Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies » November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms

November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms

Plan for the Day

  • The Copyediting Assignment is due Friday, 11/18, 11:00pm
    • I’m a little behind on Review #3 comments, so I’m giving you extra time for this
  • Ch. 11: The Writer’s Voice
  • Rhetorical Analysis Discussion—5183 students only
    • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals

Ch. 11: The Writer’s Voice

As I mentioned in the title of this page, “writer’s voice” is a nebulous term; it doesn’t have a concrete definition. However, many people (well, English professors) will say that they can “hear one’s voice” in writing. While most of that is tone and style assumptions, rhetoric is also a component. Rhetoric is a study onto itself, and we’ll only scratch the surface here. However, let’s consider voice for now. As an overview, consider a writer’s voice to be the writer’s fingerprint. There are linguists and mathematicians (Grabchak, Cao, and Zhang, 2018) who do quantitative analyses of writers’ works to determine whether or not a piece of writing is appropriately attributed to the correct author. We won’t be doing that kind of analysis, but I’ll just say analysts can find patterns in a person’s writing.

When we analyze the rhetoric of a particular, individual piece of writing, we aren’t really looking at voice–an overall writerly development–instead, we’re thinking about tone. But isn’t tone just for sound? Consider the following sentences with visual cues:

  • The dishes seem dirty.
  • THE DISHES ARE DIRTY!
  • Wow! Look how clean the dishes are.
    -vs-  
    • Wow…look how clean the dishes are.

Before getting into the fine details, consider these passages of prose and make a determination (I wrote that on purpose) in regard to (also on purpose) the writer’s voice:

Imagine a world without the following technologies: vaccines, sanitation, or democracy. Many would consider such a dangerous, uncomfortable, disenfranchised world undesirable. However, societies developed those technologies to promote health, provide clean water, or, in theory, develop a governing system not limited to heredity or “might makes right.” Vaccines and sanitation technologies obviously responded to the pressure of larger communities: disease spreads fast when people group themselves closely together under unsanitary conditions. Democracy or any governmental system responds to society’s needs to regulate the living conditions of the gregarious homo sapien [sapien] species. These are tools. They are not perfect, but they have solved many problems and provided greater human comforts. In Chapter 6, I discuss democracy and neoliberalism in detail, explaining how both—specifically their rhetoric—influence video game themes. Neither democracy nor neoliberalism are natural, autochthonous artifacts governing technological development. They are enmeshed with human cultural values.

Toscano, Aaron A. Video Games and American Culture: How Ideology Influences Virtual Worlds. Lexington Books, 2020: 19-20.

As a product of modernity and on the cusp of postmodernity, [Roland] Barthes identifies the absurdity of Western civilization granting science (and its byproduct, technology) as the sole truth making body. After all, scientists and engineers, employed by the state, used their objective selves to create an arms escalation that eventually culminated in creating the ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb. As a cultural critic and important cultural studies theorist, Barthes elevates sarcasm the way culture elevates scientific objectivity. Each can equally access the truth, but one—scientific objectivity—appears autochthonous while writers filter ideas through personal biases. However, because scientific discourse disseminates science often through writing, it is important to recognize that discourse communities influence how scientists communicate findings.

Toscano, Aaron A. Video Games and American Culture: How Ideology Influences Virtual Worlds. Lexington Books, 2020: 60.

And perhaps for next week…

There are some other ways to avoid or end rioting, but the strategies above are the main solutions. These solutions are exact and follow a formula, an algorithm. Unlike real world social unrest that stems from deep-seated social inequity, social unrest in Civilization is controlled without the need to address systemic problems. The video game’s virtual world adheres to all things being equal.

Toscano, Aaron A. Video Games and American Culture: How Ideology Influences Virtual Worlds. Lexington Books, 2020: 88.

Diction

For this topic, consider diction to be more than the correct meaning; it should also be the correct choice. The following words and phrases are out of context, but what connotations do they have? In what settings would you use (or not use) them? Are they age specific?

  • laziness
  • level of commitment
  • paradigm
  • action items
  • crucial
  • stuff
  • thingamajig
  • goal oriented
  • nebulous
  • innocuous
  • feign

An easy way to distinguish between “denotation” and “connotation” is to remember denotation refers to the dictionary definition of a word. Connotation refers to the ideas, values, attitudes, and allusions surrounding a word. WARNING: Be careful using a thesaurus to find alternative words. Even a plain word can have drastically different synonyms.

  • p. 174: Denotation is “the core meaning of a word…its essential sense.”
  • p. 174: Connotation is the “special sense, association, or overtone carried by the word.”
  • p. 175: “The words you choose are effective only when they are appropriate to the rhetorical situation, appropriate for the audience and purpose, and when they convey your message accurately and comfortably.”
  • p. 175: “when words are inappropriate, they set up communication barriers. As a writer you must learn to spot your own inappropriate words.”

