Day 12: Digital Rhetorics.

Happy Friday the 13th!


So, as we think about what rhetoric is, and what it does, we need to think beyond writing with text alone.  We make arguments with all kinds of media.  We've looked at print ads, cartoons, videos, magazines, and more.  Today, I'd like to talk about digital rhetorics a bit.

Mainly, I'd like to look at web design and how it can be very rhetorical.  Just as the design of an argument is very important for making your case, the design of a website is also important for being persuasive when your audience isn't right in front of you.  And sometimes websites can really suck, and sometimes they're amazingly attractive.  So, here are a few from each category.


So, it's more fun to start with the bad.  There's a website called http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ that seeks out notoriously bad websites.  Here's a few of my favorite from that collection.  I won't post screenshots since you just need to experience them for yourself.  Try to figure out what the sites are trying to communicate!


Bad Design:


http://www.dokimos.org/ajff/


http://yvettesbridalformal.com/


http://www.georgehutchins.com/


http://anselme.homestead.com/AFPHAITI.html


All right.  Funny.  But there's a lot of great web design out there.  Google.com has all that clean whitespace, and a lot of functionality.  You may not have thought about the way Facebook looks before you log in, but that blue color is becoming a common one in well designed sites.  The website for the Whitehouse, whitehouse.gov, is wonderfully designed.  It's amazing, really.  But, it's interesting that the government site is presenting itself as a news source.  I mean, how can we trust that?

Let's see, think about the design of other good sites: youtube.com, yahoo.com, msn.com, or even mcdonalds.com.  McDonald's is frighteningly good at design.

So, now you look for some sites yourself!  I'm sure you'll discover something interesting.


Grammar Review:


Active Verbs:


How many of you as you're writing have gotten the green squiggly line from Microsoft Word telling you that you've written a sentence in the passive voice, and that you've been very naughty for doing that?


Most of us.  Unless your the type that doesn't write with the grammar checker on, then you're just plain nuts.  But what about that green squiggly line?  Why is the passive so bad?


Well, to explain, I'd like for you to stand up and jump up and down for a minute.  Just do it for a second.  Come on; it gets blood going to your brain and makes you smarter.


All right. Good.


Now, to talk about active voice versus passive voice, I want you to think about a sentence where you are the subject and the floor is the object.  Something like this:


Mr. B was jumping on the floor.


Fine.  Wonderful.


Now what if we rewrote it and made the floor the subject?  Like so:


The floor was being jumped on by Mr. B.


So what?  What's the difference?  The active verb has the subject doing the action.  The passive verb has the subject of the sentence receiving the action.  Simple.


So, why does Microsoft Word get on your case about this one?  Well, usually, the active voice is better; it's more direct and, well, more active.


But sometimes you need the passive.  Just don't use it all the time.  You might need the passive if you don't know who did the action, like in this sentence:


The cute, little puppy was killed.


Science writing also uses the passive to take out the human factor (they don't actually take out the humans, they just make it seem like the humans aren't there... see, science is very rhetorical...).


The beaker was placed on the burner for one hour at 100 degrees Celsius.


Got it?  Good.




Note:  No little puppies were harmed in the making of this blog post.




Your Daily Assignment:


Find a website that sucks and one that looks good.  Get a screen capture of them (If you don't know how to do that, Google how to get a screen capture...), post them to your blog, and briefly explain why they suck or don't suck.  Remember our little game?


Read EID,  Read EID, “"America's Toughest Sherif' Takes on Immigration” p. 539 or online (you can even listen to it!) at NPR.org (a website that doesn't suck).  Come on.  It's a few measly pages!


Have a lovely weekend!

Day 11: Cover Stories

Okay, so we were supposed to talk about incorporating quotations based on that powerpoint I gave you from last week, but we already covered that because we're awesome.  But we can practice it.  Now, you guys all have books to quote from and germinating research paper ideas.

Now, some of you have already worked with magazines, but not quite this way.  I'd like for you to look at a magazine cover and incorporate some quotations from the corresponding cover story.  


