Blog Post #5: Research

Blog post DUE Tuesday 10/20 – 4:30 pm

After reading Ch. 4 of Compose, Design, Advocate, I want you to consider your past research experiences, as well as the advice the textbook provides. In a blog post of 3-4 full paragraphs, please discuss and describe: a) your past experiences with doing research (particularly research done for a paper); b) what you do and don’t like about the advice for research CDA provides; and c) and what you consider to be hard and easy about research.

Keep these questions in mind as you write (but DON’T explicitly answer them one-by-one; remember you are writing an informal mini-essay, not simply taking a quiz):

1. What past research projects have you done? How did you do that research?
2. What research tools or methods do you use the most? Why?
3. What do you consider easy about research? Why? Conversely: What do you consider difficult about research? Why?
4. What advice or tips does the textbook give that you like or dislike? Why do you find this advice helpful or not?

Rhetorical Analysis Resources

Below, I have put together several resource lists that may help you as you revise your rhetorical analyses. Please use these sources at your own discretion.

Purdue OWL resources:

• Rhetorical situation, with examples
• Essay writing
• Argumentative writing
• Passive vs. active voice

Note: You should spend time on the OWL in general to see what’s offered. If you see a comment you don’t understand on your drafts, you should consider how to possibly learn more about what I’ve said via the OWL.

Other resources:

• University of Toledo’s Online Writing Center list of resources
• Excelsior College’s Online Writing Lab sample analysis

Resources to better understand context:

• CDA, pages 20, 44-47 [also, look up “context” in the index at the back of the book]
• Purdue OWL’s description of rhetorical setting is directly related to to context.

Discussion Questions – for Tues. 9/22

Reading to be discussed: Compose, Design, Advocate, ch. 5, p. 164-184

1. What are some tips for giving feedback to a peer? Keep in mind that we are doing peer review on Tuesday ourselves.
2. What are your past experiences with peer review and feedback? Do they match up with the book’s suggestions or not?
3. What are the differences between proofreading, editing, and revising?
4. Why/how is revision a rhetorical act?
5. What does your normal revision process look like? Are you happy with it, and/or does it work out well for you? If not, what are some ways you would like to change that process to be more effective?
6. What is the most difficult part of revision for you? The easiest?

Discussion Questions – for Tues. 9/8

Reading to be discussed: Compose, Design, Advocate, Ch. 7

1. What are some reasons why we might be learning visual communication as part of an introductory writing class?
2. Why is learning about visual communication important? What do we gain by being visually literate?
3. What are some things you need to take int consideration when you want to communicate visually?
4. What are contexts you can and cannot control for visual texts?
5. What are advantages AND disadvantages in using visual symbols?
6. How do ethos and pathos work in visual texts?
7. Why do you think the book considers color and text design choices to be related to pathos?
8. What are some of the key things to keep in mind when considering the logos of arranging visual elements? Why are these things important?
9. Can you think of times when it is appropriate to NOT follow some of the rules for clean and easy-to-look-at visual texts? Point to a few examples.

Discussion Questions – for Tues. 9/1

Reading to be discussed: Compose, Design, Advocate, ch. 5 (to p. 163) & ch. 9

1. What are some of the difficulties involved in imagining or thinking about your audience? What are some possible strategies for overcoming those difficulties?
2. What are ethos, pathos, and logos? (You may need to do a little bit of research to understand these better. You can start here: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/03/ )
3. Think of some past writing scenarios from your own life. Were there times that ethos, pathos, or logos were not all necessary or appropriate for something you wrote? Were there times when you felt you should have better balanced the three?
4. What are some strategies for an introduction? Why do you think the book includes this in the ethos section?
5. What are some logical structures in writing – both larger and smaller? As a reader of many types of texts, are you more convinced by some strategies than others? Why?
6. Why is word choice important?
7. What is a rhetorical analysis? Why is it beneficial to do one?
8. What are the five steps for doing a rhetorical analysis?
9. What do you think might be “easy” for doing a rhetorical analysis of a website? What do you think might be difficult?

Discussion Questions – for Thurs. 8/27

Readings to be discussed: Compose, Design, Advocate, ch. 1-2

Below are questions that are meant to help you read and formulate some possible thoughts for in-class discussion. You do not need to prove to me that you wrote answers to them, but you will probably find it useful to take notes that relate to these questions in some way.

1. What is rhetoric?
2. What is a statement of purpose, and what should it include?
3. What is a design plan, and what should it include?
4. On page 24, the book’s authors write about when an argument occurs. Do you agree with their assessment of what is and is not an argument? Why or why not?
5. Why is argument and advocacy important? What might be the downsides to argument and advocacy?
6. On page 26, the authors write: “Any communication affects the future shape of our current communication contexts.” Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not? Think of at least one example in which this might happen and one example in which it might not.
7. Why is it important to consider cultural knowledge and bodily experience when composing or designing?
8. What do the authors mean when they talk about the importance of inclusion and exclusion when thinking about your intended audience?
9. The book only mentions several examples of what context is. We went over context in Tuesday’s lecture. Can you think of more important contextual considerations for composing/designing something?