Project 1 Rough Draft Workshop

Pair up with one other classmate. Exchange rough drafts with them, and answer the following questions about your partner’s draft on a sheet of paper. No need to copy down the questions themselves; just write your answers to the questions. When you and your partner are both done writing, take five to ten minutes to run through what you’ve written and discuss your advice for each other. You’ll show your answers to me at the end of class.

1. Does your partner’s paper provide a solid introductory paragraph? In particular, does your partner avoid the temptation to start off too generally, for example by talking about all of human nature or all of advertising throughout history?
2. Does your partner provide a clear, identifiable thesis statement at the end of their introductory paragraph? If you can’t find your partner’s thesis statement, try to come up with a thesis statement for them that reflects the analysis in the rest of the paper. If there is a clear and identifiable thesis statement, is it specific enough? Does it identify the ad’s main persuasive goal and the dominant strategies it’s using to achieve that goal? Alternatively, your partner’s thesis statement might run into the opposite problem: trying to fit too many  bits of specific information into one sentence. This results in a wordy and overly long thesis statement. If that’s the case, help your partner break up that single overly long sentence into two shorter and clearer sentences. See http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/ for a little more guidance on thesis statements, as well some examples. e.g. Through its ____ and ____, this ad attempts to _(think not only about the basic exigence–the need to sell whatever product–but also any constraints or “micro” exigences the ad is responding to here)__.
3. Does your partner include enough description of the ad’s visual, textual, and/or sonic features? By “enough,” I mean enough so that readers who have not seen the ad understand what happens in it.
4. Does your partner adequately explain the effect the ad has on its audience, focusing on the rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and/or logos)? If not, offer suggestions for improvement.
5. Does your partner adequately explain ad’s rhetorical situation, focusing on its explicit or implicit target audience(s), its exigence, and any constraints it appears to be taking into account? If not, offer suggestions for improvement.
6. Did any argument or analysis in your partner’s paper seem unwarranted or exaggerated (in other words, did you think your partner was “jumping to conclusions” at times or not providing enough evidence for his/her claims)? If so, explain why.
7. Does each body paragraph have a clear topic sentence that announces the specific focus of that paragraph? If not, offer some detailed suggestions for revision.
8. Does each body paragraph transition from the previous body paragraph in a smooth and logical manner using a clear transitional device? If not, offer some detailed suggestions for revision.
9. On the sentence-level, did you find the paper to be well written? Does it contain poor grammar? Is it unnecessarily wordy at times? If so, offer some detailed suggestions for revision.
10. What, in your opinion, is the strongest part of this paper? What is the weakest?

Project 4 Overall Written Reflection Rough Draft Workshop

Quick update: our next class (12/13) is optional. See schedule.

Pair up with a partner. Read your partner’s draft and answer the following questions in a Microsoft Word document. When you’re done, hand the draft back to your partner, and talk to your partner about your feedback. Email your feedback to your partner so that they have it and can use it to revise, and also to me (imkenned@gmail.com) so that I have a record of it. When you’re done, call me over so that you can show me your work. At that point, you may leave.

I. Organization

• Does your partner provide a clear, identifiable thesis statement at the end of their introductory paragraph? If you can’t find your partner’s thesis statement, try to come up with a thesis statement for them that reflects the analysis in the rest of the paper.
• Is the essay logically organized so far? Does the essay transition smoothly from paragraph to paragraph? If there are any topic sentences that don’t transition clearly from the previous paragraph, revise them so that they do (actually write on your partner’s draft to do this). A good way to do this is to insert a transitional device in the topic sentence in need of revision. A list of transitional devices and their functions in relation to previous paragraphs–e.g. to indicate similarity to the previous paragraph, cause and effect, exception/contrast, etc.–can be found below.

For instance, pretend in your Project 4 that your thesis statement claims that your main area of growth over the semester was in learning to better organize your ideas. Maybe in high school you found you were always good at coming up with ideas, but struggled when it came time to get those ideas down onto paper in an organized, logically presented fashion–and Comp 105 improved this.

In the body of such an essay, you might therefore have a paragraph focusing on how practicing rhetorical analysis of logos helped you to better see how other people logically structure their arguments. You then might have another paragraph explaining how learning the stasis forms also helped you develop in this manner, since it gave you a way to break down your arguments into different stasis forms. Pretend we’re transitioning from the former paragraph to the latter paragraph. What would a good transitional device be here–what kind of logical relationship are we trying to express between these paragraphs?

