102 Purpose and Appeals to Logos Professor Ramos Blog

102 Purpose and Appeals to Logos Analyzing Arguments Quick Write Imagine that you live in the time of Star Trek. You do not have to worry about making money to buy food or shelter. Everything you could ever want is now taken care of. What would you do now? What would you want to be? What would you decide to do with your time? Deliberately Target Your Purpose Thinking is always guided by purposes. Your purpose is whatever you try to accomplish; goals and objectives. Figure out what you are after and how you are seeking it. Does what you do match with what you want to accomplish? Examine personal goals, economic goals, academic, and social goals. Make a list of important goals and determine whether you find inconsistencies in them. Ask yourself, what am I trying to accomplish? Is this purpose realistic? Analyzing Arguments Chapter 5 in our textbook is about analyzing arguments. This is what we are doing with our rhetorical analysis. We are analyzing the argument that the text and the author are making. This is an important skill to learn to become a better critical thinker. We should not only be clear with our arguments, but have an understanding of how other people make arguments. Page 181 has a checklists for analyzing a text. Use these as guidelines to begin your analysis. Page 191 has a checklist for writing your analysis of an argument. Very helpful for the early stages of drafting. Rhetorical Appeals Ethos: Appeals to Ethics, Credibility or Character. Ethics, ethical, trustworthiness or reputation, style/tone. The credibility of the speaker persuades. Pathos: Appeals to Emotion. Emotional or imaginative impact, stories, values. Uses emotional response to persuade an audience. Logos: Appeals to logic. Persuade by reason and evidence. What is an Argument? Contradiction? Claims, reasons, and evidence. Argument – a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong. Logos Evidence, S.T.A.R. Sufficient Typical Acceptable Relevant Rhetorical Questions Signposts Transitions and connections Pre-buttals Anticipate objections and answering Rhetorical Situation A  rhetorical situation  is the context of a  rhetorical  act, made up (at a minimum) of a rhetor (a speaker or writer), an issue (or exigence), a medium (such as a speech or a written text), and an audience.  Source The Rhetorical Situation, or context for writing. The author has a purpose and is writing for an audience. They each affect one another. Author’s Purpose We previously talked about having a purpose for everything we do. Now we can see that purpose is also important when writing. Rhetoricians agree that all writing should begin first with a purpose. Author’s Purpose is the reason for the text. All good writing has a purpose. When we write anything, it can be for any number of reasons. When you read a story, try to figure out why the author wrote it. What motivated them to write it? What are they trying to achieve with it? What possible purpose can the author have? What purpose does the text have? To Entertain To Inform To Persuade These are the three main purposes a text can have, but these are not the only reasons. In college, we write to learn, to build knowledge, and to demonstrate learning. To Learn To Build Knowledge To Show learning When you are given an assignment, figure out what your purpose is. What is the text supposed to convey? Good writing is purposeful. You have to know what you want to accomplish before you can figure out how to accomplish it and if you accomplished it. We can also think about writing within a conversation. You can write to summarize a conversation in order to understand it. You can write to enter a conversation, or to add to an existing one. To understand To Enter a Conversation To Join a Conversation Quick Write What is our purpose in writing a rhetorical analysis? Why are we doing this? Rhetorical Analysis Notes What is the primary purpose of the text? To entertain, inform, persuade, demonstrate knowledge, something else? Consider the topic. What point does it make? Who is the primary audience? How well is it adapted to the audience? Consider the author. What is her aim? Consider the medium and design. What is the genre of the text? Consider the occasion. Why was it created? Media/Design. How does the medium affect the tone and organization? Let’s apply these questions in groups of two or three.