Preface

About OpenStax

OpenStax is part of Rice University, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable corporation. As an educational initiative, it’s our mission to transform learning so that education works for every student. Through our partnerships with philanthropic foundations and our alliance with other educational resource companies, we’re breaking down the most common barriers to learning. Because we believe that everyone should and can have access to knowledge.

About OpenStax Resources

About *Writing Guide with Handbook*

*Writing Guide with Handbook* bridges the gap between everyday rhetoric and academic discourse by revealing to students that they are already engaged in rhetorical work within the familiar contexts of personal interaction and social media. The text seeks to extend these existing skills by showing students how to construct a variety of compelling compositions within self-defined contexts. *Writing Guide with Handbook* breaks down barriers in the field of composition by offering an inviting and inclusive approach to students of all intersectional identities. To meet this goal, the text creates a reciprocal relationship between daily conversation and the evolving world of academia, which must allow itself to be shaped by students as much as it seeks to shape them.

Pedagogical Foundation

The OpenStax *Writing Guide with Handbook* is organized according to relevant writing genres, with the writing process, effective writing practices or strategies—including graphic organizers, writing frames, and word banks to support visual learning—and conventions of usage and style contextually embedded. The text includes an editing and documentation handbook, which is linked to the Editing Focus feature located in each genre chapter. This organizational approach allows instructors and students to focus on the importance of argumentation and research. In addition, the text allows for nimble customization based on inclusive assignments that welcome all voices and experiences to the academic forum as appropriate to the teaching styles of individual instructors and writing programs.

About the Authors

Additional Resources

The Things We Carry: Experience, Culture, and Language

Unit Introduction

The Digital World: Building on What You Already Know to Respond Critically

Introduction

"Reading" to Understand and Respond

Rhetoric and the Rhetorical Situation

To begin to read, write, and think critically, it is helpful to look at something familiar such as social media and the way it is used. Interactions on social media, as in all types of conversation, present rhetorical situations that form the basis of communication. In the most basic terms, a rhetorical situation has two elements: agents and conditions. Agents are the originators (initiators) and the audience of the communication. The originator may have a real audience or an anticipated audience. A real audience is made up of people the originator may know personally or know of. For example, if you are the originator, your real audience could be a group of your peers to whom you present your ideas in class. Or it could be a person to whom you send a text message. You know the members of the class and know something about them. Similarly, you know the person to whom you send the text. An anticipated audience is one you hope to reach or one you expect will engage with your communication. When you post on social media platforms, for instance, your audience is probably anticipated. While you might have followers, you may not know them personally, but you anticipate who they are and how they might react.

Social Media Savvy

Social media is an important part of modern life, and many people maintain multiple social media accounts. These applications can educate and help you connect to others. However, every post you make on any social media platform leaves a digital footprint—the sum of your online behavior. These footprints might reflect on you positively or negatively. On one hand, if you repost a baby goat jumping around a barnyard, you and others may laugh and no harm is done. On the other hand, if you are upset or angry and post something nasty about someone, the target can be harmed through cyberbullying and your online reputation tarnished. It is important to understand that the footprint you leave may never go away and may cause trouble for you down the road.

Social Media Trailblazer: Selena Gomez

Authenticity as Rhetoric

By any standard, singer, actor, and philanthropist Selena Gomez (b. 1992) is an influencer. By 2021, Gomez had amassed around 65 million Twitter followers and over 260 million Instagram followers, placing her among celebrities with top follower counts. Gomez was born in Grand Prairie, Texas, but raised outside of Dallas. She is named after the popular Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez (1971–1995), who was murdered by her fan club president but still maintains an avid following. Gomez entered show business as a child, inspired by the single mother, an amateur actress, who raised her. After roles on *Barney and Friends* (from 2002–2004) and *Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over* (2003), Gomez auditioned for the world of Disney. Appearing first on *The Suite Life of Zack and Cody* (2005–2008), Gomez landed a lead role as Alex Russo on Disney’s *Wizards of Waverly Place* (2007–2012), for which she also sang the theme song. By 2012, Gomez was ready to depart from such family-friendly roles, taking parts in films such as *Spring Breakers* (2012), *The Dead Don’t Die* (2019), and *A Rainy Day in New York* (2019). Gomez’s music career paralleled that of her acting career; she began as a member of the band Selena Gomez and the Scene (2009) and launched her solo career in 2012. Gomez has released the solo albums *Stars Dance* (2013), *Revival* (2015), and *Rare* (2020).