So, if i were to write about the magazine cover below, I'd talk about the nice use of white space, and the reference to the sacred heart (shown below...), and the connection between technology and religion, and the simplicity of the sentence, "Pray."  Then, I'd include some quotation, maybe from Steve Jobs if there is one, in my discussion, and what Wired really thinks of Apple in this issue.  Not too bad.  Now, you try it.

Grammar Review: 

So, we've talked about fragments and run-ons by looking for subjects and verbs.  A comma splice can be explained in those same terms.

Comma splices sound really foreign, but they're simply when you forget to add the conjunction to hold your two sentences together.  A conjunction can't hold two independent clauses together on its own, and neither can a comma.  They've got to work together or transform into a semicolon.

So, this is wrong:

The ninjas fought bravely together after the war, the pirates were lazy slackers.

We can correct this comma splice simply by adding a conjunction:

The ninjas fought bravely together after the war, but the pirates were lazy slackers.

Your Daily Assignment:

Get a magazine, any magazine.  Look at the visual rhetoric used on the cover of the magazine and then read the cover story that corresponds to that image on the cover.  Write a paragraph about how the two texts relate, visual and the literate.  Incorporate two quotations from the cover story as you talk about the cover image.  Add the MLA works cited entry for your magazine article at the end of your paragraph.

Day 10: The Adventuresome Library Scavenger Hunt...

Today, I'm sending you out.

It's crazy, but many students get to my class, and they've never been to the library on campus to get an actual book...

So, today, you're going to get an actual, real, made-of-paper book.

Physical books are the same as digital books (only heavier).  But there's just something about doing it the old way.  There's something valuable about moving your body and getting that into your writing.

So, go get a book today (actually, you need to get two) that might be good resources for your upcoming research paper.  If you're still unsure about a topic, you can just look for a book on visual rhetoric, anything that you might pull a quotation from.  But, go research!

If you're not in Clemson, go to your local library.

If you're on a beach vacation with your family and can't get to a library, then you fail...

not really, but as a last resort, you can use Google Books, which is actually a really handy resource.

Just post the MLA works cited entries for your two books on your blog and a sentence or two about how they might be helpful.  So, go!  Venture forth!  Discover knowledge!



Grammar Review: 

Ah, the if/then conundrum...

Any time you have an "if," there should probably be a comma and a "then."

If you give me fifty dollars, then that would be considered bribing your teacher.


If you go to school, then you might get smarter.

See?  People forget that comma all the time though, and that is sad because commas don't like to be left out, just like most people.

Lots of times we'll just drop the "then," but we still need that comma.

If you dump your girlfriend, you'll need to find a new one.

So, there you are!  If ---, then ---.


Your Daily Assignment:

Go get your two books!  Post the works cited entries for them in MLA formatting on your blogs!  Have an adventure along the way!

Day 9: Freewrites

So, you're done with your first papers!  That's wonderful!  I should have them back to you within a week, give or take.


Now, we continue on with the next paper ideas, which I'd like to talk a bit more about.  You began thinking about topics by mindmapping, and that's a fine way of brainstorming.


However, another good tactic for coming up with ideas--ideas of any kind--is to just write about them.  Writing is a way to argue, but it's also a way of thinking, of getting your ideas out on paper (or on the screen).


Freewriting sessions aren't pretty, just like brainstorming sessions aren't pretty, but they can be really productive.  


Now, you've got a longer paper to write, and it's got to have an amazing topic.  Boring topics don't earn A's, so you need to discover a really fantastic topic to ace this next paper (and pretty much any paper you ever write).


So, how are you going to come up with a good topic?  It takes some time, and a little sitting down to work things through, just like with any project that you want to do well with.


So, today I'd like you to freewrite.  Explore possible topics and write about what needs to happen to write about those topics successfully.  What moves can you make in your next essay that will make my jaw drop?  Take some time and think it out, then tomorrow, we'll move toward getting it done.

And there are a few ideas, or genres of ideas, that I'd like for all of you to stay away from.


Abortion.  Abortion is a really overdone topic.  I've read many papers on it, and the arguments are always the same.  There's nothing interesting about reading the same argument over and over again.  The problem with the pro-life and pro-choice arguments is that they haven't reached stasis.  They're talking at cross-purposes.  Stasis is a Greek rhetorical term that we didn't cover in the beginning, but it's important.  It is the Latin word for "stand," and refers, in rhetoric, to the point at which two opposing arguments come to a standstill.