II. Thoughtfulness and Thoroughness of Response

• Does your partner delve into enough detail with examples and evidence from their work in the class? For example, if your partner asserts that they’ve improved on writing with a specific target audience in mind, do they cite (for instance) a particular revision they made in Project 3 that proves this, or do they just make that assertion without backing it up with evidence? If there’s any room for improvement at all in this category–and I’d be surprised if there isn’t–specify what needs to be improved and speculate about how to improve it.

III. Clarity of the Writing

• Is the essay clearly written so far, with standard spelling, grammar, and punctuation? In addition to giving a general answer about the paper’s clarity as a whole, make sure you actually run through your partner’s draft with a pen and pencil and mark any specific grammatical/spelling errors.

Introduction to Project 4

A couple introductory pieces of advice based on what students in previous semesters have done.

First, make sure you actually quote sentences from your previous writing assignments (including the rough drafts and final drafts) in this course.

These quotes are the evidence for your claims about your progress, in the same way that quotes from the documentary, article, or book you analyzed for Project 2 were your evidence for that paper. At the same time, don’t over-quote. If you find yourself wanting to talk about a whole paragraph from a previous project, just quote the most relevant sentences where the major revisions occurred and paraphrase the rest. Here’s an example of what not to do.

Second, don’t be vague about how the stuff you’ve learned in COMP 105 may applied to other writing situations. 

For example, you should not be speculating about the usefulness of this new rhetorical knowledge for you and your classmates in general. Rather, what’s important is the usefulness your rhetorical knowledge for you specifically (i.e. given your major, career path, current work, etc.) in new writing contexts you’re likely to face in the future, or ones you’re already facing in the present. For instance, don’t do the following (this is the concluding paragraph from a Project 4 draft from a previous semester):

I feel like the things that we have learned in comp 105 can also benefit us in many ways outside of this particular class and in different situations. One situation is if we ever need to give a presentation in which we are trying to persuade the audience to feel a certain way. I feel like the use of the three rhetorical concepts that we learned this semester would be perfect for this situation. Overall I feel as if the stuff we learned in this class will not only benefit us now, but if used correctly, can benefit us in certain situations for the rest of our lives.

The next example (from another Project 4 draft) is much, much better:

The confidence in my writing, the rhetorical concepts that improve it, and the revisions that perfect it, will all help me in future aspects of life too. Specifically, when it comes time to apply to medical school. A major part of the application process is the personal statement. This is where an applicant would write about themselves and why they chose medicine as a profession. Seeing how less than half of applicants get accepted into medical school, it’s pretty clear why I need to sound convincing when writing why I should be accepted. Luckily I’m able to utilize rhetorical appeals such as ethos, to explain why I’m a qualified applicant. I can use pathos by telling a meaningful story about my path to medicine. Knowing to adapt my writing to appeal to the target audience, the admissions committee, will also help immensely. Since I’m better at revising now, I’ll be able to catch any silly mistakes or weird-sounding sentences, furthering enhancing my ethos. So despite my beliefs coming into Comp105, I learned a lot of valuable skills and gained confidence for future college writing classes. I not only learned a lot about writing a persuasive essay, but also am able to apply it when writing papers. These skills will help me throughout the rest of my professional life.

Due next time:

• Rough Draft of “Overall Written Reflection” for Project 4

Project 3 Revision Workshop

Revision Workshop

1. Get into groups of 3 or 4.
2. Access a copy of the most recently updated version of your Project 3.
3. For each group member, using his or her Revision Reflection, determine the most important thing still in need of revision. Then, take that person’s draft and revise that single most important thing as a group. It’s up to you how to actually execute these revisions. If  you’re working with an electronic copy, you might do the revision in Microsoft Word, Google docs, etc. (If you’re using Microsoft Word to make these revisions, you might want to enable the “Track Changes” function in Word to keep track and of the changes you’ve made in the Word Document. Instructions for enabling Track Changes are here, plus allow me to quickly demo it.) Even if you don’t finish the revision–some “most important revisions” might conceivably take more to complete than the time allotted here–I still want to see the progress you’ve made in class today toward completing said revision.
4. When you’re finished, call me over I’ll ask you to explain (and show me evidence of) the major revision you’ve made for each group member. Remember to hand in your Revision Reflection to me on the way out.