Discussion Questions

Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking

Words and Images

Both words and images convey information, but each does so in significantly different ways. In English, words are written sequentially, from left to right. A look at a daily newspaper or web page reveals textual information further augmented by headlines, titles, subtitles, boldface, italics, white space, and images. By the time readers get to college, they have internalized predictive strategies to help them critically understand a variety of written texts and the images that accompany them. For example, you might be able to predict the words in a sentence as you are reading it. You also know the purpose of headers and other markers that guide you through the reading.

Relation to Academics

As with all disciplines, rhetoric has its own vocabulary. What follows are key terms, definitions, and elements of rhetoric. Become familiar with them as you discuss and write responses to the various texts and images you will encounter.

Annotated Student Sample: Social Media Post and Responses on Voter Suppression

Introduction

In the social media thread that follows, Proud Immigrant Citizen @primmcit posts about immigration and voter suppression. Others add their comments regarding voter suppression. Consider the ways in which each person responds to this initial post.

Conclusion

You are likely familiar with this type of social media thread—users from different cultures and with differing views coming together to comment on a post. What you may not have realized is that these users and others like them are engaging in rhetoric by responding to a text through summary, paraphrase, analysis, evaluation, calls for evidence, or proposals of action. Again, they demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation and how to navigate within it.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a “Text”

Summary of Assignment: Critical Response

Select a short “text” for response. The “text” may be written, visual, or a combination of both. Keeping in mind the example of Selena Gomez or other social media activists (such as Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg [b. 2003] or conservative speaker and entrepreneur Wayne Dupree [b. 1968]), focus on a text, perhaps a meme or social media post, that addresses an aspect of social activism. First, read it completely for understanding. Summarize or paraphrase the main ideas of the text to check for comprehension. Second, read it critically to determine its purpose, to analyze its use of language (or another element), and to evaluate it. Finally, write a short (1–2 pages) critical response to the text, perhaps recommending or not recommending it to other readers, explaining its significance in a particular area of life or field of study, or even commenting on the diction or style of the communication and its potential impact on readers.

Evaluation: Intention vs. Execution

Rubric

Spotlight on … Academia

The Role of the Classroom in This Brave New World

The term *academia* refers to “the life, community, or environment of teachers, schools, and education.” With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the world of academia was challenged. There were logistical challenges, of course: *How would students and teachers attend classes and remain safe? In what ways could digital learning replace classroom learning effectively?* But there were deeper philosophical challenges: *What is the real value of a traditional college education in a world that is seemingly on the brink of one crisis after another? Would the classroom become something of value, leading the way in this brave new world, or would it become obsolete?* While some students chose not to return to their classrooms in the fall of 2020, others either returned or logged on virtually. Whichever way students decided to engage, the larger purpose of college was challenged.

Authentic Publication

To practice your knowledge and use some of the tools in your growing skill set, do this short activity. If you have a social media account, use it to bridge social media and academia by publishing a version of your critical response that meets the characteristics of the platform, likely by reducing the character count or posting a video. First, summarize or paraphrase your main points. Research a link you might include to provide readers with background information and a larger context of your rhetorical situation. Next, create a post that asks an honest, analytical, or evaluative question about the topic. In determining your phrasing, assess the rhetorical situation. If you can, tag a few of your followers to encourage them to respond. You might even mention that this is part of a school project or add a hashtag—a word or phrase preceded by # that categorizes the accompanying text. If you are on multiple platforms, try different versions or approaches to see which one generates the most attention and discussion.

Portfolio: Tracing Writing Development

The Portfolio: And So It Begins . . .

In simplest terms, a writing portfolio is a collection of your writing contained within a single binder or folder. This writing may have been done over a number of weeks, months, or even years. It may be organized chronologically, thematically, or according to quality. A private writing portfolio may contain writing that you wish to keep only for yourself. In this case, you decide what is in it and what it looks like. However, a writing portfolio assigned for a class will contain writing to be shared with an audience to demonstrate the growth of your writing and reasoning abilities. One kind of writing portfolio, accumulated during a college course, presents a record of your work over a semester, and your instructor may be use it to assign a grade. Another type of portfolio presents a condensed, edited story of your semester’s progress in a more narrative form.

Reflective Task: The Freedom of Freewriting

As you begin your portfolio with the addition of your critical response, compose an accompanying freewrite, sometimes called a quick write. In this case, you will be responding to your own text—a powerful tool in your intellectual development. To begin, write quickly and without stopping about the process of composing your critical response and the finished product. See where your thoughts go, a process that often helps you clarify your own thoughts about the subject—your own text and its creation. When you freewrite, write to yourself in your own natural style, without worrying about sentence structure, grammar, spelling, or punctuation. The purpose is to help you tie together the ideas from your writing process, your assignment, and other thoughts and experiences in your mind. One future value of freewriting is that the process tends to generate questions at random, capture them, and leave the answering for a later task or assignment. Another bonus of freewriting is that you will build confidence with writing and become more disciplined when you have to write. In other words, the more you write, the more confidence you will have in your voice and your writing.

