What keywords do you see cropping up in our discussions of rhet/comp and the paradigms? In what ways do these ideas/terms manifest themselves in your daily lives?
The keywords I see in this article are situation, exigence, and audience.
These things appear in daily life mostly due to constant communication between humans. The situation, in rhetorical terms and not the guy on Jersey Shore, is the location and exigence of the rhetorical exchange. Exigence, something that happens that gives rise to communication, is the starting point for the discourse. Audience is those affected and influenced by the dialogue; we encounter an audience everyday, regardless of the content of the discourse.
Based off of the readings from Bizters, The Rhetorical Situation and the general summary of Aristotle’s appeals I see a great deal of similarity in context and vocabulary. One in particular is what Rhetoric and what an actual rhetorical situation and rhetorical response is. We discussed in class what history we may have with the use of rhetoric, as in reference to my free write I wrote I had very little and my actual knowledge of what rhetorical meant was vague. From Bizters essay I was able to broaden this definition. Exigence is also another term that was brought to my attention in the essay, which when simply defined is an imperfection that is relevant and brings attention to its self. Its definition becomes different when looked at from a rhetorical perspective. The constraints and audience of those constraints give meanings to the definition of an exigence and thus its relevance to its assessment. These concepts manifest themselves in our daily lives when we review any situation that may be viewed as persuasive. For example, when approaching my boss in search of time off from work for a long weekend I am plainly making a case that is placed based off the quest for a certain response. Although it is not technically an argumentative situation, the audience and ideal response call for a persuasive approach. Thus within this approach the exigencies and rhetorical situation may be defined.
The main aspect I see appearing in our readings and discussions is all about the audience. The audience is the main contributor to any situation involving a rhetoric response. The audience is responsible for taking in, processing and reacting to a certain speech or action. No matter what type of composition you are dealing with, there will always be one person or a group of people reacting to the piece of material.
Some of the key words that keep cropping up in our discussion and the reading are rhetoric, rhetorical situation, and audience. Rhetoric seems to manifest itself quite often in my daily life. Being the outspoken individual that I am, I find myself speaking a lot and conversing amongst others. This is also where the keyword rhetorical situation manifests itself in my life. According to the reading, the author says that the rhetorical situation is a response to a situation. In our everyday lives we are put in numerous situations which call for a response. Also, last semester I was exposed a lot to Aristotle’s Rhetoric Theory. Although the reading confused me, I still mastered the idea of rhetoric and how it is used. I was exposed to the theory in my public speaking class and in my contemporary human communication class. In my public speaking class there were different speeches we had to make given the situation. Here you had to take your audience into account and write to appeal them. This is not only where audience comes into play in my everyday life. I am also put into a lot of situations with rhetoric and the audience at work. I currently work at the production center on campus. A lot of time there are situations where I have to think of the audience or the students and present information that will stick with them to make my job much easier. Rhetoric, rhetorical situation and audience are keywords that appeared a lot throughout the reading. All of these keywords are used in my daily and seem to arise even when I don’t notice them.
Exigence, audience and constraints. Those seem to be the main parts of we see in rhetoric. In our lives we have politicians, lobbyists’ advertisers, etc, that try to persuade us of what is “The right choice.” (As in them.) With that in mind, we as audience are in charge of their constraints, since is us who can be persuaded if we willingly accept to be taken for a ride. These three constituents as Bitzer explained on his essay on the rhetorical situation are what we use to create an argument, and at the same time, they are what we use to go against that argument. From the grocery store prices, to our favorite sports team, to everything in between, this is how we construct and deconstruct thoughts is everyday life.
While the word "rhetoric" was the word used most in the Bitzers piece, as well as the idea referenced most by Aristotle, the main idea in both of the readings seemed to be how to "convince" the audience and change their views on a certain matter or situation. That is the root argument that brings up the theory of rhetorical situation. While rhetoric is firmly distinguished from the mere craft of persuasion, as the article mentions, it is also one of the most effective forms of persuasion in writing. They way that I saw it, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos were simply a summary of the three parts of effective rhetoric. Perfecting the art of valid credibility, effective emotion, and convincing logic are the keys to creating rhetorical situation. I've found in my own writing, in certain situations, that rhetorical situation is one of the most convincing forms of rhetoric.
