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 19th: Choosing Nominals

October 19th: Choosing Nominals

REVIEW #2 is due tonight by 11:00 pm. See Canvas for more details.

Plan for the Day

  • Submit REVIEW #2 on Canvas
  • Review Ch. 7
  • Prose Revision Assignment DUE Next Week–10/26
  • Nov. 2nd: In two weeks, you have Quiz #2

Ch. 7 Choosing Nominals

We’ve briefly covered appositives, and they’re great choices for efficiently adding information to your sentences. Try your best to combine shorter sentences by using appositives. For instance, notice the efficiency in the following revision:

  • Original: Dr. Grabchak is a specialist in probability theory. His expertise is internationally recognized. His PhD from Cornell University in New York is in statistics.
  • Revision: Dr. Grabchak, an internationally recognized scholar in probability theory, received his PhD in Statistics from Cornell University in New York.*
    *I don’t think you need to add “in New York” for a university as well-known as Cornell.

The revision is more efficient, but let’s think about it in terms of written vs spoken. How often do you speak in phrases you’d contain in dashes? Probably not a lot of times, but, when you do, you often speak quickly—adding the information rapidly for your audience. On the other hand, using parentheses makes the appositive seem to be more of an aside. How would you say the following sentences? Read them aloud.

  • Dr. Grabchak—an internationally recognized scholar in probability theory—received his PhD in Statistics from Cornell University.
  • Dr. Grabchak, an internationally recognized scholar in probability theory, received his PhD in Statistics from Cornell University.

It’s subtle, but there is a difference in delivery. Dashes are for signaling something quickly, and parentheses convey information in a muted fashion.

Below is the same situation as above. Check out the Group Discussion on page 112 for this sentence. I’ve highlight the revision to show the changes:

  • Original: The Lost Colony is an outdoor symphonic drama that tells the story of the British settlement on Roanoke Island. It has been performed in Manteo, North Carolina, every summer since 1937.
  • Revision: The Lost Colony, is an outdoor symphonic drama that tells the story of the British settlement on Roanoke Island, It has been performed in Manteo, North Carolina, every summer since 1937.

Interestingly, I used the “strikethrough” HTML command to show what I removed, and it looks like dashes. You could also write the sentence this way:

  • The Lost Colony—an outdoor symphonic drama that tells the story of the British settlement on Roanoke Island—has been performed in Manteo, North Carolina, every summer since 1937.

By the way, notice that the play’s title—as is the case for film, book, album, and TV show titles—is italicized. Barrett’s Perfect English Grammar has more information on formatting titles, but follow you style guide’s standards.

Colons and Dashes with Appositives

As I’ve mentioned before, I love using dashes. My dissertation director hounded me about using too many dashes, which she considered my overusing them, because she claimed I was taking the easy way out of considering higher-level punctuation strategies. I agree with her—but I love using them! Generally, the rhetorical effect of dashes is to emphasize an aside quickly and forcefully as opposed to using commas that would soften the phrase. Use them sparingly for better effect. The first example below uses dashes effectively, but the second example should use a colon instead:

  • Nicolas Cage—an actor more prolific than Kevin Bacon—is quite hated in New Orleans.
  • Various ethnic groups make up the unique flavor of New Orleans—people of French descent, whose lineages date back over 300 years; people of Caribbean descent, whose traditions make Cajun cuisine amazing; and Americans, whose laws forced different groups to coexist side by side.
    • Better choice: Various ethnic groups make up the unique flavor of New Orleans: people of French descent, whose lineages date back over 300 years; people of Caribbean descent, whose traditions make Cajun cuisine amazing; and Americans, whose laws forced different groups to coexist side by side.
    • Setting off a large amount of text with a dash isn’t effective—save them for shorter phrases and clauses!
    • Also, the above sentence isn’t the entire story of New Orleans, but I needed to conform to our expected series of three items. Is the sentence parallel? Why or why not?