Language, Identity, and Culture: Exploring, Employing, Embracing

Introduction

Seeds of Self

Understanding Culture

Culture includes observable aspects, such as the religion and language of a group of people, as well as intangible aspects, such as shared preferences, attitudes, and behaviors. For example, in Black women’s natural hair culture, wash day practices might be prescribed and may involve assistance from other members of the group, whether family or friends. This community has a shared vocabulary of hair types labeled from 1 to 4 for curl type and A to C for curl diameter, as well as steps such as *detangle* and *lift* and styling techniques such as *twist out*, *braid out*, *wash and go*, and *updo.* These terms evolved from Black women’s shared experiences. Likewise, in Hispanic culture, the *quinceañera* is a custom and rite of passage for 15-year-old girls. The elaborate celebration is attended by the girl’s extended family and recognized by the cultural community at large. Participation in regular daily practices, such as Black women’s natural hair culture, and once-in-a-lifetime celebrations, such as the *quinceañera*, can contribute to a person’s culture and sense of identity.

Situating Self

Attending college and participating in academic traditions are now a part of your identity. This new environment not only welcomes the traditions you bring with you but also will teach you new ones, thereby broadening your view of culture and the world. In this new cultural environment, you may struggle to find your place. Embrace this struggle because it is a sign of personal growth and development. What is important to note is that even though you may struggle to situate yourself in this new environment, nothing should prevent the self you bring with you to college from finding its proper place. In other words, you do not need to lose who you are to become who you will be. Former First Lady Michelle Obama (b. 1964) writes in her book *Becoming* (2018) that your personal story “is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.” So make space in your understanding of yourself for the value that your cultural experiences provide to others in this new environment. By sharing yourself—your culture and identity—with peers and professors, you give them an opportunity to develop and grow. College or university is a place for you to have experiences that help you first figure out who you already are and then explore who you want to be. Allow these experiences to provide that opportunity.

Exploring Voice

One discovery that often comes out of a first-year college writing experience is finding your writing voice. When instructors talk about voice in writing, they are imagining a rhetorical mixture of these elements:

Identity Trailblazer: Cathy Park Hong

Fear: The Enemy Within

Cathy Park Hong (b. 1976) is an Asian American poet, writer, and educator committed to exploring living art. Born to Korean parents in Los Angeles, California, Hong studied at Oberlin College and at the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she earned a master of fine arts degree. She has received numerous fellowships, including a Fulbright scholarship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Hong has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Rutgers University and served as poetry editor for the *New Republic**.*

Discussion Questions

Glance at the Issues: Oppression and Reclamation

What Is Oppression?

Some languages, cultures, and identities face discrimination. People often believe that for one group to advance, another must be held back. This suppression of growth, advancement, economic development, and educational opportunity has led to systems of oppression—prolonged and sustained unjust treatment—for some groups. For example, Black people from various parts of Africa endured centuries of oppression because of the transatlantic slave trade. Between the mid-16th and mid-19th centuries, European, Spanish, and American groups captured an estimated 10–12 million African men, women, and children from their homelands, boarded them on ships, and transported them to Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas to be sold into enslavement. After 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, Black people continued to be denied basic human rights, such as the opportunity to work at certain jobs, despite their educational achievement; to be served a meal in a restaurant; to use a public restroom or water fountain; to shop for necessities in a grocery or department store; or to live peacefully in their own communities. Black Americans have continued to be subjected to social inequities. As a community, they suffer from higher rates of incarceration, lower pay rates, fewer educational opportunities, and higher mortality at the hands of law enforcement—injustices that stem from racist policies of centuries past. Similarly, Indigenous people have been subjected to hundreds of years of oppression and silencing, often the result of colonialization, which included stripping them of their customs, land, language, and lives.

Reclaiming Humanity

One way to help restructure the world to reduce or even eliminate oppression is to explore your own biases. A bias occurs when you prejudicially favor one person, place, thing, or idea over another. People are naturally conditioned to favor the familiar over the unfamiliar. If you begin to question why you think as you do or make the decisions you make, you may begin to view others as equal, even though they may look different, live differently, and experience the world differently.

