Saturday, September 26, 2015

Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

To begin answering some of my research questions I posed in my last post, I've found a few articles on the issues.  After reading them, I performed an analysis of the rhetorical situation, which can be found in this Google Doc.

Reading the articles about the CA drought was scary.  The last article I read explained how drought is a problem all of the US faces, and will become a more prominent issue in the future.  Water is precious, and we are consuming more than the earth can provide.

4/8/12 via Pixabay. Public Domain License.

REFLECTION

By reading the rhetorical analyses completed by Grace and Aaron, the main thing I realized was for a rhetorical analysis to be successful, the text has to have distinct opinions and employ different devices.  Because of this, I saw that sources in the format of interviews are probably going to be harder to analyze, because it will be more difficult to get a true sense of the speaker's rhetoric, if the flow of their words is broken up into small chunks.  It's also harder to find rhetorical strategies in a piece that is mainly informational, because there isn't an obvious argument being made.

I think the LA Times piece I found will be the best to work with.  It's clear and opinionated, and although it spends some sections describing the drought situation, the author's own voice is distinct.

2 comments:

  1. The rhetorical evaluation that was most interesting was the piece from the N.Y times because it gave detailed examples of what was beneficial and innovative about the water use in California during the drought and what was risky and harmful. The least dynamic would be the piece on Pope Francis because although it gives great background on climate change and the environment and it comes from a popular figure , It doesn't tie in completely with the California drought topic.

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  2. The most interesting article in my opinion would be the one on how California is weathering the drought successfully.It was effective rhetorically because it painted vivid pictures on how the drought has affected lives, and how it will continue to navigate this drought. I especially like the parts about the normal people who have functioned without water. Because I live in the desert myself, I can empathize with that. The article I found least interesting was the one on Pope Francis. I'm already kinda done discussing what Pope Francis said after today's class, but the author has no credibility, it seems. He discusses the Pope's "Marxist" tendencies, but does nothing to support that claim or provide a call to action. In the end, it's uninspired, unsupported, and it seems like the ramblings of a pissed off author.

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