Project 3 Diagnostics + MLA info

Don’t commit the “straw man” fallacy.

The “straw man” is a particular type of logical fallacy. According to our textbook, “a straw man argument is a diversionary tactic that sets up another’s position in a way that can be easily rejected” (57). In other words, if a particular counterargument is too difficult or too complex to respond to in an easy or simple way, we sometimes create an oversimplified or otherwise distorted version of that counterargument–a version that’s easier to rebut.

The problem is that you’re being unfair to the opposing viewpoint, since you’re giving the reader a less than accurate version of it. Moreover, by dumbing down your counterarguments, you’re effectively dumbing down your own paper; you’re preventing your own argument from developing and growing stronger.

How do we prevent this? By actually citing and quoting from a source every time we raise a counterargument.

Consider the following example, from one of your drafts:

Some may say, that vaccines are harmful because they contain toxins such as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, and antifreeze. (For example?) The truth, however, is that vaccines are mostly water with antigens that require additional ingredients in order to stabilize the solution or increase the vaccine’s effectiveness. (CITE) Parents worry about mercury because some vaccines used to contain the preservative thimerosal, which breaks down into ethylmercury. Researchers now know that ethylmercury doesn’t accumulate in the body—unlike methylmercury, the neurotoxin found in some fish. But thimerosal has been removed from all infant vaccines since 2001. (CITE HERE) Also, it is true that vaccines contain aluminum salts. Yet, these are used to enhance the body’s immune response, stimulating greater antibody production and making the vaccine more effective. Although aluminum can cause greater redness or swelling at the injection site, the tiny amount of aluminum in vaccines—less than what kids get through breast milk, formula, or other sources—has no long-term effect and has been used in some vaccines since the 1930s. (CITE) Dr. Ari Brown adds, “It’s in our soil, in our water, in the air. You’d have to leave the planet to avoid exposure.” As for antifreeze, it is simply not in vaccines. Parents may be confusing its chemical names—both ethylene glycol and propylene glycol—with the ingredients used in the vaccine-manufacturing process (such as polyethylene glycol tert-octylphenyl ether, which is not harmful). (CITE)

 

Another point: target audience(s).

Many of you are leaving it unclear exactly who your target audience is. To whom does your argument matter? If your paper doesn’t answer this question yet, a good place to do it is in the concluding paragraph. Indeed, specifying the target audience is in many ways the perfect job for a concluding paragraph. A good strategy for doing this in your concluding paragraph would be to be extremely straightforward, using some variation on the following:

(Pretend, for example, that I’ve written a paper arguing that daily use of smart phones and other social media-equipped technologies is bad for children’s  psychological and social development.)

To conclude, allow me to address an important question that I have yet to address head-on: to whom does this topic matter? As I see it, the issues discussed in this paper have the most immediate consequences for two audiences in particular. The first is parents. Given the numerous negative effects that social media use has on the adolescent brain, parents should find ways to limit the time that their children spend using such technologies. A second audience that has a stake in this topic is public school administrators. Given that most parents can’t monitor their children’s activity 24/7, part of the burden falls upon school administrators to more effectively crack down on social media use during school hours.

MLA Info

1) Citing a book:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. Penguin, 1987

In-text citations for books:

Gleick argues that “akdsfnadskngsdl” (12).

As one critic puts it, “akdsfnadskngsdl” (Gleick 12).

2) Citing a scholarly article:

Author(s). “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Duvall, John N. “The (Super)Marketplace of Images: Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillo’s White Noise.” Arizona Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 3, 1994, pp. 127-53.

In-text citation for scholarly articles:

Duvall argues that “sngsdkjgn” (145).

As one critic puts it, “asjdngsfjkgnsjkdng” (Duvall 145).

3) Citing web sources:

Last name, First name. “Page Title.” {if no clear title is given, use what’s written in the tab title} Website title. Sponsoring Institution/Publisher {usually by the copyright symbol at the bottom of the page}, Publication Date. Date Accessed.

Lundman, Susan. “How to Make Vegetarian Chili.” eHow, http://www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html. Accessed 6 July 2015.

In-text citations for web sources are difficult to wrap one’s head around at first. This is because there are no page numbers. So if not the page number where you’ve found the quote, what do you put in the parenthetical citation?

The answer is simple: you put the first thing that appears on the Works Cited page entry for that source. This would be the author’s last name, or if no author is given, then the title of the web page. Examples:

There is evidence of this commonly held misconception all over the web; as one commentator puts it, “blabh lakblkanfdklnafbn” (Kennedy).

