Chris Cox Reading Response

Rhetorical situation, while sometimes overlooked, is an important factor when writing. Rhetorical situation is the way by which we approach our writings to best fulfill the expectations of the reader. Rhetorical situation is used more than you think, in fact we often analyze our rhetorical situation unconsciously when communicating informally. The rhetorical situation involves four key elements, including writer, reader, text, and medium. Using these four elements, we can appropriately construct our writings and effectively communicate to the reader. More difficult writings, often seen in college settings, require rhetorical analysis. Rhetorical analysis is used to go over your rhetorical situation in-depth, making sure that you have correctly established the four key elements. Asking yourself what your role is as a writer, your purpose, and checking your content with rhetorical analysis can make or break your writings.

While todays form of communication is changing constantly with the internet, online writers still use Aristotle's three appeals regularly. The three appeals are logos, pathos, and ethos, and may impact online or offline communication differently. Logos is the appeal to reason, pathos is the appeal to emotion and belief, and ethos is the appeal to the credibility of the speaker or writer. While all three appeals can be utilized online, I believe that logos can be appealed to the most. Logos, persuading by the use of reasoning, is all over the web and is used to logically provide information. With access to the web available to everyone, ethos is dangerous due to the possibility of anyone claiming to be somebody else. While pathos is also commonly used by connecting the readers through emotion and values, I believe logos is the most effective and foolproof way of communicating online.

Kairos is a Greek term which has to do with time, specifically the "right" or opportune moment in time. Aaron Hess, in his article "Critical-Rhetorical Ethnography: Rethinking the Place and Process of Rhetoric", views kairos dictates that what is said must be said at the right time.
I believe that there are too many blogs online now that lack content. People may create a blog just to sell one product, or just to generate ad income. These blogs litter the internet and should be a modern concern.
Voyeurism is important in helping us understand reading or writing in a way of opening our minds, allowing us to know whatever we want because it's the publics right to know. Three social forces in particular, "truth", "reality", and "moment of reckoning" all promote mediated voyeurism.


Questions:
1. Is voyeurism more important on blogs or on television?
2. Is Kairos that important when writing a web blog?
3. Are blogs becoming safer or not?

I chose the blog Evening Sends for my paper. The blog is written by Andrew Bisharat, the senior editor of the well known outdoors/climbing magazine Rock and Ice. Evening Sends is a blog that shares climbing stories and also explores some climbing techniques. The blog presents itself in a laid-back manner, and would be something you read in your free time or at night (hence the title, Evening Sends). One of the recent articles is about the first ascent of Niagara Falls performed by ice climber Will Gadd. The blog explores the stunt and how it was performed. Bisharat stated in the blog post, "Apparently, his ascent required a lot of planning and logistics to get the permission required to achieve his “stunt,” as a local television station accurately described it."

The ideal audience for Evening Sends may vary in age, but for the most part appeals to young or middle aged readers who have a passion for climbing and the outdoors. Both male and female readers may enjoy the blog as well. The blog posts have a story-like structure, which requires more time to read than a quick sit down. The audience is choosing to have a read where they can sit back, relax, enjoy and relate to the articles.

The audience for Evening Sends has a few options for communication. First and foremost, each blog post has a comment section at the end of the post. Readers can comment and respond to each other and discuss the article. The blog also has links to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter on the side of the home page. The readers all share a deep passion for climbing, aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, and all know a thing or two about the outdoors.

This blog works with its audience by providing long-form journalism specializing in the climbing world and stories within it. The blog contains features that teach readers climbing techniques and recommends gear, but is mainly a blog for sharing climbing stories. The author, Andrew Bisharat, is active in the comments which creates a close community feel throughout the site. To keep the readers connected, they can sign up for a e-mail newsletter that will notify them when important posts are published.

Aristotle's appeals, Ethos (credibility), Pathos (emotional), and Logos (logical), can be applied in many instances. In this Q&A between Obama and the Republicans, topics such as unemployment, healthcare spending, and government debt are discussed. Pathos is used while asking the president questions, and can be seen especially in the first question. The speaker brings up an 8th grade african american kid who had written a letter to Obama regarding unemployment. The speaker resorts to emotional appeal to try to get his point across. In return, Obama uses logos by using facts and numbers to try to retaliate. Ethos can also be seen in use in the questionnaire when Obama says where he got credibility for his facts and answers.

Walter J. Ong explores how writing and the literate mind work hand in hand. Ong writes that in high-technology cultures, literacy is a necessity and is regarded as unquestionable normative. Ong implies, "Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form." Ong also explores how technology has molded our understanding of writing. Ong says, "The fact that we do not commonly feel the influence of writing on our thoughts shows that we have interiorized the technology of writing so deeply that without tremendous effort we cannot separate it from ourselves or even recognize its presence and influence." Writing is a technology in itself.

1. Gee defines literacy through a unusual way in terms of how we think as Americans. He describes the term "literacy" through his definition of "discourse", which he claims to be "a socially accepted association among ways of using a language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or social network." Gee explores the ideas of discourses to explain literacy. Gee points out that Americans are very focused on the individual, and often miss the fact that the individual is just the meeting point of many conflicting socially and historically defined discourses.

