Analyzing Rhetorical Situations

To explain to a friend what "rhetorical situation" and "rhetorical analysis” is, I would start with the basics and explain to them that they [rhetorical situation and rhetorical analysis] are the ways you phrase your writing. Rhetorical situation is the context of an event or situation that occurs in writing, while rhetorical analysis is the breakdown and overview of the specific event or writing. For example, rhetorical situation could be the way you would phrase messages or communications depending on your audience. For someone who is a professional, the writing needs to be more thought out and carefully worded to get your message across. For a friend, you do not need to be as specific or grammatically correct, especially if it is simply a text message or an email in which you are making plans.
When I write online, I usually relate more to the aspect of Pathos. I like having the ability to put my own thought, ideas, and emotion into what I am writing. Whether I am writing a paper for a class, blogging about my day, or sending a text message to my friends, I prefer to state my own opinion or idea. I want whoever is reading it to feel the same emotion that I am or at least to understand my feelings towards a particular topic. I like that Pathos does not necessarily need to be the hard facts but more of your own personal feelings and emotional response.

Kairos: A propitious moment for decision or action.

The right time and place to say or write something appropriate for that subject matter.

Concerns that arise with web blogging would be the negative connotation that can come from certain things becoming more publicized. Such as specific phrases that are written about someones life, job, family, ect. that are meant to be private and unseen by the majority of the public. I agree that our lives becoming more publicized can be damaging to future careers in life, but not everything posted is bad. My main concern that is a lot of people don’t care about what they post, and that they will continue posting things to capture the attention of the people so that they can have their moment of fame. If what they post is appropriate and uses Kairos then it’s fine and there would be no problems, but then when people post about inappropriate topics then it’s obvious that it is for attention and is clearly bad for their reputation.

Voyeurism is important because it allows us to have a certain type of reality to writing. It gives us gratification and makes us feel as if we are really there and gives the reader a better understanding of what the writer wants us to feel.

Questions:

What would the authors opinion be now seeing that blogging and flogging have taken over social media?
What would be considered to far when it comes to someones private/public life?
What makes people want to share their life on the internet for all to see?

At the start of this Q&A the Republican starts talking about how he met a little boy and talked with him and his family. While he was talking with this family they mentioned to him the lack of jobs and the loss of jobs in the country. The politician brought up the point that the unemployment rate had yet to be fixed and changed like promised by the President. The Republican uses logos to provide details about the unemployment rates not being lowered and fixed, and then he went on about the boy and his family to draw some emotion from everyone in the room creating an appeal of pathos. Throughout the video the politicians and other republicans continue to nag and ridicule the president at the lack of efforts it may appear he has put in to fix certain things in America. One man brings up the fact that Obama said he would do certain things; such as c-span and a line by line explanation about the health care plan. This shows the ethos appeal of credibility because it makes it look like the President can’t keep his word and shows a false loss of credibility. He replies that in fact he did keep his word in others ways, just not everything he said was possible and how not all of it was his fault. Most of the speakers spoke nicely but I was a tone that was condescending, thinking that a lot of the things President Obama has done were wrong and helpless to the nation.

The blog I chose to write about is called “Zoella” it’s written by a 24 year old woman from the UK named Zoe Sugg. She writes mostly about fashion, beauty, and life advice and is now about to release a book based loosely about her story. Zoella is not only a blog but also a vlog where Zoe posts videos about twice a week for all of her followers to watch. Most of them are funny challenges and beauty tutorials, while others talk about more serious matters such as body image, staying healthy, anxiety advice, and just casual talks that answer questions that viewers and readers of hers may have. She has won many awards for her blog/vlogs including 2 Teen Choice Awards: UK Favorite Vlogger and Choice Web Star- Fashion & Beauty. She has also won the Cosmopolitan Blog award in the ‘Best Established Beauty Blog’ category along with winning ‘Best Beauty Vlogger’ the following year. Her posts have been known to be inspiring yet witty and always enjoyable to read.

The ideal audience for the blog is mostly young girls ages 14 to around 30. The reason it is like this is because most of her posts are related to fashion and makeup, which relate mostly to young women with the exception of some men (just not as many). Zoe, as the author of these vlogs is only 24 herself so her writings and videos are projected to an audience closer to that age and slightly younger.

Many things that the community of followers value about Zoella is the fact that what she tells them is her honest opinion about subjects such as life advice, beauty products, and just talking to them as if all 5+ million of her followers are her closest friends. Zoella’s community of followers communicates back to her by tweeting, commenting below blogs and video posts, and sending letters in reply to what she has said to them. Most are gracious and thanking her for helping them through tough periods of time in their lives and others are questions asking for advice on things such as boys or school.

Zoe is very engaging with all of her readers, and you can tell she always tries to post things that are helpful to them. It’s easy for everyone to relate to her because she has gone through all the same things the readers have too while growing up. She maintains her audience by always having new topics to talk about and new products and tutorials to show us, the amount of effort she puts into her blog is enormous and time consuming and you as a reader can tell she puts her heart and soul into it!

Gee’s definition of literacy is basically a socially accepted term to describe ways of using language, thinking, or acting and identifying it as a social standing. He uses the word discourse to tell us that there are many different ways to describe and define literacy, some of these ways include social status, how we were raised, and what type of knowledge and beliefs we might have. He believes that literacy is acquired not by learning but from functional life-like situations.

This did change my understanding of literacy because I realized that there are different ways to interpret it. Literacy is not necessarily learned, but more so something that you pick up through life it is almost second nature. It is more than just the ability to read and write but also to understand the literary work as well.