The main word that I see come up in the discussion is audience. However, it depends on how you perceive what you are talking about. The audience could be the person writing (a personal journal) but it could also be a wide range of people such as children or politicians. Obviously you should keep audience in mind when writing since you are not going to try and make a new law pass through congress while using Dr. Seuss like words. Also, I do believe that verbal communication can be a form of composition since anything we say can also be composed into written words. An argument over sports on a talk show can be put on paper and thus becoming a form of composition even though it was free thinking and free speech when it was first said.
Some words that I kept seeing in the readings referring to rhetoric and composition were audience, meaning-context, and constituents. These three key words are interpreted in daily in life. Rhetoric always has an audience of people listening to what someone has to say to enlighten them on a new event or significance to life. Meaning-context is the language of how people communicate with each other. Constituents, which include exigence, audience and constraints is what makes a rhetorical situation take place in our lives. Lloyd F. Bitzer who showed how rhetoric and composition could be used in real life situations used these three words in the essay “The Rhetorical Situation”. These three words that caught my eye in this reading made me realize how much I use audience, meaning-context, and constituents in my life when I’m just hanging out with my friends in my apartment. For example, when sharing stories of current news about Osama Bin Laden getting assassinated by the U.S Navy Seals to my friends that don’t watch the news, I use these three key words to help me tell my story. I have an audience to share what I know about Osama Bin Laden while some of my friends have conspiracy theories about him not being dead. I use meaning-context and constituents to change their minds about the conspiracy theories and make them believe what I believe with my own facts and enthusiasm about his death. Without realizing these words before this class, I now see that rhetoric devices aren’t something foreign, but something that is always being used in the world today.
Some words that definitely popped up in both reading and the talk we had in class today were audience, rhetorical situation, constraints and exigences. Blitzer made it very clear that the audience as well as situation MAKES the rhetorical composition rather than it being the other way around. Another idea I took out of the reading was how much more effective using pathos rhetoric was in terms of persuasion. It seems that making an emotional connection is extremely important in a piece of rhetoric's ability to persuade an audience and that hits pretty close to home for me because as a student of advertising, I was taught that to appeal to your target audience, you must make an emotional connection rather than trying to sell something to them. You must make the advertisement an experience rather than a selling point.
To me,ethos, logos, and pathos were the most important terms in our reading, along with audience and rhetor. The rhetor and the audience are necessary for rhetoric to take place, and ethos, logos, and pathos are the primary weapons at the rhetor's disposal.
What's most interesting to me about how these terms manifest in daily life is the extent to which ethos and pathos can overwhelm pathos. If the rhetor is someone the audience perceives to be of trustworthy character, such as a politician, news anchor, or religious figure, and they successfully appeal to the audiences emotions through patriotic platitudes and fear-mongering, the lack of logic in their arguments in favor of launching a war of aggression or handing billions of tax dollars to the wealthy can be easily overlooked.
Based on our brief discussion in class today, along with my reading of Bitzer’s essay and the Ethos, Pathos and Logos excerpts, I feel that some emerging keywords may be….influence, persuasion, audience, situation, and artistic proofs. While I recognize that the *notion* of exigence is crucial to any discussion on the subject of rhetoric/composition, given Bitzer’s disturbingly obsessive use of the *word* exigence (is it just me or are there some basic word variances he could have elected to use now and then?...), I have refrained from including it among said keywords, purely as an act of language-loving defiance. Having said that, I would like to share a situation I experienced just this afternoon as an example of how such a key term can manifest in daily life; a situation which presented a “defect”, or “obstacle” (all hail variance!) that required the use of rhetoric to overcome. In short, I received a parking citation for parking my Vespa (two-wheeled scooter) in a car space in one of the student lots on campus. Not knowing that such a policy existed, I was frustrated by receiving the ticket, and called Parking Services. The receptionist explained that I could visit their office in person to fill out an appeal. Being that I—a responsible driver/student/mortal who registered her motorcycle with Parking services to obtain a permit, and who will gladly adhere to any intelligently-designed parking policy when it is clearly, respectfully and appropriately disclosed—was not made aware of the policy that motorcycle owners must only park in spaces designated for two-wheeled vehicles, I felt that an appeal was warranted, and I duly headed off to plead my written-word case. We’ll see if a positive modification transpires… I certainly did not include the word “exigence” in my appeal, but I do feel my Ethos, Pathos and Logos were in top form.