Anti-racism as Inclusion

One way to be inclusive is to write in specifically anti-racist ways. Inclusive writing begins with identifying ways in which language can be and has been used to exclude cultures, social groups, or races. Exclusive language is, unfortunately, ingrained in much of academia. It is a product of habit and the assumption that all readers are alike, with similar experiences, values, and beliefs. To write inclusively, think beyond yourself by considering other perspectives, groups, and races that may be harmed by thoughtless word choices.

Exploring the Issues

The following key terms and characteristics provide a better understand of anti-racist and inclusive writing:

Annotated Sample Reading from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois

Introduction

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was an American historian and sociologist who graduated from Fisk University in 1888 and Harvard University in 1895. Du Bois deeply influenced the civil rights movement in the United States and is widely regarded as among the most important Black protest leaders and activists of the first half of the 20th century. He helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and his essay collection *The Souls of Black Folk* (1903) is considered seminal American literature.

Discussion Questions

Assumptions and Stereotypes

Du Bois experiences the veil between worlds as a Black American because of assumptions and stereotypes. Unfortunately, such assumptions and stereotypes still exist in America today. In Chapter 2, you have begun to learn about the impact of language on culture and about how developing anti-racist and inclusive ideas is an important part of the composition process.

Writing Process: Thinking Critically about How Identity Is Constructed Through Writing

Summary of Assignment: Cultural Artifact

Choose an artifact that symbolizes something about a culture to which you belong. This might be a physical object that you have, or it may be a metaphorical object, such as Du Bois’s color line or veil, that represents something larger about your culture. Write approximately 350–700 words describing it, using sensory detail and explaining its meaning both to you personally and within your culture. To begin your thinking, view this TEDx Talk for a discussion of cultural artifacts and narrative led by artist David Bailey.

Evaluation: Antiracism and Inclusivity

Rubric

Spotlight on … Variations of English

English and Its Dialects

Although English is the primary language of the United States, distinctive dialects, or forms of language specific to a particular region or social group, vary according to location, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other factors. American dialects may have their own grammar, vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation, and common expressions. Many, mainly regional, differences in pronunciation are often marked by rhotic and non-rhotic accents. Speakers with rhotic accents pronounce the /r/ before consonants and at the end of a word. Those with non-rhotic accents do not pronounce the /r/; for example, think of the Boston accent pronunciation of *park* as *pahk* or the Coastal Southern (areas along the Gulf of Mexico) pronunciation of *better* as *bettuh*.

“Students’ Right to Their Own Language”

The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) is the world’s largest professional organization committed to writing research, theory, and teaching. It publishes the quarterly journal *College Composition and Communication* and holds an annual convention. The CCCC also publishes position statements on writing and the teaching of writing based on research, best practices of writing pedagogy, and language practices. Recent research completed by the CCCC addresses the use of a wide variety of linguistic expressions and choices, including various regional and cultural dialects.

Publication: Writing as Your Artifact

Try this short exercise to identify and practice writing in a dialect that directly reflects the culture your artifact comes from. Write a short three- to five-paragraph story from the perspective of the artifact you chose for this chapter’s writing assignment. *What might your artifact see, hear, feel, or experience in its everyday life?* Concentrate on using an authentic dialect, including vocabulary, grammatical conventions, and sentence structure, when constructing your story. As you reread your writing, ensure that you can hear your authentic voice in the text.

Portfolio: Decolonizing Self

The Colonized Self

The colonized lived experience is an important topic of academic discourse. When one refers to a situation as colonized, they mean that the ideas, customs, and culture of one group of people have been imposed onto the Indigenous people of a land. For example, colonization occurred when European explorers arrived in the Americas between the 16th and 18th centuries to inhabit land already populated by various Native American peoples with their own culture and customs. Many scholars and students are interested in exploring what it means to remove this foreign experience from the curriculum and to discontinue operating under the assumption that groups in power determine customs and culture.

The Decolonized Self

Throughout much of American history, education has focused on advancing the colonial purposes of assimilation. This practice can be harmful to everyone, especially to students identifying as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color). While outright racism and exclusion are now frowned upon in academia, colonial racism and exclusion persist through more subtle means: systems of oppression, curricula, and institutional structures.

Reflection Prompt

In your portfolio for this chapter, imagine that other students in colleges and universities across the country are talking about some of these same cultural issues. Think of it as one big conversation. American philosopher and rhetorician Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) created the metaphor of a *parlor* where academics across time and space have gathered to help you imagine what academic conversations must be like. Burke describes an academic conversation as “unending”: “Others . . . are engaged in a heated discussion. . . . You listen for a while . . . then you put in your oar” (Burke 110). In other words, as you write, you are adding to a timeless conversation among thinkers and authors. Your words help define cultural understanding of the future. (More about this “conversation” appears in Glance at Genre: Introducing Research as Evidence.)

