Rhetorical Research

2. Should We Have a Pond on Campus?

An engineering senior design group would like the campus community's opinion on whether or not to put a pond on campus. The project is handling the rainwater that falls on campus in a more natural way. The design team thinks that this could be a possible solution but would like input from members of the community. To give your input, see this short survey. - - - - -First argument about the parking issues. Need to figure out some solution for commuters before building a pond on campus

Wysocki-Lynch; Chapter 3

   In chapters 1 & 2,  we learned the basic steps for a rhetorical process, while in chapter 3 here we are looking farther into the details. As stated in the reading, "we consider the possibility of having conflicting purposes for communicating, or layers of purpose." They also encourage you to think through all the details that affect the communication choices we make.
   This reading comes at a good time, while we are in the middle of our major assignment, and thinking of a statement of purpose. They offer a few suggestions including collecting examples of literature to influence the age group and follow up by testing the effectiveness. Develop a statement of purpose and a design plan which could be a print out, video or game. Finally, choose a topic that you are passionate about. This will automatically increase the output of the project.
   One of my personal favorite topics of this paper is the second major point of of chapter three. They point out how arguing is a social activity. The point of arguing, they claim is to affect people somehow, through shaping their experience, influencing their attitudes, or inviting them to consider an issue with you. My friends and I, as i believe I have previously stated somewhere in this blog, grew up arguing. We argue about everything under the sun, no matter if it has anything to do with our own lives or not. Of all the people I know, no one gets as much as a kick out of arguing as we do. I don't know what it is, but there really is some kind of social tie. No matter what you are trying to convince the other side to change their opinion.
   Another interesting point is how communication is composed. When people are thinking rhetorically  is when posters, photographs, essays...all kinds of things are made. Each item is composed when the person is thinking about their work, in context for a certain audience, and a certain type of communication explicitly aimed at a particular audience.

Wysocki-Lynch

   This reading proved not to be too bad, compared to my judgement at first glance. It talks about variations of arguments. It can be two or more people going head to head with raised voices, or it could be a formal debate over a designated topic. There are two different types; formal & informal. Every one of us has used these throughout our years, formal mostly in school settings, and informal in social or home settings.
   I find the following information interesting. They chose 7 things that are important aspects of an argument:
       1. Need a specific purpose: carefully think what you are doing and why
       2. The audience: how are you going to direct your points to influence your specific audience
       3. Larger context: think about when and where you are holding the meeting
       4. Communication strategies: come after specific purpose, audience, and context. Key in making a difference
       5. Medium of communication: use best possible medium to get the point accross
       6. Arrange & combine communication strategies to build the most persuasive presentation
       7. Test your communication. Try presentation out beforehand to see the response

"Copying is a crime of ethics"

   I found the article written by Megan J. Forness, a Rochester, IL high school student quite interesting. In her piece, she clears up a lot of unanswered questions, or even parts of the whole copyright issue that we never fully understood, or realized we were missing in the past. As my post title says, copying truly is a crime of ethics. We could very easily take an entire paragraph or two off some internet source, and switch up 3 words throughout the whole thing, but is that really gratifying to so bluntly use another's work?
   The Copyright Act of 1976 is a legitimate federal law that, "promotes the Progress of Science and sueful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive rights to their respective Writings and Discoveries." With the massive growth of so many different types of media, copyright infringement issues are plentiful and happen often.
   As Forness so beneficially educates us, copyright is in any of the following types of media;
1. literary works
2. music
3. drama works, including music
4. choreography
5. pictoral and graphics
6. motion pictures
7. sound recordings
8. architecture

   You can, and are recommended to obtain a copyright notice, but after March 1, 1989, works published are all automatically protected under copyright.
   
   It really is an interesting issue, with so many ports of information, and soooo many users of all 8 versions, policing copyright infringement would be an extremely daunting task. I think one of the largest influences, as I experienced myself was elementary teachers pressing the issue the most. We grew up "cite, cite, citing" our papers, or any work we did that required using outside information. We were threatened with consequences I'm not so sure are really in effect, but nonetheless it became habit, and is now second nature.

