might you agree?  What points might you need to concede?  Will they attack your proposal, or defend their own?

 

Then, if appropriate, try to find common ground with your opponent:  revise your arguments if necessary to better decide how to counter the opponent logically, perhaps finding common ground from which your arguments might grow.  

 

2) Harnessing Pathos and Intensifying Hope...

Clearly, some members of your audience will experience emotional reactions to your topic -- or react strongly to your evaluation of the problem.  It might be important to try to address these emotions briefly.  Ont the other hand, you might try to ignite or fuel any emotions (any moodtemperamentpersonality, or disposition) that might help move people toward your proposal or or motivate them somehow.  (After all, to quote the great rhetorician Wikistotle:the "English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- (variant of ex-) means 'out' and movere means 'move'.[1] The related term "motivation" is also derived from movere")

 

The key to negotiating any emotions is to do so "intersubjectively" --meaning that you discuss how people share or negotiate contesting feelings as group (or as various potentially conflicting groups).  You then want to try to acknowledge any despair, despondency, apathy or feelings of hoplessness, and turn your attention towards more affirmative group feelings... toward shared feelings of agency, possibility, probability, community, or hope.  Any feelings of HOPE should be well grounded in evidence in your actual paper...

 

*Quick tip:  If you're trying to harness emotions and stear them towards hope...visual rhetoric might really help.   

 

Composing Ethos (ethical appeals and the good in everyone)

Another way to meet your audience is to have them come to see you and your intentions in good light (and, in turn, to desire to see this "good" in themselves).  This means starting your proposal by building your ethos in a new direction. Your evaluation will hopefully give you some credibility by showing your reader that you've researched the problem and presented it clearly and convincingly.  

 

Then, there are three moves you might make: (three categories of ethos), which could help develop a high ethos:

 

  • phronesis - Appeal to practical skills & wisdom (set up your proposal as being practical or a middle ground that differs significanly from others more extreme options.  Note, that this middle way often requires some patience and wisdom...then describe why your proposal is the wise choice in this case)
  • arete - Appeal to virtue, goodness (Do you need to appeal directly to ethical inclinations in people? Is your proposal the means to an end that will be GOOD for people suffering?   People will likely call you an idealist, or see your proposal as ideal, but remind them that it is through an appeal to habitual acts of good that change often comes...and that any virtue is instilled in people.  Try to suggest that your proposal is not an isolated act of virtue but part of a system or process of doing good that continues and is fueled by their "good" actions.
  • eunoia - goodwill towards the audience.  This really means showing an act of goodwill yourself.  Is your proposal itself an act of goodwill...if so...show us it in action and let it speak for itself.

 

It is important to note that ethos does not "belong to the speaker," but is more a judgement of you by the audience. Thus, it is the audience that determines whether a speaker is a high- or a low-ethos speaker. Violations of ethos can entail some of the following:

  • The speaker has a direct interest in the outcome of the debate (e.g. a person pleading innocence of a crime);
  • The speaker has a vested interest or ulterior motive in the outcome of the debate;
  • The speaker has no expertise (e.g. a lawyer giving a speech on space flight carries less gravity than an astronaut giving the same speech)

Today's Assignment /Peer Review 

 

 Your feedback means a lot.  Well, 5% of your overall grade on project 4/5 I guess.  The intructions will be clear and easy to follow.  Feedback sessions will likely take you one hour or so, roughly the class period or just a little longer.

 

 Today's goal is to solicit some feedback on the 'whole' of project 4/5 as they stand, to use this to think through any remaining work, and to develop a sense of the overall arrangement or LOGOS of your argument.

 

Today's Tasks: 

  1. Today you will draft a rhetorically Descriptive outline of project 4/5
  2. write a brief 'abstract' of your project 4/5,
  3. and use these to PEER review each other's works in Response 14
 

 

1) Rhetorically Descriptive Reverse Outline: 

 A way of soliciting feedback holistically and specifically 

 

Déjà Vu...