*If you use the author’s name when you introduce the quote, no parenthetical citation is necessary:

Kennedy exemplifies this commonly held misconception when he asserts that “blabh lakblkanfdklnafbn.”

In-text citation for a web source when no author is given:

There is evidence of this commonly held misconception all over the web; as one anonymous commentator puts it, “blabh lakblkanfdklnafbn” (“10 Fatal Diseases Curable Simply by Drinking Lemon Water”).

Here are some more helpful tips regarding how to locate all the bibliographic data for a web source:
http://courses.semo.edu/library/infolit/mlastyle_web.htm

Project 3 Rough Draft

First, a note on scholarly sources:

Scholarly sources are also known as peer-reviewed sources:

From: http://libguides.umd.umich.edu/content.php?pid=578980&sid=4772865

Also helpful: Scholarlyrev

To find good quality scholarly sources, use library databases like Academic OneFile and ProQuest, more structured library resources like Opposing Viewpoints in Context, or just type keywords into the library’s broad SearchSummon tool.

Project 3 Rough Draft Workshop

Pair up with one other classmate. Exchange rough drafts with them, and answer the following questions about your partner’s draft in a blank Word document. No need to copy down the questions themselves; just write your answers to the questions. When you and your partner are both done writing, take five to ten minutes to run through what you’ve written and discuss your advice for each other. When you’re done, call me over so that I can review your answers. After I’ve done so, you may leave. Before you do, make sure to email your feedback both to me and to your partner so that they have and can use it.

1) Does the essay have a clearly identifiable thesis statement? If not, after reading the draft, work with your partner to come up with a thesis statement, or to improve the one they already have.

2) So far, does the essay effectively integrate outside sources and research? Does the essay use signal phrases and avoid simply dropping in quotes at random? Does it take time to introduce each quote and explain why each quote is relevant to the paper’s argument?

3) Is the essay logically organized so far? Does it develop in a way that supports the initial claim in the thesis statement? Is each paragraph clearly identified by a topic sentence and a transitional device explaining how this new sub-topic relates to the previous paragraph? Overall, does the essay flow well?

4) Is the essay working to establish the exigence of the issue? Does it make clear that this is a topic worth arguing about in the first place? Does the essay present at least one counterargument? If so, what is it? If not, come up with a possible counterargument or objection to your partner’s thesis.

5) Did any argument or analysis in your partner’s paper seem unwarranted or exaggerated (in other words, did you think your partner was “jumping to conclusions” at times or not providing enough evidence for his/her claims)? If so, explain why.

6) On the sentence-level, did you find the paper to be well written? Does it contain poor grammar? Is it unnecessarily wordy at times? If so, offer some detailed suggestions for revision.

7) What, in your opinion, is the strongest part of this paper? What is the weakest?

Project 3 Pre-Writing Workshop

Pair up with another student. Log onto a computer. Open up your partner’s Blog Post 4. In a Microsoft Word document, number and answer the following questions. When you’re finished, discuss the results with your partner, and email the document both to your partner and to me. When you’re finished, discuss the results with your partner. At that point, call me over so that you can show me you and your partner’s work. Once you’ve fielded any questions I may have for you, you may leave.

1. Translate your partner’s outline into its core stasis forms.

In at least one complete paragraph, use our “stasis form” terminology to describe the overall structure of your partner’s paper as laid out by their outline. This may take some work depending on how thorough or informative your partner’s outline is. If your partner’s outline is unclear, talk with your partner—indeed, interrogate your partner—to force them to go into more depth and give you some answers. The goal here is to look for holes in your partner’s argument and to flesh out the structure of their paper as we head into the rough draft-writing stage. 

Here’s an example. Pretend this is your partner’s topic idea and outline:

Thesis: The federal minimum wage is not high enough. It should be increased which would reduce poverty and will increase the US economy.

Section 1: What is the federal minimum wage and statistics about poverty.

Section 2: Explanation to why federal minimum wage is not high enough using sources.

Section 3: Explain what would happen by increasing the minimum wage, Effects, using sources.

Section 4: Talk about some downsides of increasing minimum wage but talk about benefits outweighing the costs.

