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.

Day 7: Narrowing a Topic

I wanted to make a brief note on humor since we read Steve Martin last night.  Humor is powerful and it affects (learn the trick with that word here) the pathos of an argument.  Humor is persuasive.  People like funny things.  Sex sells, but so does a laugh.  

So, what makes something funny?  How can you too be a clever and persuasive funny human being?

Well, there are three theories about this...

The first theory about what makes something funny is incongruity theory.  Incongruity is when something is put up next to something else that doesn't naturally go together.  This is why this is funny:

Ducks are apparently the funniest animals because they're weird.  It's even more surprising to see a duck wearing a hat telling a joke.  It's incongruous.  It's strange.  So, it tickles our funny bone.

The second theory of humor is called superiority theory, and says that something is funny because the viewer is in a superior position.  This is why pies in the face or a slip on a banana peel is funny.  This theory is really interesting because it argues that laughter is a human response to survival.  When we laugh, we bare our teeth, like lions.  It shows that we are dominant.  So, it's not easy to stop laughing at the little guy, is it?

The third theory that attempts to explain why something is funny is called social anxiety theory.  This is almost the opposite of the previous theory.  Instead of being in control, here is where you think something's funny because you're in a vulnerable position.  This is the nervous chuckle...


This is actually related to things like gay jokes.  Some theorists think that people tease gays because they themselves are dealing with conflicted perspectives toward homosexuality.  So, think about your issues before you start to giggle.


***


So, it's important when you write to be very clear.  You need to make sure your topic is narrow and sound.  


"Art is good" isn't a very good thesis, for example.  It's too broad, especially for your papers.  Maybe "Pablo Picasso's blue period challenged the conventions of his previous movement" is a bit better, right?  So do that.  Take a clear and concise stance on your topic.  


One thing that helps me is to work through the five questions:

Who, What, Where, Why, and How?

Then, I know better what I'm arguing and can go from there.

Now, I'd like, for our daily activity to play my favorite game about taking stances on topics.  It's called Does it Suck?When I teach this class in a physical classroom, students stand up (you can stand if you want to :) ).  Then, I show each slide and they have to go to one side of the room.  One side of the room is: "It sucks."  The other side of the room is "It doesn't suck."  The reasoning is that it teaches people to take a stance on a topic when their audience is public (i.e. more than just Mr. B).

So, we're revising for cyberspace.  On your blogs, for each slide, simply write _______ sucks.  And follow it up with one explanatory sentence.


So, if this were the picture:





Personally, I'd write:


Pretzels suck.  Basically, pretzels are just burnt bread with salt on it to trick you into liking it.
And then the next one here... and so on.


Enjoy the game!

Grammar Review: 

The Oxford Comma:


This is a true story, but the names and numbers are changed.


Aunt Peggy died.  She was really rich, and in her will she left $1,000,000,000 to three guys.  She wrote it out in poor cursive like so:


"I hereby bequeath $1,000,000,000 to Bob, Tom and Zebediah."


Now, you'd expect each of the three inheritors to be able to take an even amount: $333,333,333.33.  But!  It was not so.  Because the Oxford comma was missing, ol' Tom and Zeb had to split half each receiving $250,000,000, while Bob got a whopping $500,000,000.  That's a big difference for just a little mark!


The Oxford comma, or the serial comma, is the last comma in a list.  Often, journalists leave it out of newspapers to save space, and fewer people are using the Oxford comma today, but it's still important in specific cases like this.  So, for this class, I'd like you to use it.  Other places may have you do otherwise, but at least now you know!


There's a great story about it on NPR here.


There's even a song about it--although not a great one--by a band called Vampire Weekend.  You can give it a listen here.

Your Daily Assignment:

Play Does it Suck on your site.

Read/Skim EID Ch 4 (pp. 84-108)

Finish your papers.  Final draft is due by Monday night, and I'll give you until midnight again to e-mail it to me.

Day 6: MLA

MLA formatting can be a little tricky for some people, but it doesn't have to be.  For your papers, you need to have at least two outside sources that will be MLA formatted.  You can get sources from the Clemson Library Website here:  http://www.clemson.edu/library
Click on Find Articles on the left, and then click on of the few databases that are in there.  If you're off-campus, you'll just need to put in your campus username and password.


LexisNexis is good for news.  It has magazines and even The New York Times (notice how titles are italicized, the titles of articles go in quotation marks).


The others, particularly Academic Search Premier, are good for more academic articles.  So, you should have no trouble finding sources.  If you're doing a Gatorade ad, for example, search for Gatorade in LexisNexis and get a quotation from some athlete about the product or something to that end.


Aside from sources, essentially, MLA formatting requires a few things, one inch margins all around and in-text Citations that look like this: "Blah blah blah" (Burns 30).   (Note Well: punctuation usually goes inside the quotation marks except when an in-text citation pushes it out like as in the previous example.)  Here is a little checklist I've developed for making sure that I have everything I need.


Always, if you don't know how to do something, you should grow more comfortable with Googling it.  In your future jobs, you need to be able to figure some things out on your own.  Be savvy.  Bosses like savvy.


The Purdue Online Writing Lab, or the OWL, is a great place online to reference MLA formatting.  You don't need to memorize it, you just need to be able to do it.  You're more than welcome to use online MLA formatting websites like Easy Bib, but they won't be able to do everything, and sometimes they even have mistakes that need to be fixed with a close eye.  MLA formatting isn't the most important thing in the world, but it is a chance to follow a very specific format. In your future jobs, there will be some form that you have to follow, that you won't love, but that you'll just have to learn to do.


Here you can find a good Powerpoint that goes over in-text citations that I've put together from lots of places.  The first few examples show quotation marks used incorrectly.  Seriously.  If it helps you, do air quotes when you read "Do Not Eat" on the silica package...

Remember, the FIRST DRAFT of visual rhetoric assignment--at least two pages but more is better for you--is DUE by tonight at midnight... the witching hour!  Good luck with the MLA stuff.  Of course, if you run into trouble, e-mail, but try to figure it out first.  There's also a good MLA section in your DK Handbook (that's really what that handbook is for as well as a grammar reference); also there's a good essay example in Envision in Depth as well; just look in the index for it.

Your Daily Assignment:

• Read "Writing is Easy."  You can download it here.
• Then, write briefly about how your writing process has been so far.  What's is like to write for you?  Where do you have to be?  What helps?  What's your process?  Kant had to have an apple in his desk to write because of the smell.  Of course writing isn't easy, but humor... now that's something worth writing about...
• Make sure your papers are MLA formatted if they aren't already!

Grammar Review:


Its vs. It's

This is not really complicated.  It's is a contraction for "it is."  Its is a possessive pronoun.  It doesn't have an apostrophe because its cousins, his and hers, don't either.  Look at this chart for a really comprehensive breakdown of the third person pronouns.

	Subject	Object	Possessive Adjective	Possessive Pronoun	Reflexive
masculine	He laughed.	I kissed him.	His leg hurts.	This house is his.	He can support himself.
feminine	She laughed.	I kissed her.	Her arm hurts.	This house is hers.	She can support herself.
neuter	It is a very nice house.	I have bought it.	Its yard is big.	That cage is its.[1]	It sells itself.

So, now that you know...


Which one is it?  Apostrophe or no apostrophe?


___ when pirates say, "Thank you."


That dog is sniffing ___ bottom.


That hermaphrodite loves ___ parents.


In case you're wondering about this class, ___ all going very well.






So, now you're never going to mix this one up again.






The Oatmeal also covers this one in this list...