Throughout the readings of Blitzer, it is evident that certain elements of rhetoric are vital in understanding rhetoric as an entirety. The keywords in which I believe are most important are situation, exigence, discourse and ethos, pathos, and logos. In order for discourse to exist, a situation that provokes it must arise. Like Blitzer's question-answer analogy, situations give rise to rhetorical discourse. Similarly, one of the greatest causes of discourse have to do with exigence. Without it, there often times would be no need to speak out to make a change. The presence of a situation, especially one with exigence almost implies that something take action, with that being discourse. Possibly the most important term would be discourse. I find it to be fundamental in understanding rhetoric as a whole. Discourse is in fact composition and rhetoric. A means to convey an idea or persuade an audience to make some sort of change. Though with this, it is important to note that without the presence of situation, discourse has no motive. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are three techniques that are instrumental in changing somebody's thought. In other words, the presence of credibility, emotional appeal, and reasoning that support an idea are all indicators of a strong argument, and one that will likely be effective. With all of these terms and ideas, one can't help but see how they are used in an everyday situation. We constantly are put in situations where discourse is inevitable, where exigence and situation are also existent. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are the methods in which we use to get our discourse across effectively.
The core of rhetoric for me is pathos, ethos and logos. These are concepts are 2300 years old, and since human needs have changed little since then, they are at the core of persuasion and pleasure. (Convino and Jolliffe gave the purpose of rhetorical communication as “to teach, to please to move.” I think to teach and to move are persuasion.) To engage another human being fully through speech or writing, one must involve their emotions (pathos), their values (ethos) and their intellect (logos). I am writing a play for my thesis project in Communications. This concept of the rhetorical triangle to strengthen my work has been invaluable.
I am writing a play about a difficult subject, based on a true story—how a courageous woman survived and transcended 15 years of torture. Sounds grisly. It isn’t. Because I’m including many types of pathos (humor, joy, sadness, pain), addressing right and wrong and retribution to involve ethos, and explaining the survival process also though science. Ethos is the most important aspect of a play. People go to the theater for catharsis, whether they want tragedy or comedy. According to the readings, ethos goes beyond emotion. It involves imagination, sympathy, self-interest, vivid language, music and sensory details. Ethos is validation, expertise, credibility and trust. Logos completes the triangle with logic, clarity, consistency, facts and statistics. All of these elements are needed to keep someone’s interest, whether in a novel, a play or a blog. The Greek rhetors were the radio, newspapers, TV, magazines and blogs of their day. They realized what the core elements of rhetoric were—pathos, ethos and logos.
The keywords I see in this article are situation, exigence, and audience.
ReplyDeleteThese things appear in daily life mostly due to constant communication between humans. The situation, in rhetorical terms and not the guy on Jersey Shore, is the location and exigence of the rhetorical exchange. Exigence, something that happens that gives rise to communication, is the starting point for the discourse. Audience is those affected and influenced by the dialogue; we encounter an audience everyday, regardless of the content of the discourse.
Based off of the readings from Bizters, The Rhetorical Situation and the general summary of Aristotle’s appeals I see a great deal of similarity in context and vocabulary. One in particular is what Rhetoric and what an actual rhetorical situation and rhetorical response is. We discussed in class what history we may have with the use of rhetoric, as in reference to my free write I wrote I had very little and my actual knowledge of what rhetorical meant was vague. From Bizters essay I was able to broaden this definition. Exigence is also another term that was brought to my attention in the essay, which when simply defined is an imperfection that is relevant and brings attention to its self. Its definition becomes different when looked at from a rhetorical perspective. The constraints and audience of those constraints give meanings to the definition of an exigence and thus its relevance to its assessment. These concepts manifest themselves in our daily lives when we review any situation that may be viewed as persuasive. For example, when approaching my boss in search of time off from work for a long weekend I am plainly making a case that is placed based off the quest for a certain response. Although it is not technically an argumentative situation, the audience and ideal response call for a persuasive approach. Thus within this approach the exigencies and rhetorical situation may be defined.
ReplyDeleteThe main aspect I see appearing in our readings and discussions is all about the audience. The audience is the main contributor to any situation involving a rhetoric response. The audience is responsible for taking in, processing and reacting to a certain speech or action. No matter what type of composition you are dealing with, there will always be one person or a group of people reacting to the piece of material.
ReplyDeleteSome of the key words that keep cropping up in our discussion and the reading are rhetoric, rhetorical situation, and audience.
