Barbarism.

Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate…There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free from barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another. (Theses, as cited in Longo, 2000, p. 15)

All’s fair in love and war, and if writing is something you love then you can bet its going to be war to survive in a society where what is most easily accessible and looks appealing gets labeled as valid knowledge. From all of our readings over the semester, it is obvious that the world is a potentially nasty and controlling place. And so it is left for us writers to walk the fine line of catering to expectations to the extent that they get us hired and pay the bills while not losing our grip on our ethics and passions. Our portfolios then become a door into this journey. A well crafted portfolio wields style and content to at once identify its author with the masses while also demonstrating the author’s unique talent and capabilities.

        As we have discussed many times throughout the course of the semester, an effective portfolio can be distinguished by the attention it pays to audience and purpose. Just as understanding a work place can help you win acceptance with employers and employees, understanding the audience of our portfolios will enable us to design documents that will gain us similar acceptance. If we have this goal in mind, our documents’ formatting will serve to usher our readers into the content of the work. After the audience has been drawn in, having written documents that clearly communicate our purpose becomes extremely important. Needless to say, if our documents look acceptable on the outside but are confusing on the inside, we have failed.

If you want to be a writer, cover all your bases. It’s war out there. People are barbarians. To the victor go the spoils.

we just can't get away from this stuff can we?

Over the last four years, the only citation style I have used (or at least have used so much that I actually know how to use it) is MLA, and apparently, rhetoric has been creeping into the crevices of my papers all along. Used mostly in the papers I have written analyzing literature, this style seems most fit for, as Bazerman states, furthering “a project of incremental encylopedism” (139). Though we are instructed to create an intelligent and unique argument, our argument can only be validated if surrounded by the appropriate support—the work of an acknowledge scholar who, preferably, has already come to the same conclusion we are seeking to prove. The necessity of first stating an author’s name and then his or her research serves to reinforce and perpetuate already codified knowledge.

        In comparison with the APA style Bazerman discusses, the general format of an essay written in MLA style raises some interesting points. Unlike the APA format, in which section divisions minimize or even eliminate the need for transition (127), the MLA style does not demand any divisions in an essay. Does the need then for smooth transitions serve to reinforce the coherence of the subject matter being written about? For example, in a literary analysis essay, the continuity throughout the essay would mirror the progressive narrative development of the work being discussed.

        On the topic of in-text citation, Bazerman states that the APA style makes “the close consideration of competing ideas and subtle formulations” an awkard and difficult task. Though MLA format does offer some leniency when close reading a text, the author must be careful to repeatedly mention the text name or the author, reminding readers that he or she is not creating, but rather restating.  

The argument being argued is not an argument, which allows it to become the argument being argued in the argument that is not directly being argued….

     That’s about how I felt reading ROHS’s chapter on the Rhetoric of Theology in an attempt to help me understand the rhetoric of my own writing. I am revising a paper written for a sociology class that deals with the concepts of grace and law in the Christian faith and how these principles function on an individual and corporate level within Christianity. As in any work, rhetoric definitely comes into play. I have depended heavily on scripture as well as other religious scholar’s opinions in shaping my argument. My wording also makes the argument clear. The chapter in ROHS, however, did not help me further understand the rhetoric I am using, nor what type of rhetoric I should use. I think this is because the type of theology addressed in the chapter is different from the type of theology I wish to address in my paper. Klemm is examining academic theology, focusing on the argument about the existence of God, claiming that current theology deals with the metaphor of “God as the breaking-in of ‘otherness’ to human existence” (278).  This breaking in is argued to be achieved through “word-events” (292).      My paper, on the other hand, in no way deals with this topic, but rather is meant to be addressed to Christians (meaning, obviously, that this audience accepts the existence of God). Therefore, from what I have deduced from Klemm’s initial disclaimer, my paper is in the realms of what his essay is not—confessional theology. Klemm states that confessional theology “operates as citation and elaboration of religious principle.”  He goes on to say that this type of theology alienates those who do not find the “truth of the confession self-evident” (276). However, if the intended audience is those who do agree with these truths, than isn’t a certain level of alienation to expected and perhaps even desired?
     After looking further into the topic of confessional theology, I understand it to be theology that has to do with the confessions and creeds that have been generally accepted as agreeing with scripture—in short, the arguments and beliefs that are considered to build up the Church and are held to be aligned with scripture. In another place, however, a “confession” was described to be something that is intimate and private to the author (reference is made to Augustine’s Confessions). Again, in another article dealing with the issue of apartheid in South Africa, confessional theology is shown to be intertwined with, both shaping and being shaped by, politics. This article states that the confessions are not meant to be taken as final words, but rather are to be held as potentially “fallible,” more like an “until further notice” statement. (Confessional Theology).
     Though I still have a very limited understanding of what confessional theology actually is, I think my paper falls more so under this category rather than the type of theology discussed in ROHS’s chapter on theology. My paper deals with the institutional church’s departure from what I believe to be God’s intended purpose (as I will support with Scripture and other scholar’s arguments). The audience of my paper is meant to be the average American institutional church, meaning that my “confession” is directly tied to our culture in particular as well as the politics of the American church. I think that this focus could be presented more clearly in my paper.
     As far as a “private” confession (if this is indeed an important aspect of confessional theology), my paper contains none of these type confessions. The paper was originally written in a research paper type format. I could potentially add more personal examples to attempt strengthen my argument, though I am not sure that this would be effective.

     And so continues the quest to discover how to effectively argue what it is that I’m actually arguing.

