Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Revising your claims
To help you continue your revisions on your first two assignments, please revisit your revision work from last week. Post a few sentences from your first or second assignment that represents the main claim of your initial final draft. Then, include your revisions from last week and post your revised (or refined) main claim.
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This is the the main claim that I am making in my paper on ethics, "A rhetor’s ability to respect ethical boundaries inherent in the rhetoric of social justice has a profound effect on the rhetorical quality and persuasiveness of their argument." When I started revising, I didn't know really where to start. I like the focus of my main claim but I want to be more concise and hit the point more dead on. A couple points that I thought about and will try to include in this claim are:
ReplyDelete• The effect of their ethical appeals
• Rhetorical techniques affect the ethics
• What are the ethical boundaries?
o Maybe define the boundaries in the thesis to be more specific
I have not drafted a revised main claim yet, because I am struggling a little with how I want to present it.
I was not here last Thursday so I haven't started the revision process yet. I do know, however, that I definitely want to include my first essay in my final portfolio. My original main claim was: Kaufman’s commodious world is a world in which multiple truths exist, and rhetorical truth, or an understanding of the other, is the goal of communication. The film encourages a retreat from viewing the other as a threat, which allows individuals to achieve rhetorical truth. In order to refine my statement, Professor Bateman said that I had a better statement later in my paper that would work for my thesis. Thus I think my new revised claim should look something like this: In the commodious world of the film, rhetoric achieves rhetorical truth through the reduction of differences, rather than their eradication.
ReplyDeleteThe author as well as the subject must be validated before an argument can be made well. Once both are seen as respectable, the emotion instilled in the reader can be more authentic and enduring. This allows the reader to be connected to the piece and ready to hear the ideas put forth. At this point, the rhetor can describe the flaws in the alternative side and confirm their own
ReplyDeleteThe rhetor must establish credibility for themselves and their subject before they can authentically engage their readers’ emotions. Once this is done, they can then provide a critique of the issues and assumptions that allow for the injustice to persist.
Original Claim:
ReplyDeleteThe rhetoric of social justice creates a unique tone that, when prepared properly, prompts a unique visceral response from the audience. This tone is carefully composed of the dynamic interplay of kairos, appeals to pathos, and reference to commonplace ideas that harmonize into a multifaceted connection to the argument on an individual and universal level.
Revised Claim
The rhetoric of social justice creates a unique tone that prompts a visceral response from the audience. This tone, comprised of the interplay of several rhetorical techniques, forms a multifaceted connection to the argument on an individual and omnipresent level.
Writers and filmmakers use a common strategy to relate these issues of social justice to their audience- they humanize the issue. They focus on one individual story, learn the intimate details and then tell the story to the rest of the world with the hope that people will sympathize and think about the injustice at hand.
ReplyDeleteOriginal:
ReplyDeleteThroughout the Laramie Project, living and let living is examined in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s death. It slowly becomes abundantly clear that “live and let live” makes it impossible for one to acknowledge the Other; this breeds ignorance, which develops into fear, which rapidly can become anger, which easily evolves into hate
Revised:
Throughout the Laramie Project, the philosophy of “live and let live” is examined in the wake of Matthew Shepard’s death. It slowly becomes abundantly clear in the Laramie Project that “live and let live” made it impossible to acknowledge the different lifestyle that Matthew Shepard embraced as a young gay man. This lack of acknowledgment helps to breed ignorance, which develops into fear, which can quickly turn to anger, which can easily evolve into hate.
In my second essay, my main claim involved the statements"The appeal to pathos is powerful in the ways that a rhetor can use it to make their more general and logical ideals appeal to an audience. By using pathos, many modern writers are taking the terrible injustices that have occurred in the West’s history and using them to create a new narrative". I am going to expand on this idea and relate it to how rhetor's must first appeal to individual compassion and then expand that initial appeal to pathos into a more structured and concrete appeal to logos.
ReplyDeleteIn my first essay my analysis of the Laramie Project focused on "The Laramie Project was a film created to appeal to the different rhetorical constraints present in our society about homosexuality, and illustrate that despite your personal beliefs on different lifestyles, no person should be persecuted for being who they are. " my revisions are going to focus more on how persecution hurts the entire town and not just the victim.
From the draft that I turned in: However trivial my story is to the story presented in The Laramie Project, it is an event that many people have gone through that allows them to be open to the tragedy of Matthew Shepard and how important it is for the town of Laramie to be able to learn from it.