Literacy Narrative: Building Bridges, Bridging Gaps

Introduction

Identity and Expression

Language and Identity

As members of different communities, most Americans speak and write in a number of English varieties without even thinking about doing so. Like others, you generally speak differently with friends than you do with elders. You usually use different types of language when texting on your phone than when writing a professional email. As you make these communication choices based on different settings and audiences, you signal your identity and culture through word choice, sentence structure, and use of language in specific situations. For example, when speaking with friends, you may engage in wordplay to show identification with the group. On the other hand, you may speak with respect to elders to show an identity as a well-mannered younger relative, and you may use a standard email format to show a professional identity. If you speak other languages, you may find yourself freely switching between English and those other languages when conversing with people who share the same linguistic abilities; these shifts from one language to another showcase your identity as a multilingual person. As author Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004) writes in *Borderlands / La Frontera*, “I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white” (59).

Expressing Identity in Writing

Even though individuals speak and write effectively using different varieties of English, many people nevertheless believe that one standard, “proper” English variety exists and that this “correct” way of speaking and writing should be used universally in all settings. This viewpoint considers varieties of English outside the imagined norm to be “wrong,” “bad,” or “substandard.” For example, speakers of some southern U.S. English varieties are often judged as “poor” or “unintelligent.” Similarly, people who speak English with the accent of another language may be incorrectly assumed to be illiterate. If you speak and write using one of those undervalued English varieties, others may have judged you for your language use or told you that your writing is “wrong.” Even without such judgment, you may have felt apprehensive when sharing your writing with others; you may still fear a harsh assessment, or you may feel vulnerable when others read your compositions.

Literacy Narrative Trailblazer: Tara Westover

Being *Educated*

In her 2018 best seller, *Educated: A Memoir*, Tara Westover (b. 1986) considers the effects of academic and nonacademic literacies in her life. She also contemplates the ways in which identification with certain literacies can both create and disturb an individual’s relationships and community memberships. While *Educated* addresses a variety of themes, including the tensions that family members must confront when they disagree, the memoir can be read largely as a literacy narrative.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: The Literacy Narrative

Exploring Narrative: Elements of Storytelling

Narratives, whether about literacy or anything else, include these key elements:

Specific Details and Other Conventions

To immerse the audience in the story, authors provide specific details of the scenes and action. Many authors, and teachers, call this strategy “showing, not telling.” These aspects can include the following elements:

Establishing the Significance

Most importantly, the audience must feel that the story has some significance. While the author’s main point may only be implied, rather than stated outright as in a conventional academic essay, readers should understand the point of the story and believe that it matters.

Annotated Sample Reading: from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Introduction

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) was born into slavery in Maryland. He never knew his father, barely knew his mother, and was separated from his grandmother at a young age. As a boy, Douglass understood there to be a connection between literacy and freedom. In the excerpt from his autobiography, *Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave*, that follows, you will learn about how Douglass learned to read. By age 12, he was reading texts about the natural rights of human beings. At age 15, he began educating other enslaved people. When Douglass was 20, he met Anna Murray, whom he would later marry. Murray helped Douglass plot his escape from slavery. Dressed as a sailor, Douglass bought a train ticket northward. Within 24 hours, he arrived in New York City and declared himself free. Douglass went on to work as an activist in the abolitionist movement as well as the women’s suffrage movement.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Tracing the Beginnings of Literacy

Summary of Assignment: Independent Literacy Narrative

In this assignment, you will write an essay in which you offer a developed narrative about an aspect of your literacy practice or experience. Consider some of these questions to generate ideas for writing: *What literacies and learning experiences have had profound effects on your life? When did this engagement occur? Where were you? Were there other participants? Have you told this story before? If so, how often, and why do you think you return to it? Has this engagement shaped your current literacy practices? Will it shape your practices going forward?*

Editing Focus: Sentence Structure

Sentence Combining

Sentence combining is an often-used revision strategy that can completely transform a narrative. When writers compose early drafts with many short sentences rather than more sophisticated efforts at varied or complex sentence construction, the writing appears choppy and disjointed. Once you have a complete draft of your essay, consider combining sentences to provide your audience with more effective and nuanced ways of reading your work. You can combine short, repetitive sentences into a simple sentence with a compound predicate or subject, as in the first example below. Or you can combine the shorter sentences into a complex sentence with a dependent clause, as in the second example. See Clear and Effective Sentences for more information about effective sentences and sentence structure.

