Featured – Michelle Writing

Babel-ing about the Tower of Power

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 01:39:41 +0000

The title of this post is a play on words. I know, it’s not immediately evident, but this wordplay has just been swimming through my head in the last few weeks. The Tower of Babel is a biblical story about power, and about language. And lately, those things have really reared their head in a modern way in writing, and particularly in the work we do in the Writing Center.

The rest of this text in this post is merely placeholder text. I have not yet written this blog post, but by the summer of 2021, it will all be here.

I will put all my text here. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space.

Writing with an English Accent

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 23:52:44 +0000

I didn’t even recognize my own writing. The editor had sent me the proof of my book review – and mind you, this is a book review for a journal in the UK – and the beginning of the proof started with the end of someone else’s book review, which is pretty typical. But when it got to my review, and I casually skipped over the title of the book, I began to read the text proper. I saw the word “programme” and believed I was reading someone else’s text. But it was interesting, so I kept reading. It sounded like work from my field, so I got a few sentences in before I even realized it was my own work. “Oh, wow, the editor must have rewritten a few of my sentences. I thought I wrote a decent piece.” I kept reading. Then I realized … this was all me. Nothing was changed. Nothing at all, except the endings of words and the “ou”s instead of us. It was me, myself, and I, written in British English instead of American Standard English.

I pulled up my submitted copy, and sure enough, there wasn’t a single textual change other than these “accents” on my writing. I just sounded so different in my head, while I was reading, that I didn’t even hear myself.

The rest of this text in this post is merely placeholder text. I have not yet written this blog post, but by the summer of 2021, it will all be here.

On Agreement in Science as a Virtue

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 23:02:50 +0000

In the introduction to Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science, Harris remarks that “the overall agreement that [scientists] achieve is amazing when compared to politics or religion or literary criticism” (1). I’m not sure on what basis this claim is made, but it’s made with such authority, and by a scientist, that on first read I simply took it to be true. But not only did I take it to be true, I took it to advance the agenda of the author – that somehow this exceptional quality of a quantitatively larger amount of agreement in the field of science meant that science was more virtuous than the other fields with which it was being compared, and by virtuous, I mean in particular, more worthy of having my trust and confidence of its truth, its credibility, its certainty of validity in its claims.

The rest of this text in this post is merely placeholder text. I have not yet written this blog post, but by the summer of 2021, it will all be here.

The Prevalence of False Ideas

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 22:38:41 +0000

In his book The History and Theory of Rhetoric, James Herrick remarks that “Aristotle believed that false ideas prevail only when advocates of what is true fail to understand rhetoric.” Is this true, however? False ideas, such as those spread by our most recent former president, were perpetuated without any training in rhetoric, and yet many advocates of the truth understand very well how this individual’s rhetorical style persuaded his audience to believe his lies.

The rest of this text in this post is merely placeholder text. I have not yet written this blog post, but by the summer of 2021, it will all be here.

Does Aristotle have Street Cred?

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 22:23:20 +0000

Can you recall a time when you knew Aristotle’s name, but you didn’t really know why he was important? Do your students know, or care, about Aristotle?

I don’t remember the first time I heard the name “Aristotle.” It was probably in an elementary or middle school ancient history unit. But certainly, when it came time for the purchase of my undergraduate philosophy 101 textbooks and Nicomachean Ethics was on the list, I didn’t have any idea why I was reading a document over 2000 years old with an unpronounceable title from halfway around the world.

Transition sentence here.

Yet my professor, like I and my colleagues decades later and states away, made the presumption that an introduction to Aristotle was not necessary for appreciating the authority of his words.

Another sentence here.

Aristotle as Rhetorician

When we teach writing, we often begin our discussion of rhetorical appeals with a discussion of Aristotle’s rhetoric. We provide quotes from Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, such as:

“We believe good people more fully and more readily than others; this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.”

We use this quote to demonstrate ethos, the appeal to the speaker or writer’s character, experience, and values. In this particular quote, Aristotle is pointing out that a speaker’s good character appeals strongly to our sense of credibility and helps us to trust the rest of the information provided by the speaker; we are less likely to believe a speaker of ill repute.

But what is the repute of Aristotle? In taking for granted the centuries-old teaching tradition that uses Aristotelian ethics, we forget to address the meta-ethotic appeal inherent in our pedagogy. We take for granted the rhetorical dependence upon which all of our rhetorical grounding is set: the credibility of Aristotle.

We believe that our students will, like us, simply trust that Aristotle has the authority to speak the truth about rhetoric, and in doing so, can lay the foundation for teaching the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos.

Why do we use Aristotle as a starting point? Well, because ethos, pathos, and logos are unfamiliar words outside of rhetorical analysis. The practice of rhetorical analysis dates back at least to ancient Greece, and we have our clearest records of it in works such as Aristotle’s On Rhetoric. It therefore seems to make sense to start our discussion of rhetoric in a writing class by explaining this unfamiliar set of concepts in its historical context.

But how often do we provide the necessary context to establish the historical context of Aristotle’s ethos? Who is Aristotle to our students? Besides some ancient guy that they are told to trust, because they are told to trust us as their teacher or professor.

And so I ask, in terms more familiar for today’s student audience: Does Aristotle have street cred?

Aristotle’s Ancient Authority

Here’s some historical text.

But do we teach this? I’m assuming the answer is no, because that’s been my experience. So if that’s the case, then why not?

Frequency of Aristotle Today

Text

Who are our credible sources

Text

And especially for international students

And here he is, Mr. Aristotle himself. I will talk about him more, and then I will be done. That will be the end of my post. I will put all my text here. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space. This is really just a lot of text so that I can continue writing text and it will look like a blog post. More text to fill space.