ReplyDeleteRhetoric seems to manifest itself quite often in my daily life. Being the outspoken individual that I am, I find myself speaking a lot and conversing amongst others. This is also where the keyword rhetorical situation manifests itself in my life. According to the reading, the author says that the rhetorical situation is a response to a situation. In our everyday lives we are put in numerous situations which call for a response. Also, last semester I was exposed a lot to Aristotle’s Rhetoric Theory. Although the reading confused me, I still mastered the idea of rhetoric and how it is used. I was exposed to the theory in my public speaking class and in my contemporary human communication class. In my public speaking class there were different speeches we had to make given the situation. Here you had to take your audience into account and write to appeal them. This is not only where audience comes into play in my everyday life. I am also put into a lot of situations with rhetoric and the audience at work. I currently work at the production center on campus. A lot of time there are situations where I have to think of the audience or the students and present information that will stick with them to make my job much easier.
Rhetoric, rhetorical situation and audience are keywords that appeared a lot throughout the reading. All of these keywords are used in my daily and seem to arise even when I don’t notice them.
Exigence, audience and constraints. Those seem to be the main parts of we see in rhetoric. In our lives we have politicians, lobbyists’ advertisers, etc, that try to persuade us of what is “The right choice.” (As in them.) With that in mind, we as audience are in charge of their constraints, since is us who can be persuaded if we willingly accept to be taken for a ride. These three constituents as Bitzer explained on his essay on the rhetorical situation are what we use to create an argument, and at the same time, they are what we use to go against that argument. From the grocery store prices, to our favorite sports team, to everything in between, this is how we construct and deconstruct thoughts is everyday life.
ReplyDeleteWhile the word "rhetoric" was the word used most in the Bitzers piece, as well as the idea referenced most by Aristotle, the main idea in both of the readings seemed to be how to "convince" the audience and change their views on a certain matter or situation. That is the root argument that brings up the theory of rhetorical situation. While rhetoric is firmly distinguished from the mere craft of persuasion, as the article mentions, it is also one of the most effective forms of persuasion in writing. They way that I saw it, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos were simply a summary of the three parts of effective rhetoric. Perfecting the art of valid credibility, effective emotion, and convincing logic are the keys to creating rhetorical situation. I've found in my own writing, in certain situations, that rhetorical situation is one of the most convincing forms of rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteThe main word that I see come up in the discussion is audience. However, it depends on how you perceive what you are talking about. The audience could be the person writing (a personal journal) but it could also be a wide range of people such as children or politicians. Obviously you should keep audience in mind when writing since you are not going to try and make a new law pass through congress while using Dr. Seuss like words. Also, I do believe that verbal communication can be a form of composition since anything we say can also be composed into written words. An argument over sports on a talk show can be put on paper and thus becoming a form of composition even though it was free thinking and free speech when it was first said.
ReplyDeleteSome words that I kept seeing in the readings referring to rhetoric and composition were audience, meaning-context, and constituents. These three key words are interpreted in daily in life. Rhetoric always has an audience of people listening to what someone has to say to enlighten them on a new event or significance to life. Meaning-context is the language of how people communicate with each other. Constituents, which include exigence, audience and constraints is what makes a rhetorical situation take place in our lives. Lloyd F. Bitzer who showed how rhetoric and composition could be used in real life situations used these three words in the essay “The Rhetorical Situation”.
ReplyDeleteThese three words that caught my eye in this reading made me realize how much I use audience, meaning-context, and constituents in my life when I’m just hanging out with my friends in my apartment. For example, when sharing stories of current news about Osama Bin Laden getting assassinated by the U.S Navy Seals to my friends that don’t watch the news, I use these three key words to help me tell my story. I have an audience to share what I know about Osama Bin Laden while some of my friends have conspiracy theories about him not being dead. I use meaning-context and constituents to change their minds about the conspiracy theories and make them believe what I believe with my own facts and enthusiasm about his death. Without realizing these words before this class, I now see that rhetoric devices aren’t something foreign, but something that is always being used in the world today.
Some words that definitely popped up in both reading and the talk we had in class today were audience, rhetorical situation, constraints and exigences. Blitzer made it very clear that the audience as well as situation MAKES the rhetorical composition rather than it being the other way around. Another idea I took out of the reading was how much more effective using pathos rhetoric was in terms of persuasion. It seems that making an emotional connection is extremely important in a piece of rhetoric's ability to persuade an audience and that hits pretty close to home for me because as a student of advertising, I was taught that to appeal to your target audience, you must make an emotional connection rather than trying to sell something to them. You must make the advertisement an experience rather than a selling point.
ReplyDeleteTo me,ethos, logos, and pathos were the most important terms in our reading, along with audience and rhetor. The rhetor and the audience are necessary for rhetoric to take place, and ethos, logos, and pathos are the primary weapons at the rhetor's disposal.