Revising Common Sentence Patterns for More Effective Communication

If you have often been told to make your sentences clearer, less wordy, or both, but you do not know where to start, this section offers some quick strategies to address some of the most common issues that contribute to unclear or wordy writing.

Editing for More Effective Sentences

This paragraph from a student's first draft of a narrative contains sentences that need editing. On a separate sheet of paper, revise the sentences to eliminate *There are . . . / It is . . .* , unclear *you* and *this*, and wordiness. For better flow, combine sentences that are repetitive or choppy.

Evaluation: Self-Evaluating

Rubric

Spotlight on … The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN)

Using the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN)

The DALN is completely keyword searchable, so if you are looking to read literacy narratives on particular subjects—such as music or dance as literacy, or any other concentrated subject about which one can demonstrate knowledge—you can search for shared narratives with these literacies. As the website states, “The DALN invites people of all ages, races, communities, backgrounds, and interests to contribute stories about how—and in what circumstances—they read, write, and compose meaning, and how they learned to do so (or helped others learn).” Sharing your literacy narrative in the DALN can be a rewarding way to celebrate the completion of this writing milestone. The DALN welcomes literacy narratives of all kinds and in all formats, including diaries, blogs, poetry, music, videos, letters, stories, chat rooms, and so on.

Publish Your Literacy Narrative

After you have completed and revised your literacy narrative, consider sharing it with the DALN You may also want to consider reimagining your literacy narrative in the form of a podcast or a TED Talk–type video. The TED Talks in TED Talk is an acronym that stands for the phrase “Technology, Entertainment, and Design.” TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to the distribution of ideas; the website is keyword searchable and provides an archive where you can find short talks about just about any topic. The criteria for a TED Talk can be found on the organization’s website. To prepare for this publication alternative, take an opportunity to watch the following sample TED Talks that fit the genre of literacy narrative:

Portfolio: A Literacy Artifact

Reflection Prompt

One of the most valuable writing exercises is to reflect on work you have completed or experiences you have had. Reflection supports learning by allowing writers to articulate the impact that experiences have had on various aspects of their lives. In responding to the ideas in this section, take some time to reflect on your experiences, as well as the experiences of others, with literacy and learning. Using the guidelines your instructor provides, compose a reflection that responds to the following questions:

Literacy Narrative Revision

Submitting the best version of your work is an important part of preparing a portfolio. After you have received a graded essay with comments from your instructor, use those comments as a resource to revise the essay for a final time. You will want to use this revised essay for your portfolio submission.

Bridging the Divide Between Personal Identity and Academia

Unit Introduction

Memoir or Personal Narrative: Learning Lessons from the Personal

Introduction

Exploring the Past to Understand the Present

Differences between Memoir and Personal Narrative

Both a memoir and a personal narrative are accounts of personal experiences written in a narrative style, but there are some differences. A memoir is an account of certain incidents in a person’s life, often from a specific period of time. The narrator is a character in the story and reflects on past events to draw a conclusion based on those events. Memoirs focus on how the author remembers a part of their own life. On the other hand, personal narratives typically center on one major event through which the narrator reveals thoughts, feelings, and possibly related experiences. Like other works in the narrative genre, personal narratives and memoirs develop setting, plot, characterization, and dialogue.

The Cultural Aspect

Personal writing provides a unique opportunity to explore cultural contexts. Culture—shared values, customs, arts, and traits of a social group—is at the heart of personal narratives and memoirs and should be part of their central focus. Including historical information, anecdotes, and vivid details in your writing, as well as using a specific and relevant English variety, helps you depict the cultures that are part of your life and enhances readers’ understanding. Thus, readers are likely to experience deeper empathy and emotional responses in connection to the larger issues presented. You also provide opportunities for culture to be shared as a common human experience.

Memoir Trailblazer: Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Storyteller’s Tools: Context and Voice

Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975) is a best-selling author, journalist, and educator. His writing explores complex issues such as race relations, urban policing, and racial identity, often focusing on his personal experiences as a person of color. Coates was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His mother was a teacher, his father a librarian and founder of the Black Classic Press, which publishes and republishes significant works by and about lesser-known people of African descent. Reading the works of these authors instilled in Coates a lifelong love of reading and learning and a desire to experience the world outside his neighborhood.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Conflict, Detail, and Revelation

Characteristics of Memoirs and Personal Narratives

One way to approach a memoir or personal narrative is to think of it as a written series of photographs—snapshots of a period of time, moment, or sequence of events connected by a theme. In fact, writing prose snapshots is analogous to constructing and arranging a photo album composed of separate images. Photo albums, when carefully assembled from informational snapshots, tell stories with clear beginnings, middles, and endings. However, they show a lot of white space between one picture and the next, with few transitions explaining how the photographer got from one scene to another. In other words, while photo albums tell stories, they do so piecemeal, requiring viewers to fill in or imagine what happens between shots. You also might think of snapshots as individual slides in a slideshow or pictures in an exhibition—each the work of the same maker, each a different view, all connected by some logic, the whole presenting a story.