Bitzer's Rhetorical Situation

     I've made my way through the majority of Bitzer's piece and I will admit I am struggling to departmentalize the different angles of rhetoric he is talking about.

     According to Bitzer, every rhetorical situation is made up of three parts;
            1. exigence: a defect, obstacle, something waiting to be done. In almost any sort of context, there will        be numerous exigences but not all are elements of a rhetorical situation are rhetorical exigences (natural disaster, death...)
            2. audience: to be constrained in decision and action
            3. constraints: influence the rhetoric and can be brought to bear upon the audience
      I sort of but don't really understand this article at all.
      I found one part particularly interesting because of how true it is. He states, "Each reader probably can recall a specific time and place when there was opportunity to speak on some urgent matter, and after the opportunity was gone he created in private thought the speech he should have uttered earlier in the situation."
      If that isn't true I don't know what is. From my own experience, no matter how much I prepared for a speech or presentation of any kind, I have left every single one feeling disappointed that I left out one of my "killer" points.

Post-William's Thoughts

   Following Tuesday's discussion about the William's reading I had a lot of thoughts, which usually happens after a long discussion or reading about modern technology. I don't know if I would blame it on my deep-rooted love of tradition or my inner hoarder, but some technological advances completely trip me up. Case in point; voting centers switching from paper ballots to electronic voting systems. First off, I hate the lack of a paper trail. Not only does it allow for the possibility that voting precincts will be tempted to commit fraud, but the whole reliance on technology alone makes me nervous. Systems go down, information gets lost, and machines get hacked on a regular basis. I understand this is more efficient, no need for recount, yada, yada, but I still believe we should have a backup in some version or another just to make sure. It may not be a feasible thought just because it would take so much time, with around 230,782,870 voters. (2008 presidential election). 

http://www.tcag.com/connect/consider-this/governance/electronic-voting

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php

ACCESS- -Blackmon

In his reading, Blackmon describes access with four key words that can help us define this term in Assignment #2;

     1. MATERIAL: physical ability
     2. COMPETENCE: know-how, understanding
     3. COMFORT: no anxiety
     4. CONFIDENCE: know you can accomplish

Assignment #2 DRAFT

“A high-speed internet connection is a modern lifeline to quality jobs, information, and vital services ranging from interactive telemedicine to high education”. (Broadband in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, 2011) This is one of the truest statements written about today’s day and age, and our strong reliance on being connected to the world via the internet. As I noted in my blog post a few weeks back, we can obtain access to the internet in almost every public place we go; Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, the local tire shop, Starbuck’s, etc. but there are still people in certain areas that cannot get internet in their own homes. One noted location is the Upper Peninsula, a gorgeous 16,452 square mile section of Michigan, that of which is approximately 1/3 of the state. (University, 2011) Much of this part does have the privilege of internet connection, but 20,229 are still without the luxury. (Broadband in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, 2011)

            An astounding amount of our everyday life revolves around access to the World Wide Web. We sign into our e-mail in the morning to check for any last minute work meetings planned for the day, submit assignments on class websites, pay tuition, and keep in touch with long distance friends and family. It’s hard to believe we are still facing the unbelievable challenge of enabling internet to anybody who wishes to purchase the service. Expanding access to broadband technology is the main focus of a recent program executed in the U.P. referred to as “Connect Michigan”. This program has instilled federal dollars to install the main infrastructure to outspread broadband connection to rural areas. Their next step is to push internet providers to bring their services to these new structures in more rural areas. This advancement would help a large amount of people in many, many counties throughout the Keweenaw. The majority of the counties in the area are in the high seventies to medium eighties in the availability of broadband service category. (Cole, 2012)  Houghton County has the highest household density at 13.63 and the percentage of households with broadband availability in this zone is only at 78.39%. With the amount of businesses, both small and large, homes, and schools including two colleges, this percentage needs to increase as soon as humanly possible. Connect Michigan is the ring leader behind all of the broadband mapping and laying out in the entire state, but in these past few years they have poured all of their focus into developing the U.P.

