1) Read the overview of Rhetoric from Wikipedia. When you read this article, you are not looking to get every nuance, every name, or even what happened in every period rhetoric has been studied. You are looking for a grasp of what Rhetoric studies, why it might be valuable to you, and a very loose, very general overview of the history of rhetoric.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
Since we have not yet spoken about different kinds of sources, I should tell you that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, that is, a source, like a textbook, which provides an overview of what has been discussed and is being decided in secondary sources. Ask me next week what a secondary source is. [By the way, your should keep an ongoing notebook or file of terms which are new to you. This way, you can go back to one source and review the terms which are being introduced in class.]
2) Read the syllabus for ENG 112. It's posted on this blog. One of your writing assignment for this coming week is to write the class with questions you have about the syllabus, course, etc.
3) The last part of the reading for your first reading assignment consists of the rest of this post and a short article found here:
http://www.associatedcontent
The article consists of 's a short overview of topics which will come up again and again in this class, topics like: rhetoric, rhetorical triangle, author, message, audience. As you read the posts on the blog and the articles, read actively, that is, take short notes--we call these annotations--on terms which are new to you. That notebook I mentioned is a a good place to take these notes. After you've read an article and taken notes, if the reading doesn't make sense, go back and review your notes and then reread, this time, not taking notes. Once you are fairly sure you've "gotten" the reading, take a few minutes to think about how it applies in your life and in the class.
One way to make sure you've "gotten" a piece of reading is to write something called a "minute paper." This means you take from one to three minutes and summarize the major point(s) of the reading. If after all of this you have questions, write the class discussion list: eng112fall2008reynolds@googlegroups.com. A topic always open for discussion on the class list is the reading you do each week. Write with questions. If you have them, I do want to hear them and, if I or the class can, answer them.
OK, now onto the reading:
Motley, the author of the article in part three of the reading, uses the terms, writer, subject, and reader, but the terms author, message, and audience are interchangeable with Motley's terms. The main point is this triangle gives those who think about rhetoric(read: you, now you're in this class) a convenient way to break down and analyze any situation where people are using language or language like behavior to try and do things. [To analyze means to break something down into parts so as to better understand or discuss the whole.]
The basic rhetorical situation is this:
author<========message=========>audience
Authors create messages or texts because they want to have an effect in the world by getting their audiences to know, believe, or act in ways they probably wouldn't have prior to reading/listening to the author's message. When you analyze a rhetorical situation, you begin by identifying the message or what is being said. You then go on to identify who the audience is and who the author is.
Author & the author's rhetorical purpose--Every text has an author. Every author has intentions, an agenda, or a set of goals for her text. This set of goals is called a rhetorical purpose. Another way to think about rhetorical purpose is to think about it as what the author wants to accomplish through crafting and sending her message.
Message/Text/Document--Every text is crafted or encoded by the author in such a way that they believe they will achieve their intentions. This encoded text is the message or document. How the message gets encoded involves what the author knows about their audience's expectations, language, culture, etc. The message might be as simple as the nod of a head or as complex as a series of books. Often by looking at how an author encodes or crafts their message, you can tell a lot about what they think about their audience.
Audience/reader/listener--If communication is to happen, texts also have audiences, and not always the ones the author intents. Sometimes an audience is a single person; sometimes an audience is a group. Sometimes the audience agrees with the author and is receptive; and, sometimes an audience is hostile. Sometimes an audience is far removed from an author in terms of experience, culture, gender, knowledge, and perspective; sometimes an audience shares almost everything with their author.
What we'll be talking about in this class is how to encode messages in such a way you, the author, have the effects on your audiences which you intent.
This way of breaking down communication is not limited to just writing. Rhetoric applies every time you use a system of communication and address someone else to achieve some end. For instance, our knowledge of rhetoric tells us why not to wear bathing suits to most job interviews. The way people dress, the gadgets they own, the places they live, their body language, almost everything which reflects a person's intentions involves rhetoric, because each of these involves an author crafting a message to have an effect.
For example, the way people dress involves them in a rich language of nuance and suggestion. Suits mean. Tee shirts mean. The difference between a rhetor, that is, a user of rhetoric, and everyone else is the rhetor is aware he or she is going through life sending out messages, being read, and interpreted by most everyone he or she meets. The rhetor tries to take command of the various messages s/he sends and encodes them in ways the audiences s/he wants to affect will be affected.
One last term, and I'll end this post. Noise. Modern communication theory evolved out of the traditions of rhetoric. One way to think of the rhetorical triangle is as follows:
sender> =======>signal=============> receiver
In between the sender and receiver is a signal which contains information. The sender needs to encode the message in such a way the receiver can decode it. In between the sender and the receiver is both the message and noise.
If you've ever driven a long distance with an FM radio station on and heard it slowly fade into static, then you've experienced noise getting in the way of the signal. Noise is entropy and/or Murphey at work in the world. Noise is all the stuff which gets in the way of the receiver getting the message the sender encodes in the signal. There are ways to work around noise, but there is no way to get rid of it entirely. This is one reason why folks don't understand you completely when you write. Writing is a good technology, but it has severe limitations and inherent noise. Noise in writing can come from such factors as a person's culture, background, politics, gender, ...well, you get the idea. Noise is why when you say a word, the receiver will not understand 100% of what you mean. Noise is always there. One of the things we'll speak about in the class is how to overcome noise.
Here's one of the things you need to know: noise is always there, but we usually manage to make spoken and written communication do what we want anyway.
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