As this person’s partner, I would write something like:

The paper will begin by clarifying the definition of the minimum wage as it currently is (definition stasis), presumably just to inform any readers who aren’t completely up to speed on how the minimum wage is currently defined. The paper will then use the evaluation stasis to claim that the minimum wage isn’t high enough. In the final two sections, the paper will use the cause/consequence stasis: first, to show the positive effects that would stem from increasing the minimum wage, and then second, to admit to some possible negative consequences. Although it’s not entirely clear that this is what the author intends to do, it seems like they’re thinking then of concluding with one final evaluation stasis to show that the possible positive consequences of raising the minimum wage would outweigh the potential downsides.

Not every outline will be this clear. Some may contain sections in which it’s not quite obvious what (if any) stasis form is at stake. Here’s an example:

For Project 3 I’m going to write about the cuts for funding towards planned parenthood. I don’t believe that the government should make these cuts for these funds.

I. People believe that Planned Parenthood is only meant for abortions, but they are not aware of all the other important things Planned Parenthood has to offer. Not only to women, but to everyone.

A. Basic healthcare for women.

B. Cancer screenings.

C. Men’s healthcare.

D. Infertility

E. STD’s/STI’s

II. Counterargument

If this were my partner, I would respond as follows:

The overall strategy of the paper’s first big section seems to revolve around the evaluation stasis. The author wants to re-evaluate Planned Parenthood to showcase to its critics several positives/benefits the program offers to society, benefits of which the program’s critics may be unaware or not appreciate enough due to misinformation. The paper’s next big section—labeled simply as “Counterargument” in the outline—is not as clear. After talking with my partner (the author), we thought about what stasis forms might be useful in structuring and responding to possible counterarguments/objections that are out there. The most useful was the cause/consequence stasis. If one counterargument is that Planned Parenthood loves giving abortions and does them like crazy, the author can respond by giving statistics that correct that misconception, and then respond even further and even more strongly by directing the reader to the media outlets and specific articles/reports (e.g. on FoxNews, talk radio, or sites like RedState.com or Breitbart.com) that cause people to have that misconception. We also thought of another counterargument and cause/consequence rebuttal. Many people opposed to Planned Parenthood claim that, if the program were defunded or shut down, women can really easily just go get abortions at other clinics. To rebut this, the author could use the cause/consequence stasis to show what the negative consequences (e.g. increased black-market abortions) would be of shutting down Planned Parenthood clinics in states where there aren’t as many other abortion providers as opponents may realize.

2. Test your partner’s topic for exigence and “arguability.” 

This question has two tasks.

First, come up with at least one possible counterargument against to your partner’s claims. Write this counterargument in at least three complete sentences.

Second, think about who the target audience(s) is(are) for this paper–to whom does this topic matter? Who would disagree with the paper’s major claims? Who is in a position to fix the problems that the paper identifies?

If you have trouble coming up with either of these components–a counterargument and a target audience (or audiences)–it means your partner’s topic may be lacking exigence: it may not be something worth arguing about. If that’s the case, interrogate your partner about it–ask for their input, and work with them to mold the topic so that it’s something worth arguing about and you can indeed come up with a counterargument and an audience to whom this topic matters.

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For next time:

• Due: Project 3 Rough Draft (bring one printed-out hardcopy)

Inventing an Argument, part 2: Causal and Proposal

The Proposal Stasis 

Last time we ended by covering the evaluation stasis. We’ll continue using the evaluation stasis today as we move to the proposal stasis. This is because proposals always imply some degree of evaluation.  In order to propose a solution to some problem, you have to begin by evaluating the current state of things to show that they’re bad in some important way and in need of improvement or fixing; only then does it make sense or feel exigent to propose a solution and fix what needs fixing.

So, it’s best to think of the proposal stasis as a “proposal/evaluation” combination.

The amount of evaluating you do versus the amount of proposing you do depends on the particulars of your topic.

For example: most people in Michigan already agree that our roads are in horrible shape and in need of fixing. What people disagree about is the solution: what the best way to fix the roads is. Indeed, back in November of 2015, a roads funding bill narrowly made it through the Michigan House and Senate, and before Gov. Snyder went on to sign it, it faced a barrage of controversy:

That‘s where the exigence lies–if you wrote a paper about this issue, the exigence (the thing that would be provoking you to write) is not that people don’t get how bad Michigan’s roads are (they do), but rather that people can’t agree on how to fix them. So: if you wrote a paper about this topic, you wouldn’t need to spend much time convincing or persuading your reader that the problem exists. Instead, you would want to prioritize (i.e. spend more time and effort on) convincing them that your solution–the one you’re proposing–is the right solution, the better solution. In other words, you would want to prioritize the “proposal” side of the proposal/evaluation dynamic over the “evaluation” side (although part of making this work is, also, evaluating other people’s proposals).