ReplyDeleteWhat's most interesting to me about how these terms manifest in daily life is the extent to which ethos and pathos can overwhelm pathos. If the rhetor is someone the audience perceives to be of trustworthy character, such as a politician, news anchor, or religious figure, and they successfully appeal to the audiences emotions through patriotic platitudes and fear-mongering, the lack of logic in their arguments in favor of launching a war of aggression or handing billions of tax dollars to the wealthy can be easily overlooked.
Based on our brief discussion in class today, along with my reading of Bitzer’s essay and the Ethos, Pathos and Logos excerpts, I feel that some emerging keywords may be….influence, persuasion, audience, situation, and artistic proofs. While I recognize that the *notion* of exigence is crucial to any discussion on the subject of rhetoric/composition, given Bitzer’s disturbingly obsessive use of the *word* exigence (is it just me or are there some basic word variances he could have elected to use now and then?...), I have refrained from including it among said keywords, purely as an act of language-loving defiance. Having said that, I would like to share a situation I experienced just this afternoon as an example of how such a key term can manifest in daily life; a situation which presented a “defect”, or “obstacle” (all hail variance!) that required the use of rhetoric to overcome. In short, I received a parking citation for parking my Vespa (two-wheeled scooter) in a car space in one of the student lots on campus. Not knowing that such a policy existed, I was frustrated by receiving the ticket, and called Parking Services. The receptionist explained that I could visit their office in person to fill out an appeal. Being that I—a responsible driver/student/mortal who registered her motorcycle with Parking services to obtain a permit, and who will gladly adhere to any intelligently-designed parking policy when it is clearly, respectfully and appropriately disclosed—was not made aware of the policy that motorcycle owners must only park in spaces designated for two-wheeled vehicles, I felt that an appeal was warranted, and I duly headed off to plead my written-word case. We’ll see if a positive modification transpires… I certainly did not include the word “exigence” in my appeal, but I do feel my Ethos, Pathos and Logos were in top form.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the readings of Blitzer, it is evident that certain elements of rhetoric are vital in understanding rhetoric as an entirety. The keywords in which I believe are most important are situation, exigence, discourse and ethos, pathos, and logos. In order for discourse to exist, a situation that provokes it must arise. Like Blitzer's question-answer analogy, situations give rise to rhetorical discourse. Similarly, one of the greatest causes of discourse have to do with exigence. Without it, there often times would be no need to speak out to make a change. The presence of a situation, especially one with exigence almost implies that something take action, with that being discourse. Possibly the most important term would be discourse. I find it to be fundamental in understanding rhetoric as a whole. Discourse is in fact composition and rhetoric. A means to convey an idea or persuade an audience to make some sort of change. Though with this, it is important to note that without the presence of situation, discourse has no motive. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are three techniques that are instrumental in changing somebody's thought. In other words, the presence of credibility, emotional appeal, and reasoning that support an idea are all indicators of a strong argument, and one that will likely be effective. With all of these terms and ideas, one can't help but see how they are used in an everyday situation. We constantly are put in situations where discourse is inevitable, where exigence and situation are also existent. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are the methods in which we use to get our discourse across effectively.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe core of rhetoric for me is pathos, ethos and logos. These are concepts are 2300 years old, and since human needs have changed little since then, they are at the core of persuasion and pleasure. (Convino and Jolliffe gave the purpose of rhetorical communication as “to teach, to please to move.” I think to teach and to move are persuasion.) To engage another human being fully through speech or writing, one must involve their emotions (pathos), their values (ethos) and their intellect (logos). I am writing a play for my thesis project in Communications. This concept of the rhetorical triangle to strengthen my work has been invaluable.
ReplyDeleteI am writing a play about a difficult subject, based on a true story—how a courageous woman survived and transcended 15 years of torture. Sounds grisly. It isn’t. Because I’m including many types of pathos (humor, joy, sadness, pain), addressing right and wrong and retribution to involve ethos, and explaining the survival process also though science. Ethos is the most important aspect of a play. People go to the theater for catharsis, whether they want tragedy or comedy. According to the readings, ethos goes beyond emotion. It involves imagination, sympathy, self-interest, vivid language, music and sensory details. Ethos is validation, expertise, credibility and trust. Logos completes the triangle with logic, clarity, consistency, facts and statistics. All of these elements are needed to keep someone’s interest, whether in a novel, a play or a blog. The Greek rhetors were the radio, newspapers, TV, magazines and blogs of their day. They realized what the core elements of rhetoric were—pathos, ethos and logos.