Short Assignment #4

Part 1:

Is Ethanol for the Long Haul? by Matthew Wald uses Kenneth Burke’s pedagogy of critical reflection to represent his scientific essay. Burke’s dedicated study of the relationship between rhetoric and war made sense, given his own rhetorical situation. In Wald’s essay, he argues his point –whether can use ethanol instead of gasoline in the long run. He first uses some data to support how ethanol could be a fuel, and then use evidences to against the replacement of ethanol. He summarizes his contradictive ideas in a section “Myth and Reality” to argue why ethanol could not replace gasoline. In Burkean debate of Burke’s theory of identification, Wald uses “compose two opposing positions along with a “third piece” that would transcend questions of “for” or “against” by analyzing the sheerly verbal maneuvers involved in the placing and discussing of the issue” (Enoch 286).

According to Winterowd, Ross, “Dispositio: The Concept of Form in Discourse” , “From might be defined as the internal set of consistent relationships perceived in any stretch of discourse, or whatever” (Winterowd 41). Therefore, form is important to construct an essay. “The recurrence of image, symbol, idea, or metaphor can serve as a kind of “semantic” device to outline form” (42). Wald uses the data and evidences to support his ideas which are “semantic” to outline form of his essay.

Part 2:

For the historical-causal analysis, I would like to discourse about U.S. living standard. How economy, government policy and education can affect the citizen’s living standard; discuss what low living standard makes face, such as unemployment, low education, etc. Also make some arguments and suggestions to change this situation. Audience may considerate the ideas of the living standard, so it would be better to get more evidences and compose two opposing positions along with “third piece” to support the ideas. Show the changing of living standard from past to now. And states out how those elements affect the living standard. To make argument, it usually related to Kaufer's conflict levels, and it can be used to explain the causes and effects of the changing living standard.

Resource:

Wald, Matthew L. "Is Ethanol for the Long Haul?" Scientific American (Jan 2007): 42-49.

Enoch, Jessica, "Becoming Symbol-Wise: Kenneth Burke's Pedagogy of Critical Reflection." College Composition and Communication 56.2 (Dec 2004): 272-296.

Winterowd, W. Ross. "Dispositio: The Concept of Form in Discourse." College Composition and Communication 22.1 (Feb 1971):39-45.

(Extra Credit) Living a Sustainable Life- Green Building Basics: Where We Are.

This program is by Bill Brown, the director of the office of Sustainability. In this topic, “Green Building Basics: Where We Are”, is talking about the how architecture related to a sustainable life. The speaker gives an argument which the increasing population would also increase the consumption.

Based on Kinneavy’s “The Basic Aims of Discourse”, “By aim of discourse is meant the effect that the discourse is oriented to achieve in the average is oriented to achieve in the average listener or reader for whom it is intended”(297). The speak uses referential in Reality from Kinneavy’s composition triangle. His speaks is scientific which proving a point by arguing from accepted premises and by generalizing from particulars.

Based on the Gross’s “The Arrangement of the Scientific Paper”, this presentation is experience an inductive process, as it is “a series of laboratory or field events leading to a general statement about natural kinds” (85). The speaker points out the ideas of energy saving which behinds the evidences ( the data of the environment wasting problems that he has given.

The speaker also uses Fahnestock and Secor’s stases, “stases tell us that arguments may concern facts, definitions, causes, values, proposals, and that each kind of argument will employ its own peculiar kinds of warrants” (429). He first gave the reason of what the energy waste is and then told us how the energy waste be produced. After that, he defines the value of building the green buildings and the proposals of how the green buildings help the environment.

According to Stephen Toulmin, a 20th Century philosophizer, "argumentation can be seen as two opposing points of view vying for support among members of a specific audience." By using Toulmin’s five parts of an argument, the speaker’s claim with reason by using the data from WBDC to show the increasing trend of the total electricity use to prove the increasing population and consumption would affect the sustainable life.