Time permitting, let’s look at the opening for the law school personal statement on the bottom of p. 175. Why do Kolln & Gray think something is off about the piece? I’ve written and edited many personal statements. It’s a VERY good idea to have someone look over your personal statement because, even if you’re a superior writer, you probably don’t have extensive experience in this genre. One of the biggest problems–contrary to what the “personal” in the name might suggest–I see is that writers try to narrate their lives and insist on providing the exact steps they took to attain some knowledge or intellectual attribute. You want to create the impression that you’re the right candidate for admission, so your statement should get right to your reasons for wanting to continue with school and NOT your chronological steps in life. Time permitting, I’ll tell you about Voldemort’s personal statement.

Story: I once interviewed at a consulting firm where one of the managers spoke nearly entirely in clichés. “What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander” and “Want not waste not.” It was infuriating. I decided not to take their offer and stayed at the job I had. Then, three months later, I got laid off…the other job was already filled. I was infuriated. This was 21 years ago, and I still hold a grudge.

You don’t know what you got til it’s gone.

Metaphor

Think back to elementary school when you learned about similes and metaphors. Both are figurative comparisons that claim “something is something,” and the “sentence becomes metaphor when that equation is figurative rather than literal” (p. 178). Metaphors help explain complex situations using more common ideas or concepts. Similes are more poetic and make comparisons using like or as.

  • p. 177: “metaphor [is] the application of words from one sphere to another.”
  • p. 178: The Richard Larson passage uses an extended metaphor. Let’s consider all the words and phrases that carry the “map” metaphor. What do you see?

In your own words, are the following metaphors helpful? Why or Why not?

  • He’s an old flame.
  • He’s a few cards short of a deck.
  • Fees have gone up again.
  • The wind died down during the night.
  • We dug up the dirt on that sly fox.

If you haven’t gone here already, take a look at the extended metaphor from the Rhetoric of Fear page.

Extended Metaphor

Another technique you may find in a prose selection is “extended metaphor.” Just as metaphors make comparisons, this technique extends the metaphor over several sentences or paragraphs; it might even weave throughout an entire work like a book.

Below is a selection of prose from the second paragraph of Montagu & Matson’s “Preface” to The Dehumanization of Man. This sentence introduces an extended metaphor, which will weave through the rest of the paragraph. The authors metaphorically relate their study to an infrastructure. I’ve highlighted the street words:

The decision to stay off the common thoroughfares where possible, and to go instead through certain half-deserted streets, is of course partly expedient—it cuts down the mileage—but it is also a choice based on our sense of the imbalance of contemporary social analysis and commentary, with its preponderant (and wholly justified) attention to political derelictions and other clear and present dangers.


The Dehumanization of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983: xi) by Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson

They compare their study to the way we travel on roads; they will “stay off the common thoroughfares” and focus on the “half-deserted streets.” And, in the image of “half-deserted streets,” readers see the bleakness of the world. The streets are not full of life but abandoned, forgotten. The streets and thoroughfares not only reinforce that the authors’ study does not repeat what others have done (they are going down the road less traveled), but using streets and city imagery helps readers understand the subject by presenting it in light of a familiar topic; in this case, it is urban decay. They even explain the boundaries of their project, why they’ll focus on a particular area, through travel language: “mileage.”

The extended metaphor of streets continues in the next sentence:

Although we do not presume, like Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, to go boldly where no man has gone before, we have attempted to go where too few explorers have gone before; or where, in our opinion, they have not gone quite far enough or brought back sufficient hard evidence of the dangers and demons that lurk out there—beyond the circle of light, behind the cool facades and beneath the paved streets of the social order, in the widening cracks of civilization: at the modern heart of darkness.


The Dehumanization of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983: xi) by Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson

Streets are a metaphor for civilization and eventually link societal degradation to potholes as the “demons” and “dangers” of dehumanization lie “beneath the paved streets” and “in the widening cracks of civilization.” The cracks are like potholes—a common problem for roads and a major clue that a city is decaying—but they are also like the fissures created by earthquakes, ready to swallow humankind. The authors don’t state “human civilization decays the way streets decay and have potholes.” That would be a stupid, unartful sentence. By having the extended street metaphor in readers’ minds, our analysis can easily suggest the rhetorical effect is to compare dehumanization to the (possible) common neglect of cities, which was a definite issue in the early 1980s when the authors published this book.

*********************************************************

***This assignment is for ENGL 5183 students only***

The above discussion is an attempt to help you (5183 students) think about how you will analyze the rhetorical effect of the prose selection you’ve chosen. If we have time, I’ll ask you to review the paragraphs on this page Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals.

Metadiscourse

Kolln & Gray tell us “Metadiscourse refers to certain signals that help the reader understand the writer’s message–signals that clarify the purpose or direction of a particular passage, acting as guideposts for the reader” (p. 184). Most conjunctive adverbs (meanwhile, nonetheless, in fact, on the other hand, etc.) are writing about writing.

In technical communication, we commonly use “first,” “second,” and “next” as metadiscourse telling readers the order of steps and procedures. Look at pp. 184-185 and notice the difference between openers and hedges.

  • p. 184: “The use of probably and very possibly in sentence 3 is called hedging…”
  • p. 185: “Although you might think that using words like perhaps and probably would communicate doubt about the author’s authority and the reliability of the information, such hedges actually have the opposite effect on the reader.”
    • What do you think? What tone might hedging imply?

