PB3A

For my PB3A I am going to use a scholarly article on the effects of global warming on benthic invertebrate life. It is a scientific peer reviewed journal and as such is going to be formal and very detailed. I am looking for a more conventionally free genre. The scientific journal will also be very bland, in the sense that it is not trying to entertain the audience.

               I will have to read the article and define a solid purpose that can be manipulated and tweaked slightly to appeal to the different audiences. It appears that mostly all the rhetorical features of the texts will be different, except for the purpose. The purpose for the most part should be the same because it is what ties the information all together. There may be some slight variation in purpose for the reason that in order for the work to contextually make sense it may require modification.

               For the young audience, I want to use the script for a YouTube video. I think this is one of the most contextually free genre, but I did in fact just realize that among YouTube channels there is a wide sense of variation and there exist different genres. I think I will choose to do a “Vlog” type genre. It will basically be the script of some YouTuber who is talking about the matter.

               To effectively mimic the style of a YouTube vlog, I will have to take into account the audiences expectations and the conventions of the genre. YouTube vlogs are very personal. They tend to be very dramatic and throw in bits of their more personal life between the main content. The videos seem to be a personal experience for both the YouTuber and the viewer. The vlogger will often directly address their fans and use inclusive words to make the fans feel like they are in on something. Sometimes they will even make inside jokes or pet names to use with or on their fans. The main purpose of a volg is to entertain so I will have to see if I can make the information from the scholarly article entertaining in some way. I will probably end up using lots of exclamation points and stream of consciousness writing to translate an excited and speech like tone. One set of must have conventions in YouTube videos is the intro and ending. The YouTuber will generally start the video off by saying “whats up” or “hey” to all of their fans (sometimes it’s a catch phrase). Then they usually end it by saying something along the lines of “if you liked this video, please subscribe” and then go on to ask you to follow their other forms of social media.

               For the older audience base I still want to have more freedom conventionally than the original article so I will probably do the second piece in the genre of radio news. Again this will be in script form as the work it would take to actually create and develop the final work would be much greater than simply typing what is said. For the radio news I’ll have to be much more formal. This is a good choice though because the older audience would appreciate the formalness as they seem to be more settled in life and enjoy less energetic forms of media. The radio news would also have to be brief yet detailed at the same time. They have an interesting way of telling the audience what is needed to say with just the right amount of information. If I were to record it, I would have to talk very precisely and enunciate my words well.

PB2B

Everyone has their own kinds of moves. Michael Jackson had the moon walk, The Rock had the rock bottom, and Michael Jordan had the mid-air reverse layup. Although all the moves listed are physical, moves come in different shapes and sizes. One area in which moves are not often considered is writing. Writers have all sorts of moves that they use to connect with the audience and clearly accomplish the purpose of their text. In this article, we will compare and contrast the two excerpts found in the writing 2 course reader, “Murder! Rhetorically” by Janet Boyd, and “Style in Arguments” by Lunsford. We will look at the overall structural moves first, then at the deeper, rhetorical moves.

               In “Murder! Rhetorically” Boyd separates her writing into sections that approach a singular event, the murder of a man, from different perspectives and contexts so that the audience can explore the changing of conventions across genres. The subsections are titled with quirky titles like “Getting In Touch With Your Inner Detective”, and “Cultivating Your Inner Coroner” which relate to the specific genre that she will be analyzing. Naming the titles with lightly humorous yet related phrases is one of the many moves that Boyd uses to connect to her young-adult/student audience. She tries to appeal to the active minds of students by giving them an interesting hook to capture their interest for the upcoming section. In “Style in Arguments” Lunsford also uses the move of dividing the information into organized subsections but the names are much less interactive and are very straight to the point. Using subsection titles like “Style and Word Choice”, and “Punctuation and Argument”, which are very clear suggests that the author wants to make the information that they are providing, as easy as possible to find and understand. Another move that Lunsford uses that supports the intention of presenting information clearly and meaningfully is the use of pictures and excerpts in the writing. Lunsford uses the pictures and excerpts as concrete details by which to validate his/her statements about style. On the broadest level of “move” categorization, both authors chose to organize their work by dividing the information into subsections. While they take different approaches as to how they interact with the audience through the titles of the subsections, both effectively present the information to the reader. Personally I prefer the Boyd’s interactive style in “Murder! Rhetorically”, as it kept me, the student reader more entertained and involved in the information.

               Rhetorically, both authors employ many different moves as well. In “Murder! Rhetorically”, Boyd uses a first person point of view, which establishes a relationship with the reader, as she is allowing you to get to know her. This acts to build her ethos, as you now feel like you know where the reader is coming from. She also tries to appeal to a younger, untamed generation by using cuss words. Even how she decides to include the curse words is a move in itself. She recalls that one of her students once described rhetoric as “bullshit”. Her decision to include the word in quotes gives it less negative connotation in relation to her as the author, as it distances it from her own mouth and intentions. Despite the occasional bad word, Boyd uses educated yet slightly informal diction, further adding to her credibility as an intelligent yet entertaining writer. Boyd implements the interactive nature of her writing by actually speaking to the reader. This form of rhetorical conversation forces the audience to think about the questions and topics considered in the reading. At the end of her introductory section, she calls the audience to action by telling them to “Go ahead. Get started on writing your report of the murder scene” (Boyd 88). She also pulls a bold move by actually describing her thought process as a writer, and telling us how and why she decided to use a certain move. She says that “as much as [she is] aware of [her] audience here –so much that [she is] trying to engage in dialog with [us] through [her] casual tone, [her] informal language, and [her] addressing [us] directly by asking [us] questions and anticipating [our] responses” (Boyd 90). Lunsford chooses a more reserved approach to writing and uses subtle writing moves to improve the transfer of the information. One thing that Lunsford does consistently, is maintain a dry analytical tone. Lunsford sticks to formal and controlled diction, and although he uses the word “you” to address the reader, he tries to stay detached from the audience. Keeping the writing generally humorless and bland is a move that is aimed to eliminate any distractions from the actual information, allowing for the reader to understand the topic of the writing more clearly.

Both of the authors use various moves in their writings, all aimed at a certain reaction from or interaction with the audience of the writing. I enjoyed “Murder! Rhetorically” more than “Style in Arguments”. Boyd was more effective is engaging the reader. This move not only makes the text entertaining to read, the reader is asked to participate in an active style of reading that helps with the retention of information. While Lunsford covered an interesting topic and made good use of concrete details and analyzed the pictures and excerpts tediously, it came across blander and in the end was less enjoyable to read.