With the abortion issue, both parties are speaking at cross-purposes, not the same points, and cannot reach stasis.  The Pro-choice folks say that a woman has the right over her own body, not the government.  The Pro-life folks say that a baby has the right to life.  These are two different points.  To reach stasis, either a woman has the right over her own body, or she does not.  Or, a fetus has the right to life, or it does not.  


So, find your own unique argument.  Write about the use of beanies in advertisements, or how frowns are strangely persuasive.






Whatever you do, think about some strange, wonderful, interesting, persuasive topic that will just astound me and earn yourself a big, beautiful A!

Grammar Review:


Dangling Modifiers:





Dangling modifiers are hilarious. They are wrong, but they're often funny.  Simply, they're when a phrase is modifying the wrong thing.


Dangling, or misplaced, modifiers are how Groucho Marx can make a joke like this:

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."   –Groucho Marx

The misplaced modifier is "in my pajamas."  The closest noun is elephant, so it modifies elephant.  But, of course, that isn't what we'd normally mean to say.


So, here's another example:


Walking down Main Street, the trees were beautiful.


The phrase, "Walking down Main Street," is modifying the nearest noun, which is the subject of the sentence, "the trees."  But, we know that trees don't walk, though it's funny to think about.


How would you fix this sentence to make it correct?


This problem in our language also involves the incorrect use of hopefully, which means full of hope.  So, the sentence: "Hopefully, the sun will be shining tomorrow" is grammatically incorrect because the sun can't hope...

So, how would you fix these misplaced modifiers?

I saw the trailer peeking through the window.


Having finished the assignment, the TV was turned on.


Climbing up the wall, my mother admired the green ivy on the house.




Your Daily Assignment:


***On your blogs, force yourself to write about potential ideas by freewriting for 5 minutes straight for your next paper.  (You can use the online stopwatch to time yourself, or your other favorite method for keeping time... i.e. the sundial?)

Day 8: Mindmapping

So, your final drafts are due tonight by midnight, and it looks as though many of you are on the right track so far with your rough drafts!

Today, I'd like to touch on mindmapping as a good source of idea generation, and also a way of thinking through the organization of your paper.Your books talk about it but you can do it all sorts of different ways.  You can sketch out a map:

You can use online software like Bubbl.us:

Or, you can use my favorite approach, post-its:

Any way that you decide to get your ideas out and find new ones, have fun with it.  

I know that your syllabus says that we're having a test.  I've decided against it.  The things I normally test for are closed book, and we often memorize Aristotle's definition of rhetoric.  I can't do those things virtually (though you might want to memorize that definition for your own benefit!).  So, you'll get those points. All of you are working really hard, and I appreciate you keeping up with me.  

But...

I do want to give you your next major assignment.  You've got a while on it, but I want you to have maximum amounts of time to work on it...  So, here it is!

Research Argument Assignment

This assignment requires you to broaden the topic from one visual text to the larger cultural, social, or political issues raised by the visual in order to bring in research sources.  This assignment emphasizes research skills, including library sources, interviews, and other forms of academic inquiry.  So, you need to find at least 4 written sources that from a book, magazine, journal, or newspaper article.  In order to look at an issue in context of several perspectives, you’ll also need to discuss at least 4 forms of nonwritten rhetoric for this paper, bringing the assignment to 8 sources total, and you must disagree with at least one of your rhetorical examples.  The nonwritten forms might be an image, a video, or a song.  This time, I want you to stay away from Google searches and try to use the library a bit more.  So, no general websites (though a newspaper article online from something like LexisNexis works).  Also, I’d like you to push yourself to make your writing more formal in this paper, so do not use ‘you’ (though ‘I’ is okay).  Your argument should be constructed using both writing and images.  Using readings from Envision in Depth and your own library and field research, make an argument that offers a new perspective on the topic at hand. 

MLA format, minimum 1700 words.

First draft due: July 23

Final draft due: July 25

Grammar Review:

How about prepositions???

 Your Daily Assignment:

***Post some kind of mindmap for a potential idea for your next big paper on your blog.