       The Upper Peninsula is filled with small towns and each small town has their fair share of small, local businesses. The largest town is in fact Marquette, with a population of 21,335 (Marquette) compared to the largest town in lower Michigan, Detroit, at a population of 713,777. 

Can't Get Enough

The season change up here is absolutely gorgeous! I grew up downstate & would travel up here multiple times a year, but had always ended up missed the autumn up here being that its only a couple weeks long. To say the least, we had been taking advantage of the beautiful weather & sights until the snow rolled through and chilled it right up.

Literacy & Computer Literacy- Kate Williams

At the beginning of the reading I was a big foggy as to what the major point they were trying to instill was. There were definitions being tossed around and some interesting points about computer literacy, such as the fact that every public library in the united states provides internet access to its patrons, and also shows them how to use the web. Also, according to Williams, "six of ten American homes" have internet but then again this was back in 2003. At this point in time, internet has reached almost every home. One of the big questions William's asks is, "As a nation, what are we teaching when we teach computers? Should we teach? What is computer literacy?"
       The authors from the report, Being Fluent with Information Technology discuss computer literacy and explain how literacy is a broad term and too "modest" of a goal. To be able to adapt to the frequent changes individuals need to learn the basic skills. From here, with every new change the ability to adapt is a lot easier then starting fresh.
       One of the points she made that I really connected to was how some technical computer skills and software types are not always interchangeable. She showcased engineers & lawyers. A lawyer isn't going to find use in a CAD design program, same as an engineer would find no benefit in having a legal database. I see this clearly in the internship I had the past two summers. There were about 15 college level interns throughout the company, and we each used very different computer programs. Every day I would fire up my Photoshop and Adobe Fireworks photo editing programs while Erik, a ME intern two doors down was building a different type of image on his CAD program, and Gavin, who was part of IT, a few desks down from Erik was tinkering away at his "Vipre" computer security program. If we switched computers none of us would know where to begin on each job-specific software program, but we could easily navigate the programs like Microsoft Word, Excel, and itunes that we have been using for years.

Blackmon's (Cyber)Conspiracy Theories

Within the first page I found some really interesting points in Blackmon's reading. One of her first big points is that the internet is complete with "cyber humans". A cyber human, as she described is a, "raceless, classless, sexless person in the virtual world." I find this completely false and unobtainable. She says that in order to achieve this status students need to become raceless in the real-world. They must ignore things that conflict with their real-world race. This is, quite simply, absurd to try and comprehend. We can ignore our individual race, but we can never ever become "raceless". 

   Some of her points make sense, especially when she speaks at the beginning of how important computers and access to the web are in this day and time. It's true, the availability of this technology is not only important in terms of future education, but also for future employment. A huge negative for a candidate would be the inability to make way on the internet, and with basic technology. 

   I just think it's a bit excessive how much she talks about African American's being misrepresented on the internet. I understand that many may not have access at home, but there are public libraries in every single city, as well as connection at schools. Because there may be more whites in a certain area then blacks, doesn't mean the ratio isn't similar. There is a huge amount of whites without connection in their own homes. Many of these kids don't get the latest laptop, cell phone, or tablet, just the same as other less fortunate races. Sure, some do but there are quite a bit that are just floating along in the "average" column. Going to their local library an evening here and there to get online, or using their time at school. 

   In my own home growing up, we were far from trendsetters in the technology area. We had dial-up connection that was so impossibly slow that my mom was the only one with e-mail because it couldn't handle more than that. I remember my first Juno e-mail account, then AOL, Yahoo, and finally Hotmail. My parents have yet to graduate to Wi-Fi, so back at home, there they are with one computer and 10 internet hungry users antsy for their turn to tune in.