Descriptive Outline

The procedure is to write a says sentence and a does sentence for each paragraph, BUT we will also add a research sentence where appropriate today.  The key to writing does sentences is to keep them different from the says sentences. Keep them from even mentioning the content of the paragraph. Thus, you shouldn't be able to tell from a does sentence whether the paragraph is talking about cars or ice cream. 

 

A says sentence summarizes the content, the meaning, or the message. 

  • For example: this paragraph offers the background economic recession in Michigan, and notes three contrasting perspectives on the Emergency Financial Manager in Benton Harbor.
  • For example: this section gives three perspectives of those who were recently deported as illegal immigrants.  

 

A does sentence describes the function--what the paragraph or piece is trying to do or accomplish for your argument or on the audience.

  • For example: This paragraph describes the setting of the problem and the main causes (well) and thus builds my ethos
  • For example: this section appeals to pathos because the narratives are tragic, but also offers significant examples of the causes  

 

RESEARCH sentence:  state what research the paragraph is drawing on (if any), and state why it is valuable to your argument

 


 

2) Abstracting your Work on Project 4/5

 Abstracts are used in almost all fields and have always served the function of "selling" your work, of convincing the reader to keep reading the rest of the attached paper.  In a business context, an "executive summary" is often the only piece of a report read by the people who matter; and it should be similar in content if not tone to an essay abstract.

 

Checklist: Parts of an Abstract

Despite the fact that an abstract is quite brief (one paragraph), it must do almost as much work as the multi-page paper that follows it.  This means that it should in most cases include the following sections. Each section is typically a single sentence (two tops), although there is room for creativity in your arrangement. In particular, the parts may be merged or spread among a set of sentences. Use the following as a checklist for your next abstract:

  • Motivation/Exigence:
    Why do we care about the problem and the argument you're making? If the problem isn't obviously "interesting" it might be better to put motivation first; but if your work is incremental progress on a problem that is widely recognized as important, then it is probably better to put the problem statement first to indicate which piece of the larger problem you are breaking off to work on. This section should include the importance of your work, the difficulty of the area, and the impact it might have if successful.
  • Problem statement:
    What problem, issue or 'item' are you evaluating? Here you will state your purpose and objectives.  This section might also state the scope of your work (a generalized approach to evaluation, or a specific evaluation/proposal, or do you move from general to specific)?  In some cases it is appropriate to put the problem statement before the motivation, but usually this only works if most readers already understand why the problem is important.
  • Method or Approach:
    Many of you received feedback on project 3 about writing a sentence or two outlining your method.  This statement describes how you go about making your argument. Did you develop a particular background, make important comparisons, delve into causes or consequences, include a narrative, make a key definition clear and persuasive, breakdown the problem a certain way, propose a course of action, argue from principle (appealing to values), argue from consequence (good/bad consequences), argue from precedent/analogy)simulation, incorporate a survey, 
  • Results:
    Here you should state your thesis and preview the key forms of proof you used to make your case.
  • Conclusions:
    What are the components of your proposal?  What are the implications of your proposal? Is it going to change the world (unlikely), be a significant "win", be a nice contribution to a discourse community, or simply serve as a road sign indicating that another path is a waste of time (all of the previous results are useful). Are your results general, potentially generalizable, or specific to a particular case?

 

Abstracts should grant a reader a good sense of whether what follows is a strong (or weak) project.


3) POST LINKS TO YOUR ABSTRACTS, DESCRIPTIVE OUTLINES, AND DRAFTS

 

Create a NEW PAGE containing your Abstracts, Descriptive outlines, and project Draft.  

Post a link to this NEW PAGE here in Response 14, (a.k.a. the Virtual Torture Chamber) where you will find your Peer Review Questions.

 

Partners for Peer Review will be Assigned in Class. 

 

 

 

 

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