The Storyteller’s Dilemma: Clarity of Action

How you construct your story is as important as the story you choose to tell. Deciding on the most effective way the way to tell the story—that is, deciding what framework to use—helps you develop clarity of action to lead readers to the theme or message you seek to develop. Various components work together to bring clarity, but most often in a memoir or personal narrative, clarity comes from plot and character development. Narratives often follow a general structure called an *arc* to develop characters and plot and build the emotional impact of a story. Look at [link] for an idea of what a story arc looks like.

Key Terms for Memoir or Personal Narrative Writing

Annotated Sample Reading: from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

Introduction

An image in literature is a description that engages one of the five senses. Details rich in imagery appeal to readers’ emotions, create new meaning, and draw an audience into the story. Sensory images—what the narrator sees, hears, tastes, feels, and smells—should be specific and contain emotional content that enhances your writing. When you write your personal narrative, you will use imagery to engage readers, convey meaning, and bring your story to life.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Making the Personal Public

Summary of Assignment: A Turning Point

Choose an event from your life that has stuck in your memory as a turning point of some sort. Certainly, you can write about major milestones—graduations, achievements, and the like—but consider small moments and events, too: something that someone said to you or that you overheard, a time you got or didn’t get what you wanted, a time you were disappointed, or a time you thought you knew better than a more experienced person. To get the most accurate perspective of the event, go back in time as far as you can so that you think about the event as objectively as possible and know it as a real and meaningful turning point. Write a story about the event, and use narrative techniques to show why the event has become meaningful. Here are some other ideas about possible turning points:

Editing Focus: More on Characterization and Point of View

The Storyteller’s Personas: Characterization

After you have developed your narrative, consider the characterization you used to develop the narrator’s voice. Characterization helps create a picture of the narrator as a character, drawing the reader in and giving life and interest to the story. Persona, from the Latin word for a type of mask worn by stage actors, develops the impression the narrator leaves on the reader.

Choosing the First-Person Point of View

Remember that point of view has to do with the narrator of a story and how that narrator reports and understands events. A narrator may be biased or only have access to certain information and will relate and interpret events accordingly. You most likely have chosen or been assigned to write from the first-person point of view.

Practice with Point of View

To become more familiar with first- and third-person points of view, rewrite a paragraph of your personal narrative using both types of third-person point of view, limited and omniscient. For the limited point of view, choose one of the characters for the narrator to focus on. For the omniscient point of view, focus on all of the characters. Then reflect on how the point of view changes the story. *Which point of view do you prefer—first, limited third, or omniscient third? Why?*

Evaluation: Structure and Organization

Rubric

Spotlight on … Multilingual Writers

The Storyteller’s Purpose: The Truth of the Human Experience

Consider adding multilingual elements to your writing if you are a multilingual author. Language can create a mood and atmosphere for your readers, helping communicate cultural and linguistic individualities. You might add narration or dialogue in a language other than English to the story of your personal turning point if it makes sense within the narrative. For example, you might use dialogue to convey a young woman’s conversation with her Mexican grandmother:

Publish Your Work

Publishing your personal writing is the next step you may want to take. In addition to your campus literary magazine, the following journals accept undergraduate creative work and are often looking for submissions.

Portfolio: Filtered Memories

Reflective Task

Answer the following questions before writing several paragraphs reflecting on the personal turning point you wrote about in this chapter. Consider both the process and the outcome of the writing assignment.

Profile: Telling a Rich and Compelling Story

Introduction

Profiles as Inspiration

Profile Trailblazer: Veronica Chambers

Paying Attention to the Subject’s Voice

Profiles aim to help readers better understand their subject by focusing on one major idea. When the subject is a person, readers can better understand that person by reading their spoken or written words. Chambers uses this technique throughout her book. In the first chapter, Chambers tells the story of French heroine Joan of Arc (c. 1412–1431), centering on the idea that individuals are born for a purpose. Readers can better understand Joan of Arc’s singlemindedness because of the chapter’s epigraph (quotation provided at the beginning of a written piece that indicates how readers should approach the text), attributed to the subject: “I am not afraid.… I was born to do this” (Chambers, *Resist* 9). The profile itself offers an additional direct quote: “All battles are first won or lost in the mind”(10). Other chapters, such as those profiling Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and former South African president Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), also begin with the subject’s words in an epigraph or employ both strategies—epigraph plus direct quotes within the profile. (You may choose to use either or both of these strategies in your profile as well.)

