Brief synopsis of material from class 10/02/09

Rhetoric
• The study of the elements as or style used in writing or speaking. The art of using language effectively. Rhetoric also has a negative connotation of empty or pretentious language meant to waffle, stall or even deceive.
• Aristotle defines rhetoric as the ability to see what is persuasive in all circumstances through the use of logos, ethos or pathos. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/
• Logos: reason
• Ethos: character or fundamental values of a people
• Pathos: a quality arousing feelings of sympathy, pity, tenderness or sorrow.
• We use different genres for our rhetoric.

Purpose
• Purpose is a writer's reason for trying to convey a particular idea. (Thesis) about a subject to a particular audience of readers. Though it may emerge gradually throughout a piece of writing, in the end the purpose should govern every aspect of it.
Important questions to consider
• Why is the communication happening?
• What’s the point of the communication?

How choosing an audience affects the purpose
• If you don't have a particular intended audience in mind, or if you say that your essay is for "everybody" or "society" or "people interested in this topic," your writing will tend to be as general as your intention. Your real purpose will be (or seem to be) turning in an assignment to the teacher (and the teacher won't be a happy reader). On the other hand, if you see yourself as addressing a real reader, you will have a much clearer understanding of your purpose, and your reader will feel more involved.
How does choosing an audience affect the strategy (style, support, tone, vocabulary)?
• Knowing the intended audience, then, enables you to ask questions and make choices rather than following rules. You will also have to decide how much support to give for a point.
• The real question is "how much support does the intended audience need?" Real-world writers think in these terms, not in terms of length or number of sources.
What does your audience believe?
• Although you may belong to the same general group as your intended readers, it's often a mistake to assume that your readers already agree with you or knows the material you're trying to convey. If the readers agree totally with you, why do they need to read your statement? But if you assume that your readers are either uncommitted or leaning to the other side, then you will know from the start what and why to argue your point.

Developing Focus in Writing
• To focus your writing, you'll need to know how to narrow your focus, so you don't overwhelm your readers with unnecessary information. Knowing who your readers are and why you are writing will help you stay focused.
• Wat focus is really all about—is informally known as sticking to the point.
• Sticking to the point involves having a clear idea of what you want to write and how you want to write about your topic. While you write, you'll want to keep in mind your supporting details to help your readers better understand your main point. http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/focus/pop5b.cfm
• The biggest conceptual shift in most students is having too broad of a statement and literally finding everything they ever knew about this topic and dumping it into a paper. They need to consider what they write a pro-active document: a document that's going to be used by a specified audience for a specified reason about a specific area of that broader topic.
• Most academic writing requires a narrow focus because it's easier to move from that into the specific supporting detail highly valued in the academic community.