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 » October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals

October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals

Remember, Homework #4 is due tonight (10/12) before 11:00pm.

  • Next Week: Review #2–check out the Assignments Page for more details

Ch. 6: Choosing Adjectivals

The Midterm Exam is graded and the answers available. Remember, your Final Exam will mainly be on material from this point forward, but the entire semester’s content is fair game. {I definitely won’t require you to label sentence patterns like you did in Ch. 2.} I will submit midterm grades based on your work up to this point of the semester, so, if you have below 70% (a C), you will get a midterm grade. Canvas should have your grade up to this point.

Determiners

Kolln & Gray tell us that determiners are a type of “preheadword modifier” and are “the noun signaler that occupies the opening position in a noun phrase” (p. 92). Determiners include the following: articles (a, an, the), possessives, numbers, and words identifying–determining–which particular person, place, or thing needs to be identified. Although there are many determiners, the following underlined and bolded ones are pretty common:

  • A rule to follow while driving is not to use your cell phone.
    • “A” is an indefinite article and identifies one of millions of possible driving rules {Yes, there are tons of driving rules people don’t follow…}.
    • “Your” is the second-person possessive pronoun that identifies the specific cell phone.
  • Dr. Toscano’s cats were well-behaved and adorable.
    • Of course, all cats are adorable (not all are well behaved, though), but this sentence refers to “Dr. Toscano’s” cats and not other cats. Notice this is past tense, which is very sad.
  • That job I had at Chili’s taught me how hard (and thankless) being a server is.
    •  Which job? Not this one but that one. “That” is a determiner for job. Notice I could use the first-person possessive pronoun “my” in its place: “My job at Chili’s…”
    • “A” the indefinite article conveys to readers that I refer to many types of servers in all different types of restaurants.

On pages 94-95, Kolln & Gray refer to “modifier noun proliferation,” which I usually call noun stacks. Sometimes you can’t avoid them, but limiting their use will make your prose flow better. Having noun stacks makes your sentences noun driven as opposed to verb driven. Consider the revision suggestion for your future Suburbanization Prose Revision assignment:

Moreover, suburban area population growth has occurred while city populations have declined,

  • suburban area population growth is the noun stack, and it sounds clunky and robotic.
  • One solution was this revision: Moreover, suburban populations grew while city populations declined,
    • Notice how the sentence’s subject “suburban populations” is closer to the verb “grew.”
    • Be on the lookout for nominalizations that trap perfectly good verbs. In the above sentence, “growth” traps the verb “grew”.

By the way, Kolln used “noun stacks” in early editions of Rhetorical Grammar.

Prepositional phrases

In this chapter, Kolln & Gray focus on prepositional phrases as adjectivals, which modify nouns. These are the most common modifiers (p. 95). Notice what the underlined prepositional phrases modify:

  • The man in the high castle published revolutionary literature.
    Which man? The one in the high castle.
  • The coffee in the faculty lounge tends to get stale and bitter by 5 pm.
    The coffee at Peet’s? No. The coffee at Starbucks? No. The coffee in the faculty lounge.

Use prepositional phrases (and determiners) to make your sentences more concise, but avoid using them to lengthen your sentences unnecessarily. Which sentence flows better…and why?

  • The car I owned at the age of sixteen got me from home to school to houses of my friends reliably during the school year.
  • During my junior year of high school, my reliable car got me from school to home and to my friends’ houses.

First, what is this sentence trying to say? I had a reliable car in high school (thanks mom and dad!). Identify the prepositional phrases:

  • at the age
  • of sixteen
  • from home
  • to school
  • to houses
  • of my friends

Notice I didn’t include “age” in my revision because one is generally 16 their junior year of high school. I also dropped “during the school year” because other information reveals that I used the car during the school year.

Please note, in the above sentence “during the school year” is actually an adverbial prepositional phrase, modifying the verb “got”. The adverb “reliably” is a good clue that “during the school year” also modifies the verb “got.” Perhaps “transported” is a more sophisticated choice than “got.”

Participial Phrases

I think these phrases, conveying sophisticated language use, distinguish excellent writers from simply good writers. Remember, you have adverbial participial phrases, which modify verbs; and you have adjectival participial phrases, which modify nouns.

  • Adverbial participial phrase: Waiting for the bus, the students got wet from the rain.
    • Adverbials often answer where, when, why, how often, and in what manner.
  • Adjectival participial phrase: The students waiting for the bus got wet from the rain.
    • Adjectivals often answer which one, what type, how big or small, etc. They distinguish nouns. Which students in the above sentence got wet? The ones waiting for the bus (as I drove by them in my car–Ha!).

In the intro to this section, why did I use a semicolon to join two independent clauses if I also used the coordinating conjunction “and”. Don’t we usually use commas with for, and, nor, but, or, yet, & so?

Relative Clauses

As Kolln & Gray point out, a relative clause is “a structure with a subject and a predicate…[,] enabl[ing] the writer to embed a complete subject-predicate idea into a noun phrase” (p. 101). The relative pronouns–that, who, and which–begin these clauses, so you can easily identify that type. Relative clauses may also begin with relative adverbs, and the common ones are where, when, and why.

We could probably spend days on relative clauses, but I’d rather focus your attention to common usage for that, which, who, and whom.

  • Use “that” to begin restrictive relative clauses. These won’t be set off by commas and cannot be deleted without change the sentence’s meaning or confusing readers.
  • Use “which” to begin nonrestrictive relative clauses. These should be set off by commas, and removing them won’t change the meaning of the sentence.
  • It is generally expected to use “who” for restrictive relative clauses referring to a person. However, you may likely be able to drop “that” or “who” in these clauses without changing the meaning and, most likely, improving concision.

Punctuation

Please review punctuation for phrases and clauses the chapter refers to. Pay particular attention to how you punctuate restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. As a general rule, if you can remove the phrase without changing the sentence’s meaning–often when commenting, making asides,* or adding extra information–you enclose the phrase in commas.
*I prefer to use parentheses to enclose asides.

  • People often congratulate others on buying homes (as if 30 years of being in debt is something to celebrate).
  • What rhetorical effect do parenthetical asides convey? (I’m NEVER guilty of this…)
    • Sarcasm? (Ha! Unlikely…)
    • Bombast?
    • Repetition?

Ch. 6 Exercises

Of course, you’ll be turning in Exercises #21, #22, and #23, but try to do all the exercises in these chapters. Homework #4 is the last time you’ll be turning in these chapter exercises, but continue to do them for future chapters in order to reinforce what you’re reading.

Next Class

Don’t forget to turn in Homework #4 tonight by 11:00pm. Next week, you’ll have Review #2 to turn in on Canvas. Check the Assignments Page for more details. Review #2 is similar to the first, but it’s shorter (600-750 words) because I’m expecting more efficient prose. Also, you must choose a different topic for your review (don’t review the same film or book), and I hope you branch out and choose a different medium (film, book, video game, etc.).

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