Another point: the ratio of evaluation to proposal also depends on who your primary target audience is.  This thing you’re evaluating might already feel like a problem to some group or even some large proportion of the general population. For instance, let’s take the controversy over the NCAA’s classification of college athletes as unpaid amateurs:

As this clip makes clear, the fact that college athletes don’t receive payment for playing probably already feels like a problem to most college athletes. And it also now  probably feels like a problem to the more general group of viewers who watched this episode of John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight when it aired on HBO. However, we run into an exigence here: these specific groups–college athletes and viewers of Last Week Tonight–would certainly be receptive audiences to a paper claiming that college athletes deserve payment, but they’re probably not the audiences best equipped to fix the problem.

Rather, the audience best equipped to fix this problem–probably the NCAA or the universities and colleges involved–might not even realize this lack of payment is a problem in the first place; or, even more complex, this best-equipped-to-fix-it audience might very well have some sense that people are mad about this lack of payment, but doesn’t fully appreciate yet–or hasn’t been persuaded yet–just how much of a problem it is, or that it’s a problem worth solving now.

In this case, you’d want to give more priority to the evaluation stasis. It would be like you’re telling this audience: listen, you at guys at the NCAA or in the college athletic department, this thingis a big problem, much worse than you think it is, so fix it, and do it now! And, by the way, here’s a possible solution I’m proposing (that’s where a little bit of the proposal stasis would come in). And so, in a paper like this, your exigence–the thing that’s provoking or bugging you enough to write–is not so much what the best solution is to treating college athletes fairly, but rather that the people in charge of how those athletes are treated don’t even recognize that there’s a problem in the first place. Here, we’d be prioritizing evaluation over proposal.

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Really short group exercise

Get into groups of 3 or 4.

Groups to which I assign an odd number will brainstorm to come up with an issue that would require prioritizing evaluation over proposal. Remember, the exigence in this case is that not enough people get that some important thing is a problem in the first place.

Groups to which I assign an even number: you’ll come up with an issue in which the burden lies on the proposal side of the  equation. Remember, the exigence for an issue like this resides in the fact that, while everyone agrees that this important thing is a problem, nobody can agree on how to solve that problem.

You have 15 minutes. Feel free to use the internet in your search. We’ll discuss the results thoroughly after you’re done.

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Now, let’s work from your topics and try to develop them into fuller, more internally structured arguments–exactly the kind you should be shooting for with Project 3.

In particular, we’ll think about any spots or areas in which the definition or causal stases may come into play as we develop the argument.

A little on the causal stasis:

Group 1: should abortion be legal–already was resolved legally (roe v wade), but is constantly re-evaluated in terms of whether it should be legal or not; defintion: what is life, when does life begin–what counts as life; what is caused by abortion remaining legal? what would be the consequence(s) if it were rendered illegal?

Group 2: anti-vaccine parents; individuals who are pro-vaccine (doctors, for instance) don’t know how to best approach anti-vaccine parents. would target doctors: your persuasive strategies have been unpersusaaive toward anti-vaccine parents–i propose in this paper a more effective strategy for chanigng anti-vaccine parents’ minds. a “Right” (legal) versus what’s in public best interest (also morality) >> cause/consequence? more strategies need to be implemented or else.. negative effects on health, or else more measles >> what are the causes for anti-vaccine attitude?

Group 3: global warming >> some people think it’s not a big deal (who are some people) >> not the majority of scientists; effects of global warming are not perceivable on a human timesecale (at least in the West, e.g. in MI); consequence = florida is underwater (sorry flordia man) consequencdes down the line; definition stasis? what is global warming–

Group 4: parking scarcity at um dearborn–people who don’t have to worry about it: deans (not lecturers), tenured faculty; define good parking (why is the parking bad; what would it look like if it was good); define different categories of parking (visitor v. faculty v. student); consequence = students for late classes, students unenrolliung out of anger at the parking situation in a moment of heated passion; why did we lose taht lot??~!? practical? aesthetics? (dont’ interfere with the campus greenspaces)

Group 5: funding for planned parenthood–target people unaware of what pp actually does and how it’s funded; what is causing this misinformation to stick, where does it come from; define: planned parenthood

Group 6: terrorism; definition: what is terrorism in the first place?  cause-consequence:

Group 7: bees dying off in mass numbers–target audience = pesticide manufactuers

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For next time:

Due: Blog Post 4

Inventing an Argument, part 1: Definition and Evaluation

Introduction to Project 3

The Definition Stasis

Let’s pretend that you’re writing an argumentative essay about animal cruelty and its relation to the practice of wearing animal fur.