Ong’s general argument for this paper is that there are many differences between oral and literate minds. He refers to a "linguist who had worked out an alphabetization of a previously unwritten language in the South Pacific and witnessed her difficulty in convincing the speakers of the language that she could write down their utterances.” These type of people and cultures do not believe that their language can be written down, only spoken. They however would be considered orality; cultures with no knowledge of writing, only the use of speech. On the other hand he talks about how cultures, like ours, have integrated technology more and more. We use "The new technology of writing” to broadcast our thoughts and what we are saying more often than not.

I was about five minutes away from finding out if I had made the team. All my hard work everyday this summer, and the excruciating 2 weeks of tryouts was finally about to pay off. Or not. I sat waiting for the list to get posted for the new 2010-2011 Richardson High School Eaglettes (our school’s dance team). As the minutes passed by all I could think about was what would happen, I was standing there next to my best friend Kat hoping that we would both make it, I couldn't think about what would happen if one of us didn’t. There was only one minute left till the list would be posted, everyone started to scream, the anticipation was killing me! 5, 4, 3, 2,…I HAD MADE IT!

Me? The girl who didn’t know how to dance 3 months ago? Me, the girl who couldn’t tell you what any term meant. Me? I had earned this, all I wanted was to be part of a team and I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. All of the hard work and countless hours at the studio practicing had actually paid off. In the moment all I could do was scream! Everyone around me was either screaming and crying and hugging each other or solemnly walking down the hill to leave. I panicked I couldn’t find Kat, I needed to know if she had made it or not. I started running around looking for her and I finally found her on the ground crying. In my head all I could think was “this can’t be good, she didn’t make it and I did.” I asked if she was okay and her response was “Yes! I can’t believe I made it, after no one supported me I made it, and now I can prove them wrong!” Instantly I hugged her telling her that I would always support her because that’s what best friends and teammates do for each other!

Flash forward to senior year of high school. I had now become captain of my team, with Kat still by my side as social officer. In just four years we had gone from being little freshman with no idea of what we were getting ourselves into, to two leaders on the team. This was going to be my year, I was the leader of this team and it was my responsibility to make it the best it could be. I knew I had my work cut out for me, we had just gotten a new director, basically half the team was new, and I had never been an officer before. It would be my year, but only if I could get through it.

The first football game was about to start which meant at half time we would have our first performance of the year. I knew the team was ready but we just needed everyone to pay attention so we could get through this game perfectly. With our eyes on the field watching the players performance, our own hearts were racing because we knew it was about to be time for ours. As I stepped on the field and blew my whistle for our march I could feel the joy and excitement of every girl as they walked on beat past me. Our parents were all cheering, the crowed was overwhelming, our time was now. The band started and so did we, kick after kick, head pop after head pop, my adrenaline was on fire! The performance was flawless and so was my team. We had done it our very first performance together with this new team and I couldn’t have been happier. I knew if we communicated well all year as a team we would be able to make this year great!

“Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited to along for, like absinthe.”

“We can have everything.” “No, we can’t.” “We can have the whole world.” “No, we can’t.” “We can go everywhere.” ’No, we can’t. It isn’t ours any more.”

“Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?”

I choose these quotes because they go along with key parts of the story. They describe how the woman is feeling and tell us her opinions about certain things. We can see her attitude towards the man when she doesn’t want him to talk any more about what they could have and it also shows how her answers are short and partially negative with him when he is trying to be optimistic. My opinion on Hemingway’s writing is that it is easy to understand and seems to flow easily throughout the story. His style is simple but it gets the story across to his reader.

My article is about dance knowledge and how motif writing is a tool for symbolism in dance. Dance can be written and when it is, the movements happen simultaneously as to what the body feels. Dance choreographers are like the base structure, and through the movements of the dancers and ideas that get explored the rest of the piece comes together. Dance provides structures that become visible to the watcher through a variety of symbolic meanings and movements.

This isn’t necessarily exactly what I am writing about in my paper, but it can help me add detail and describe the feelings and meaning behind what I am trying to get across in my story. This article is going to add more value to the paper because it will give the reader more insight to smaller details that weren’t in the paper before and that will make it more meaningful for both the readers and writers.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07303084.1998.10605590

Indeok Song, Robert Larose, Matthew S. Eastin, and Carolyn A. Lin.
Cyber Psychology & Behavior. August 2004, 7(4): 384-394. doi:10.
1089/cpb.2004.7.384.

Sydney Jones, and Susannah Fox, “Generations Online in 2009,” Pew Research
Center’s Internet & American Life Project, http://www.pewinternet.org
(November 14, 2014).

Cabral, Jaclyn. "Is Generation Y Addicted to Social Media." The Elon
Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications 2.1 (2011):
14. Print.

Mustonen, Piia. Social Media - A New Way to Success? Turku: Turun
Kauppakorkeakoulu, 2009. 49. Print.

Correa, Teresa. "Download PDFs." Who Interacts on the Web?: The Intersection of
Users' Personality and Social Media Use. 1 Mar. 2010. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563209001472>.

Quan-Haase, A., and A. L. Young. "Uses and Gratifications of Social Media: A
Comparison of Facebook and Instant Messaging." Bulletin of Science,
Technology & Society (2013): 350-61. Print.

Mesch, Gustavo S., Ilan Talmud, and Anabel Quan-Haase. "Instant Messaging Social
Networks: Individual, Relational, and Cultural Characteristics." Journal of Social
and Personal Relationships (2012). Print.