ReplyDeleteRevision: Even though my negative life experiences are not as powerful as the the story told in The Laramie Project it is the type of life experience that motivates people to come together during times of tragedy. Because we have all experienced something bad we are not scared of bad things, we are aware of what people are going through and what we can do to help them.
First Draft
ReplyDelete", realizing that hate does not have a place in this world and something needs to be done about that. " and "This tag that was now attached to Laramie angered many of the community members; they knew that this was not the case. The fact that it happened in their town offended them."
New Draft(ish):
The new tag of Laramie by the media misled the world. The Laramie Project seeks to show what the media ignored, clearing the newly implanted reputation"
The Draft:
ReplyDeleteSocial justice is a powerful tool of change, authors use rhetoric to enable their writing to form an emotional connection between members of a society by allowing their words to generate pathos, which in turn acts to reach out of the piece and pull the audience down to the level of the story in order to make them feel more involved. With the audience at this heightened emotional state the rhetor is then better able to use their words and stories to change opinions and inspire the ideas that are the driving components of social justice.
The Revision:
Social justice is a powerful tool of change, authors form emotional connections to readers by appealing to pathos and pulling the audience onto the front line of a story, taking away the passiveness of an audience and instead involving them on a deeply connected and personal level.
In my initial draft of my Laramie Project Essay, I chose to make the claim that: "the Laramie Project is extremely effective in persuading the audience of the importance of preventing the hatred of difference and also allowing the audience to create their own interpretations of the meaningfulness of the film". However, in revising this statement, I think I will be taking a less wordy way of stating this thought. I want to alter it to avoid confusion and ambiguity to: ...is very effective in being persuasive of the problems that hate crime cause in society and in communities by its authentic means of rhetoric".
ReplyDeleteInitial Claim:
ReplyDelete“When portraying the effects of the Matthew Shepard murder on the town of Laramie, writers examined the different religious influences present in the town and how they might have fostered or broken down notions and biases against the gay community in Laramie. Specifically, the film followed two religious leaders, a Catholic priest and a Protestant Reverend. Through their portrayal of the two leaders, writers of The Laramie Project argue that religion based in love is more attractive than outreach centered on hatred and fear.”
Revised Claim:
“The writers of The Laramie Project explore different religious influences present in the town of Laramie and how they might have affected the events surrounding Matthew Sheppard. The film specifically focuses on the power religious leaders yield, spending time examining the town’s Catholic priest and Protestant reverend. Through their portrayal of these religious figures, writers of The Laramie Project argue that religion based in love is more attractive and moral than religion centered on hatred and fear.”
First draft:
ReplyDelete"Whether people like it or not, religion is a majorly influential factor to cultural, political, societal interaction in the world. Somewhere within the fabrication of human nature is the need for explanation of life and death in general and before science began to put together the pieces of the universe, people turned to religion for guidance. Remaining deeply rooted within their variations of their religious beliefs, people interact; every interaction is affected by the individual religious beliefs."
Revision:
I am going to eliminate most of the above intro into my intro, and I want to change the focus to what religion actually teaches/wants its people to react to in certain ways, rather than how it makes people interact. I like my thesis, but my way of leading up to it, I think, detracts from the strength of my argument.
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ReplyDeleteFrom westward expansion, Japanese interment, and now immigration, the authors writing about these social justice issues utilize a personal an intimate application of pathos, if not to persuade the audience to act, at least rouse certain emotions to shift their thinking. This is fundamentally a true sign of change “for the existence of emotion makes the thinking that we call reasoning possible” (Kastely 229). Ultimately, the rhetoric of social justice resides in recognizing the wrongdoings of the past, working to prevent possible injustices in the future, while still allowing the audience to remain proud of ones national identity.
ReplyDeleteFrom westward expansion, Japanese interment, and now immigration, the authors writing about these social justice issues utilize a personal and intimate application of pathos, if not to persuade the audience to act, at least rouse certain emotions to shift their thinking. This is fundamentally a true sign of change “for the existence of emotion makes the thinking that we call reasoning possible” (Kastely 229). Pathos is essentially the main tool rhetors utilize in order to move the audience. Ultimately, the rhetoric of social justice resides in recognizing the wrongdoings of the past, working to prevent possible injustices in the future, while still allowing the audience to remain proud of ones national identity.