Circle of Life

In essence, codified academic knowledge only has one purpose: to train students to think a certain way. Though schools strive to educate people so they can become the movers and shakers of tomorrow, the academic knowledge taught hasn’t truly done its job well unless the students move and shake the way the textbook tells them to. Individual thought, though not obsolete, takes on a whole new meaning when viewed through all the layers of “individual” thoughts that have gone before. For example, as discussed at length in Spurious Coin by Bernadette Longo, though Comenius was the first to implement the use of textbooks in a methodical educational fashion, he drew upon the traditions of those who had come before him. Most importantly, he was greatly influenced by Francis Bacon. Therefore, his books were largely designed to be tools used to further Bacon’s ideas. He took from the styles of the popular handbooks and books of secrets, as well as that of encyclopedias, and used these styles to organize Bacon’s previous work. Longo states that Bacon had “brought together trends from the printing industry, popular handbook literature, religion, and statecraft to devise a plan for elevating the place of mechanical arts within his culture” (34). Thus, though Comenius used this previous knowledge for his own purposes (or perhaps Bacon’s), he used it nevertheless. Knowledge then becomes something that is molded and shaped by already existing truths, which rise to the surface or sink beneath depending on the legitimacy given them.  Continuing to look at Comenius, we see the ever repeating process of how codified knowledge directs knowing. Comenius, himself having received codified knowledge, recodes that knowledge into textbooks (a more concentrated form), and then this “new” knowledge, many times sifted through the sieve of codification, is laid open on students’ desks as pure and plain truth.  And thus the cycle repeats itself. Cue zebra and giraffe chorus.

Blog Post 2

For the technical/professional writer, audience analysis and an understanding of the workplace concerned are both necessary for effective communication. As Clifford Geertz discusses in his article “Thick Description,” all humans, including the writer himself, view the world through an individual cultural lens. He claims that “anthropological writings are themselves interpretations [….] its source is not social reality but scholarly artifice” (8).  It therefore becomes the technical writer’s job to identify the lens through which his audience will read his writing, as well as to identify the lens through which he himself writes.  In his writings on ethnography, Geertz asserts that in order to achieve a true understanding of a subject (be it audience, workplace, or sheep), the writer must form a “thick description.”  He explains: “The claim to attention of an ethnographic account […rests] on the degree to which he is able to clarify what goes on in such places, to reduce the puzzlement—what manner of men are these—to which unfamiliar acts emerging out of unknown backgrounds naturally give rise” (8).  As we have discussed in class, the extent to which we are able to unpuzzle the environment into which we are writing directly determines how far our message will carry. Therefore, thick description helps the technical writer not merely to observe the audience, but to identify the cultural lens through which they view society, and in turn to appeal to that view, making him a successful communicator.

One paper that I would love to revisit and improve is a Sociology paper I wrote about the institutional church. In the paper I identify and analyze discrepancies between church practices (both current and historical) and Biblical truths.  Being passionate about this subject, I would love to do some sort of audience/workplace analysis so that I might better communicate.  Perhaps one way of doing so would be to conduct a workplace ethnography in a church in order to confirm the way in which they actually perform (most likely also revealing some of my own false assumptions in the process) and in order to hopefully identify the motives behind these actions. This knowledge would help me to handle the subject more efficiently and to explain the subject more “thickly.” As far as my actual reading audience is concerned, though, I am less certain as how to analyze them. Perhaps it would be worth while to identify people’s (both Christians’ and non-Christians’) opinions of the institutional church.  I would then be able to more clearly argue the effect of certain church practices.

Blog Post 1

The role of the technical/professional writer, in essence, is to communicate. Whether he or she is trying to inform readers of scientific facts, explain operating instructions, or convince readers of the quality of a product, it is the writer’s job to effectively communicate this information so that it is useful and effective. As a result, the role of the technical writer becomes much more complex. Heather and Roger Graves explore this role in detail in A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication. They write that the technical writer’s job often is to take a very specialized body of information and translate it into a form that a non-specialist user can understand. Therefore, in order to communicate effectively the writer must identify the user audience and must understand their needs and expectations. The writer must take many different user qualities into account. Graves and Graves explain that the writer must be familiar with things such as the context in which the document will be read and used.  In addition, the writer must be aware of the users’ level of familiarity with the information, and must be careful to cater to all types of users—at once giving sufficient information to users who are unfamiliar, while also being careful not to offend or alienate experienced users who already have a basic understanding of the information concerned. Graves and Graves offer several strategies for acquiring such information, including interviewing both users and experts, observing users using the product as well as using the product oneself. In addition, they continue to stress the importance of creating user profiles, classifying users according to things such as interests, demographics, age, sex, race. Once the writer understands the users, he or she then must transcribe the information accordingly, creating a well written document that is purposeful, useful, and interesting.

            Of all my classes, my Chinese language classes have probably best prepared me for technical communication. In these classes, I was in what would be called the user’s position. I was dependent on my teachers to effectively communicate information with which I was totally unfamiliar. I experienced the excitement of understanding difficult concepts as a result of effective communication, the frustration caused by poorly presented information, as well as the annoyance of being given overly simplified information. Furthermore, having a limited vocabulary, I was forced to find a simpler way to communicate in Chinese, making it necessary for me fully understand the message I was trying to communicate. As a result, especially in situations with secondary English speakers, I have found that I better understand how to explain complicated subjects in a clear and concise manner, while also respecting the listener’s intelligence.  

Ok so for those of you that signed up to follow my blog while I was in China, which turned into emails thanks to good ol' censorship, you should know that now this blog is going to contain lots of info on technical/professional writing. I'm in a class and we had to make a blog and I already had this one and so I thought why not just keep using this one? So now you know. Feel free to not follow this anymore, OR get ready for a whole bunch of technical goodness!