Next, go back and re-read the Thomas Kuhn paragraph in “For Group Discussion” on p. 186.

Code Gloss and Attributors

Here are a few attributors in my video game book:

  • “As mentioned above, the definitions of aggression and violence are not universally understood” (p. 52).
  • “As mentioned throughout the book, video games are cultural products, reflecting the culture from which they come (p. 113).
    • Are the commas appropriate or necessary?
  • “As mentioned before, values do not have to be universal in a society…” (p. 126)

This is the only code gloss example I could find, which is surprising…

  • “There is variation, but focusing on prevailing attitudes (for instance, the way Americans espouse the rhetoric of freedom) reveals strongly suggestive cultural patterns, suggesting what is more relevant for culture overall” (p. 64).

Point of View

This discussion should help draw your attention to point of view for your Review (#1, #2, & #3) revisions. We commonly use first person to describe ourselves (I, me, mine, we, us, our). We may use third person to conform to the assumed objectivity required of scientific contexts (the research, observations were made by the author, etc.).

But what about second person? Many of your reviews will be greatly improved by using a second person point of view. Instead of using first person, which comes across as you airing all your pet peeves, tell what you‘ll find, learn, enjoy, etc. For instance, notice the difference between the following:

  • I was greeted by a host I wouldn’t mind getting drinks with later–hottie AF! The wings I had were way too hot for my weak, sensitive palate.
  • Upon walking into the restaurant, you‘ll be greeted by one of the beautiful hosts, chiseled by Zeus himself. If you‘re adventurous, try the super spicy wings, but (you) be warned! You‘ll want a glass of ice water nearby.

Continuing today’s theme of “what does Dr. Toscano do in his writing,” I found my use of you:

  • “Throughout the game, CJ builds a bigger, faster, stronger character. One of the more annoying parts of the game is that you need to work out, eat at regular intervals, and even hold your breath to build muscle, maintain sex appeal—an actual stat in the game—and swim underwater longer” (p. 115).

A Note on Romantic

Many of you did restaurant reviews for one of your Review Assignments. It’s good to discuss the service, atmosphere, and, obviously, the food. One description of places that reoccurred was the setting/atmosphere as romantic; however, I never really got the sense the place was romantic. An aggressive anti-romantic, I will offer a standard for “romantic restaurants.* Check out the page I have for the Information Design and Digital Publishing class.

*Consider this sentence and its structure. What type of grammatical structure is the opening clause?

Rhetorical Analysis

Although the Rhetorical Analysis Assignment this assignment is for ENGL 5183 students only, the following reiterates some of Kolln & Gray’s points.

In order to highlight the discussion on writer’s voice, I want you to consider the difference is among the following passages:

  1. Ladies and gentleman, we at the Globe Theatre are pleased to present “Twelfth Night,” performed by the Royal Shakespeare Society.
  2. Dude, “12th Night”‘s at the Globe.
  3. It is an honor and privilege that we bestow upon thee a magnificent performance from the spectacular Royal Shakespeare Society, an acting troupe of world-renowned status.

What are the characteristics of formal, informal, and conversational tones in writing? In which contexts might the statements be appropriate or inappropriate?

Dominant Rhetorical Appeal

This is more for the ENGL 5183 students doing the Rhetorical Analysis Assignment, but it will help you make more sense of Kolln & Gray’s discussion of the rhetorical effects of grammatic choices.

Dominant rhetorical appeal: Consider the author’s intent for the selection of writing. An effective way to set up your introduction would be to explain the dominant rhetorical appeal of the piece. For instance, imagine you’re analyzing an application letter (not a good choice for this assignment, but it’s instructive). The dominant appeal will be of ethos; the author is convincing the audience they are the ideal candidate for a job. Their credentials, past experiences, attention to detail exhibited in a well-written letter, etc. will convince (or fail to convince) the audience that they are credible, having the necessary qualifications for employment.

Additionally, consider an environmental warning from a well-known scientist. Although the scientist’s credentials will be an appeal of ethos, the facts and logic used–appeals to logos–will or should be more dominant in order to convince readers of the environmental danger.

And another thing…consider a message from an organization like the ASPCA (first paragraph of “Breaking: Bad News for Slaughter-Bound Birds”). Obviously, their images are entirely used as emotional appeals (pathos) to invoke shame and sympathy in an audience, moving them to take action to protect animals. Of course, you’ll focus on the words in your rhetorical analyses. Although the ASPCA uses celebrity endorsements (ethos) along with facts and statistics (logos) about animal cruelty, it’s their emotional appeals (pathos) that really drive home their messages.

Next Class

Next week is Thanksgiving Break, so I have nothing planned for you. The week after will be the last readings we have for the semester: Ch. 12 in Rhetorical Grammar and Ch. 17 in Perfect English Grammar Ch. 17, and there’s no homework or quiz! After that, it’s Portfolios (Due 12/07) and the Final Exam (Due 12/12), which is cumulative. The ENGL 5183 students get a bonus assignment, so check out the details for your Rhetorical Analysis–including the 9-10 min presentation on this analysis.

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