For grounds, the speaker use lots of data about the water use, carbon dioxide emission, waste output and electricity consumption, and use the architecture to form a big picture and put everything fix together. The amount of the waste produced can support the claim as it can show how the increasing population and consumption would affect the sustainable life.

For warrant, the speaker uses the triple bottom line to support his ideas of which the economic, ecology and human are strongly related. By showing the relationship, the speaker influences the audience to get involve in saving energy.

For backing, he uses the data from USCBL to show how building the Green building can improve the wasting problem. And he gave some example to prove the green building can be used in every well, such as factories, offices, schools, retails and even hospital. Moreover he points out Indiana University in Bloomington also has the green building, as nearly all audiences are IU students, that can enhance the credibility of the presentation.

Starts from talking about the problem of energy wasting, the speaker provides a detailed data to back up his ideas of energy saving, and enhance the audiences's awareness of the energy saving, and persuade them to get involve in the energy saving program.

Resource:

COLL-T 200 LECTURE: Green Building Basics: Where We Are (Bill Brown, Director, Office of Sustainability)

Kinneavy, James E. "The Basic Aims of Discourse." College Composition and Communication 20.5 (Dec 1969): 297-304

Gross, Alan G. "The Arrangement of the Scientific Paper." The Rhetoric of Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, UP, 1900. 85-96

Fahnestock, Jeanne and Marie Secor. "The Stases in Scientific and Literary Argument." Written Communication 5.4 (Oct 1988): 427-443.

Respond Question

1) Recently, I purchased the latest version of ipod touch as because I think it is time to replace my old ipod. When I found out the new version has inserted the internal microphone and speaker, so I found out it is worth to buy, as because I can make a phone call and text messages by a ipod touch program, so I have cancelled my cell phone service. When my friends know that I have cancelled the cell phone because of the ipod touch, they teased at me. My friend said "Are you kidding? You have money to buy a ipod touch but no money to pay for the cell phone service? Do you try to pretend you are poor?" This conflict reach Kaufer's level 4's conflicting local values. I am not trying to pretend to be poor. The reason I decide not using a cell phone because most of the time I cannot use up all the minutes before the expire date, and I found out most of the time I would stay at home or library, so the free wireless allows me to make a phone call or text messages by my ipod touch. I don't think a cell phone really matter. Moreover, it think this conflict can reach to level 5 as my friend think a cell phone is an necessary, but to be I am okay without a phone.

2) In Mario Sacvio's essay, "An End to History", he makes argue of "Sproul Hall is to student rights as Mississippi is to civil rights". He complaint university bureaucracy to suppress the students' political expression, students do not have a chance to express ideas, to speak freely. Just like Brave New World, people do not have control of their lives because of the political control.

4) Robert Bullard uses a lot of historical data as a reference to support his ideas, and the references used as a fact to persuade the audiences's thinking. Mario Savio gives examples to support his ideas and for comparison. Wells-Barnett has provides some mathematical data to make a conclusion and comparison for the audience.

The insight of Climate change

“The Green Apple” by David Biello is a scientific essay that states out the problems of the climate change with data, for example, flash floods flash floods, storms, droughts, and increasing temperature. The writer also pointed out the solutions that the U.S. government has been working on in some major metropolises.

Biello addressed the problems with the data provided in numbers, which can let readers to know how serious it is. For example, “Flash floods deposited more than 7000 kilograms of dirt and debris on tracks that stretch more than 1350 kilometers and carry 1.5 billion passengers annually”. Also, Biello mentioned the modeler’s prediction of the seriousness in the future, such as “NASA climate modeler Cynthia Rosenzweig, which predicts a 5 to 10 percent increase in the mean precipitation around New York City by 2080”, and “The panel predicts a temperature rise of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius from the current average temperature of degree C by 2100”.