In order to make a good-quality argument–to determine credibly whether or in what situations wearing fur counts as animal cruelty–this paper would want to look at multiple examples of fur-wearing practices. Essentially, the goal would be to think about whether each of these examples meets the criteria of animal cruelty–and in the process, after interpreting those various examples, this paper would arrive at a conclusion about what the threshold is at which wearing fur becomes animal cruelty.

In order to do that, however, we would need to establish with our reader what animal cruelty is in the first place.

To start, we might scour the internet and UM-Dearborn library to do some research into animal cruelty laws. Some research questions guiding our search might be the following: Is there a national, federal definition of what counts as animal cruelty, i.e. according to federal law? Does the definition of animal cruelty (i.e. of what’s prosecutable as animal cruelty) change from state to state as a consequence of different state laws? Are there other contexts–besides the legal context–where we could look to discern the criteria people use to define animal cruelty?

To this end, get into groups of at least two people and, using the internet or any knowledge you already have, discover at least three criteria for what counts as animal cruelty. You can derive these criteria from (federal or state laws, or possibly even from sources of a non-legal nature (e.g. philosophy/ethics). Work with purpose–you have 15 minutes. Write these down (I won’t be collecting them, but I will be asking your group to contribute.

Something counts as animal cruelty when it involves the following:

2.

3.

4.

5.

Now that we’ve got a basic working definition of animal cruelty (not a perfect definition, maybe, but one that can help us get our argument going, and one which we could return to and revise later), let’s see whether some particular examples match these criteria.

‘ 

Animal cruelty (broader category)	Kim wearing fur (particular example)
A)	A)
B)	B)
C)	C)
D)	D)

But what about this example?

Animal Cruelty (broader category)	Native American wearing fur (main term)
A)	A)
B)	B)
C)	C)
D)	D)

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The Evaluation Stasis

Much like definitional arguments (“Is X a Y?”), evaluations also involve a criteria-match structure. In this case, however, you are not providing the criteria that a thing must meet to be defined in a category, but rather the criteria it must meet to be evaluated as a “good” or “bad” instance of whatever category it already belongs to.

There are three types of evaluation criteria:

• Practicality: Is something practical or impractical? Useful or useless? Feasible to implement, or unfeasible to implement? Possible and realistic, or impossible and unrealistic?
• Aesthetics: Is something beautiful or ugly? What kind of image does it send out to the world–is that image good/beneficial/constructive or bad/harmful/dangerous?
• Ethics: Is something right or wrong, just or unjust, fair or unfair, moral or immoral?

Example: NASA sending humans into space

Evaluate in terms of…

Practicality:

Aesthetics:

Ethics:

Think back to our two “is wearing fur animal cruelty” examples:

Practicality:

Aesthetics:

Ethics:

versus

Practicality:

Aesthetics:

Ethics:

 

Project 2 Revision Workshop

Revision Workshop

1. Get into groups of 3 or 4.
2. Access a copy of the most recently updated version of your Project 2.
3. For each group member, using his or her Revision Reflection, determine the most important thing still in need of revision. Then, take that person’s draft and revise that single most important thing as a group. It’s up to you how to actually execute these revisions. If  you’re working with an electronic copy, you might do the revision in Microsoft Word, Google docs, etc. (If you’re using Microsoft Word to make these revisions, you might want to enable the “Track Changes” function in Word to keep track and of the changes you’ve made in the Word Document. Instructions for enabling Track Changes are here, plus allow me to quickly demo it.) Even if you don’t finish the revision–some “most important revisions” might conceivably take more to complete than the time allotted here–I still want to see the progress you’ve made in class today toward completing said revision.
4. When you’re finished, call me over I’ll ask you to explain (and show me evidence of) the major revision you’ve made for each group member. Remember to hand in your Revision Reflection to me on the way out.