Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Freddy
frichmon@mdc.edu
If you're having problems with the book, see me after class!
You get what you put into the readings!
7 hours
9 minutes
2 hours
35 minutes
Table 1.1
The problem is already out there and you enter a conversation in progress.
You pose the problem yourself and initiate the conversation.
1.2
When we say that readers read rhetorically, we mean that they try to reconstruct the text’s original context—its place and date of publication, its original intended audience, its author’s original purpose—and analyze how the piece intends to influence those original readers. Rhetorical readers also analyze whether the text works persuasively for them, and they think critically about whether to accede to or challenge the text’s intentions.
*place and date of publication
*original intended audience
*author’s original purpose
*how the piece intends to influence those original readers
Is the text persuasive? Do you accede to or challenge the text’s intentions?
“Other people say (believe, argue) X, but I am going to say (show, argue) Y.”
There are many variations on this template, but the key idea is that your claim or thesis pushes against someone else’s thesis and thus brings something new to the reader. You don’t have to oppose or refute what other people say. You could qualify other people’s position, contribute new ways to support their position, or simply analyze and evaluate their position. In all these cases, the tension between your view and other views helps clarify what is new or surprising in your argument. This tension also helps you show the significance of your argument. There is something at stake in this conversation, some reason that you want to add your voice.