Colons can be used to separate any independent clause, but you shouldn’t use them interchangeably with periods: use them to communicate “something’s about to come.” I use them to introduce long-ish quotations or long lists. For instance, here are examples from Video Games and American Culture:

  • Additionally, they use a rhetoric of fear tactic to attempt to signal to readers that even consuming a small percentage of violent media can harm audiences: “because so many people are exposed to violent media, the effect on society can be immense even if only a small percentage of viewers are affected by them. It takes only one or two affected students to wreak murderous havoc in a school.” (pp. 49-50)
  • Consider the following examples that valorize competition: sports, dating shows, and reality TV challenges. (p. 126)
  • Anecdotally, veteran students I have taught discuss playing video games (many hours in fact) as they transition from military to civilian life. This specific group highlights the nuance in taste for, specifically, violent video games: some love the immersive violence, others will not watch or play simulated violent entertainment, and others may watch simulated violence but avoid immersing themselves in violent video game worlds. (p. 127)

Some might consider my using “anecdotally” in the sentence above improper because there could be some confusion about what it modifies. For instance, does it mean that veteran students provided me anecdotes? Did veteran students provide these stories anecdotally? I’m actually talking directly to the reader and saying I have anecdotal evidence to share—evidence not gathered in any systematic, statistically sound way. How is the reader to know? Well, my sarcasm oozes throughout the book, so, if they don’t catch my talking to them in the above sentence, then I don’t know what to do. Our goal is to make things clear for the reader: that’s the overall goal of technical communication. No one dies reading “anecdotally” as correct or not. However, it does identify who’s a sophisticated reader or not. (See what I mean about sarcasm?)

The Sentence Appositive

This phrase is not a sentence; instead, it refers or renames the entire gist of the sentence. These are quite effective at the ends of paragraphs. Notice the chills you get from finishing a paragraph like the following:

  • My teaching, service, and research interests all culminate into a single, overarching focus—rhetoric.

Ok, maybe you didn’t get chills, but such a sentence as the final one in a paragraph should give the audience the idea that the writer privileges the discipline of rhetoric above all others. Or no discipline captures his interest more than rhetoric. You could also use a colon, but there’s something cool about using a dash to set off one word. I prefer to use colons to set off a series or a full independent clause.

Gerunds

Typically, -ing words signify the present progressive verb form: they refer to actions currently happening or ongoing (the present progressive tense). For instance, “I am running late” conveys you are late right now! A gerund, however, is a noun with -ing. Therefore, in the sentence “Running is my favorite activity,” “running” is the subject, a noun.

In this chapter, Kolln & Gray focus on gerund phrases. Gerunds are quite versatile and can “fill all the sentence positions usually occupied by noun phrases” (p. 116). These are different from participial phrases that are verbs (or verbals). The examples on p. 116 demonstrate the difference.

The following is sentence #8 from Exercise #26 (p. 119).

  • 8. The baby’s crying upset the rest of the rest of the passengers.

“The baby’s crying” is the gerund in the possessive case. Think about it. Many things a baby has could be annoying: The baby’s parents, The baby’s stroller, The baby’s toys…In this sentence, “crying” is a noun. Also, the ‘s shows possession and isn’t a contraction for “baby is.”

Consider the meaning changes in the following sentences:

  • The baby cried. It upset the rest of the passengers. (“cried” is the verb)
  • The crying baby upset the rest of the passengers. (“crying” modifies “baby” in this case, making it an adjective)
  • The baby, crying on the airplane, upset the rest of the passengers. (“crying on the airplane” is a participial phrase)

Nominal Clauses

Nominal clauses introduced by “that” are quite common, and the “that” may be removed usually. Other nominalizers include why, who, and what.

In the end, it is more important to know how to use nominals (and all the phrases and clauses we discuss) to vary your sentences and be more concise. Knowing the names of different types of phrases and clauses is helpful, but using them effectively is why we’re covering them.

Prose Revision Assignment

Your goal for this assignment (Due 10/26) is to make the prose more readable, more efficient. Just remember not to change the original meaning of the text. This won’t be a Portfolio Assignment that you revise–you get one shot at it. There are three paragraphs on the Assignments Page with specific instructions. Your goal is to make them more readable, more efficient. Just remember not to change the original meaning of the paragraph.

Use the efficiency techniques we’ve discussed this semester, but don’t change the intended meaning of the original text. Before you start revising, make sure you slow down and figure out what the original sentence means. These paragraphs have multiple sentences, so you have more context than if I had a series of unrelated individual sentences. Your revisions will have a variety of effective possibilities, but don’t change the intended meaning of the original. Pay close attention to cause and effect.

Next Week

Keep following the syllabus reading schedule. Read Ch. 8 in Rhetorical Grammar and Ch. 13, 14, & 15 in Perfect English Grammar. Remember, Perfect English Grammar is more of a supplemental text to help mainly with grammar rules and some style concerns. You do have to read it, but I won’t have many specific lessons from that book. Of course, it’s fair game for the Final Exam.

REVIEW #2 is due tonight by 11:00 pm.
Also, don’t forget that your Prose Revision Assignment is due next week (10/26).

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