2. Gee's definition of literacy changed the way I thought about literacy in a certain way. Gee pointed out that Americans are very focused on the individual rather than the fact that historically and socially defined discourses speak to each other through individuals. The differences of acquisition vs. learning also are worth noting.

Literacy has affected my life on an everyday basis. At first I had trouble reading until I started reading the Berenstain Bears. For some reason, the books grabbed my attention and I became interested in reading and have been a better reader from that point on. Another way literacy has affected me is through discourses. One in particular would be "boating". Working at a marina has taught me to use special terms at different times when working on the docks, and improves working efficiency. Another interesting way literacy has affected me in through language and how different countries view different words differently. While visiting Mexico, I noticed that certain words has contrasting meanings from culture to culture.

How have fast food restaurants changed the way the fishing industry operates?

What has over-fishing caused for the Bluefin Tuna?

TOPIC: What factors contribute to the declining biodiversity of freshwater fauna, and how can fix the problem?


SOURCE ONE: Allan, David. "Overfishing of Inland Waters." BioScience 55.12 (2005): 1041-051. Print.

This article exposes the threats of overfishing in inland bodies of water. While overfishing has been recognized at the marine level, focusing on charismatic animals such as seabirds, marine turtles, dolphins, and whales, overfishing and its affects on inland waters has not been fully investigated. The article states many factual numbers and percentages which are helpful to locate where overfishing is occurring. One interesting fact was that developing regions of the world such as North America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union all show declining trends in inland capture fisheries. Many inland commercial fisheries have been abandoned and replaced by recreational fisheries, which may add substantially to the total fisheries harvest but are not always reported. The article explores alternatives to inland fishing and ideas on how to reduce the overfishing problem worldwide.

SOURCE TWO: Saunders, D.L., and J.J. Meeuwig. "Freshwater Protected Areas: Strategies for Conservation." Conservation Biology 16.1 (2002): 30-41. Print.

This article explores strategies for improving the threatened habitats of freshwater areas. The article blames the threatened habitats on three main issues: land-use disturbances, altered hydrologies, and introduction to non-native species. To help the threatened habitats, the article suggests many strategies which all contribute to making freshwater protected areas. The article shows in-depth information on areas of water which are currently under protection, and how much land is being protected. Improvement in ecological success is explored with the creation of advanced water flow. I chose to use this article because it explains ideas on how to improve the status of freshwater areas that have been affected by either overfishing, land-use disturbances, or other factors.

SOURCE THREE: Yang, Wei, and Zhifeng Yang. "Effects of Long-term Environmental Flow Releases on the Restoration and Preservation of Baiyangdian Lake, a Regulated Chinese Freshwater Lake." Hydrobiologia 730.1 (2014): 79-91. Print.

This article explores the importance of water flows for maintaining aquatic ecosystem health. Decades of data were constructed to determine whether or not long term use of water flow releases helped to improve the health of China’s Baiyangdian Lake ecosystem. Advantages and disadvantages are explored within the use of these water flows. A 16-year case study is used to construct all of the information. I want to use this source in my paper to explain water flows and the potential that they hold to improve aquatic ecosystems.

SOURCE FOUR: Raby, Graham D., Alison H. Colotelo, Steven J. Cooke, and Gabriel Blouin-Demers. "Freshwater Commercial Bycatch: An Understated Conservation Problem." BioScience: 271-80. Print.

This source focuses on commercial fishing and the impacts of bycatch, which are the animals not targeted by fisheries. While marine fisheries have been implementing new techniques to minimize the amount of bycatch, freshwater commercial fisheries have been understudied. Although freshwater yields comprise 11% of the global commercial catch, bycatch research focusing on freshwater commercial fisheries represents only about 3% of the total bycatch literature. Since many of the world's endangered species live in freshwater, the lack of research is surprising. I used this article to explore another factor that is harming the freshwater ecosystems.

SOURCE FIVE: Dudgeon, David, Angela H. Arthington, Mark O. Gessner, Zen-Ichiro Kawabata, Duncan J. Knowler, Christian Lévêque, Robert J. Naiman, Anne-Hélène Prieur-Richard, Doris Soto, Melanie L. J. Stiassny, and Caroline A. Sullivan. "Freshwater Biodiversity: Importance, Threats, Status And Conservation Challenges." Biological Reviews 81.2 (2006): 163. Print.

This source explores many areas of concern. The importance of freshwater biodiversity is explained, threats to the ecosystem are unraveled, and conservation techniques are discussed. While freshwater makes up only 0.01% of the World's water and approximately 0.8 % of the Earth's surface, his tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100 000 species out of approximately 1.8 million - almost 6% of all described species. The article aims threats to these freshwater ecosystems to five factors: overexploitation; water pollution; flow modification; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species. Protection of freshwater biodiversity is claimed to be the ultimate conservation challenge due to because it is influenced by the upstream drainage network, the surrounding land, the riparian zone, and - in the case of migrating aquatic fauna - downstream reaches. I chose this source because it shows many different factors that contribute to the threat of freshwater ecosystems.