In “The Arrangement of Scientific Paper”, Alan C. Gross has introduced Baconian Induction and the idea of deduction. In “The Green Apple”, Biello persuades readers to be aware of the climate changes by using the idea of deduction. Aforementioned, Biello gives a lot of example for the disasters and he used the word “predict” quite frequently to address more serious climate problems in the future. After he remarked the climate change impacts that causes catastrophes, he asked the question to the reader, “What can you do to prepare for that?” to enforce the reader to face the problems of global warming and force them to think deeply.

Short Assignment #2

In “Letter to President Clinton on Iraq,” New American Century (26 Jan 1998), it shows us it is a letter to President Clinton. The writer persuades him about the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.

In Kinneavy’s article, “The Basic Aims of Discourse”, he defines the aim of discourse is meant “the effect that the discourse is oriented to achieve in the average listener or reader for whom it is intended” (297). The implied audience of “Letter to President Clinton on Iraq” is President Clinton for whom the writer sends the letter to, and the intended audience is anyone who read this newspaper.

From what I saw in “letter to President Clinton on Iraq,” it falls into two parts of Kinneavy’s basic purposes of composition, which are referential and persuasive. This letter shows the readers that the writer is providing solutions to problems; in here they suggest the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power, which is supported by the experience that monitoring Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production is difficult, in which it falls into the exploratory part of referential. And in the first sentence of the letter, the writer wrote “we are writing you because we are convinced that…” and after giving some examples of the effect from Saddam Hussein, the writer suggests some policies toward Iraq. The reader can see there is a strong, powerful argument to persuade President Clinton to make such a decision. And in the last two paragraphs, they open with “We urge you to articulate this aim,” “We urge you to act decisively,” in which again is a very strong and powerful way to persuade the President to do action.

As a reader, I found out this letter is very persuasive by putting a lot of strong arguments and examples to support their thoughts which shows the Kinneavy’s genres can be burred. It is not necessary to distinguish the essay into one particular group. Mixing up can tell us the whole picture.

Short Assignment #1

In Michael Lemonick's article, "Honesty is Always the Best Policy", he brings us an ideas of being honest as a science-hournalism. He argues about the different purposes from the magazie publisher and a science-journalism.

Ethos
Michael Lemonick claim about the differnt points of view of sending the messages to the reader. An widely readed maganize, like Time, aim to publish their copies to public, just simply focus on the general interests. They usually just breifty talks about the facts and the results. Lemonick thinks that the magazine publisher pays too much attention on the readers' interest, which causes the nature of journalism change all over the time.

From the article, Lemonick states out.

"Faced with increasing competition from blogs and other online news outlets, newspapers and magazines were starting to move in the direction of shorter, more sensational, and more user-friendly stories." Also, his thought is "In putting the story together, I had to figure out how to characterize global warming. It was tempting to proclaim impending doom, which would grab attention and sell magazines". He claim the magazine's publisher do not focuse on the detail but try to exaggerate the results to get audiences' attention. Instead, as an science-journalism, Lemonick tends to send out a more detail information to audiences, on demans a certain degree of latitude to represent the complexities of a particular feild.

Pathos
Lemonick becomes an science-journalism was influenced by his physicist father, therefore, he has a great passion of being a science-journlism, and to convince the audiences about the imporatant of the science facts, to decribe how science actually works. In his article, he told audiences the reaon that he changed his job from a good wealthy job to a non-profit work in Climate Central, that he shows his passion of sending the right messages to auidences and being an honest journalism.

Logos
Lemonick has his own sense of judgement. He lives up to the organization's mission, tried to be clear that the underlying science of climate change is extremely solid, and the hand-wringing over "Climategate" and "Himalayagate". Focuse on the weaknesses prominence and mention, instead on the broader truth that climate change is real and potentially dangerous.


From Lemonick's article, the audience can feel his great passion of being a a science-journlaism and his strong ideas of the different points of views with the publishers thought his writing and experiences.