Recognizing the Author’s Voice

Profile writers may choose to include themselves in the piece, referring to their own experiences and interactions with the subject. In this collection, Chambers instead speaks in her own voice in the “resist lesson” at the end of each chapter. These “resist lessons” distill each profile’s focus into a short phrase, such as “We must speak for the voiceless” (the lesson for the profile of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, 1879–1919) and “Honor the hands that harvest your crops” (the lesson for the combined profile of American labor leaders Dolores Huerta (b. 1930) and Cesar Chavez, 1927–1993).

Negotiating among Author’s Voice, Subject’s Voice, and Genre Expectations

The profile genre enjoys considerable variety. While Chambers does not include her own experiences in this collection, other writers do insert themselves into the profiles they write. Yet even without first-person commentary, Chambers clearly communicates her opinions of the subjects with her word choices and “resist lessons.” Either choice—including the author directly in the text or not—can be appropriate, depending on the rhetorical situation.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Subject, Angle, Background, and Description

Potential Profile Subjects and Angles

You can find profile subjects everywhere. The purpose of a profile is to give readers an insight into something fundamental about the subject, whether that subject is a person, a social group, a building, a piece of art, a public space, or a cultural tradition. Writers of profiles often conduct several types of research, including interviews and field observations, as well as consult related published sources. A profile usually reveals one aspect of the subject to the audience; this focus is called an angle. To decide which angle to take, profile writers look for patterns in their research, then consider their audience when making choices about both the angle and the tone, or attitude toward the subject.

Defining Terms and Writing in the Genre

These terms, or genre elements, are frequently used in profile writing. The following definitions apply specifically to the ways in which the terms are used in this genre.

Annotated Sample Reading: “Remembering John Lewis” by Carla D. Hayden

Introduction

Just two days after the death of politician and civil rights icon John Lewis (1940–2020), Librarian of Congress Carla D. Hayden (b. 1952) published the following profile on the Library of Congress blog. As you will learn from the annotations, she uses a variety of profile genre elements in her piece. While reading Hayden’s profile of Lewis, consider how you might use some of her strategies in your own work.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Focusing on the Angle of Your Subject

Summary of Assignment: A Profile in Courage or Other Admirable Trait

For this assignment, you will develop an essay that profiles the courage—or another admirable aspect—of someone or something associated with your college campus. You will create a profile of a person, group, place, or event that exemplifies the admirable aspect as you define it. For your profile, you will conduct the specific kinds of research done by profile writers: interviews, field research, and secondary research from credible sources.

Preparing to Write: Conducting Research

Profile writers learn as much about their subjects as possible. Be sure to take advantage of all available sources of information, and follow up on new leads wherever you find them. After completing your research, you will be able to refine your angle and draft your piece. As you gather your research, keep your target audience in mind, and look for details about your subject that will interest them. For example, Carla D. Hayden included information about events in which John Lewis participated at the Library of Congress. These details would interest Library of Congress blog readers, the audience for this piece.

Editing Focus: Verb Tense Consistency

English Varieties and Verbs

This section focuses on English verb tense consistency when editing. Every English speaker converses in one or more forms of the language. In the past, people have referred to these forms as *dialects*. Today, linguists more commonly call them *English varieties*. Every English variety uses verbs, as do most languages. Verbs are the words that express the action in a sentence. Their most distinguishing feature is that they change according to tense—that is, they take on different forms to express action that happened in the past, happens in the present, or will happen in the future.

Practice with Verb Tense Consistency

Depending on your writing context, you may be asked to write mainly in either the past or the present tense. For example, MLA style asks writers to refer to textual materials in the present tense, even though they have already been written.

Evaluation: Text as Personal Introduction

Rubric

Spotlight on … Profiling a Cultural Artifact

Publishing Your Profile

Because your individual profile is about someone or something related to campus, once you have developed your final draft, you may want to share your work with others at your school. Here are some suggestions:

Portfolio: Subject as a Reflection of Self

Reflective Task

Take a few moments to jot down notes—by hand or electronically—in response to the following questions:

Further Reading

With their signature blend of narrative and reporting, profiles can be found in all sorts of media, including blogs, magazines, and podcasts. Once you start looking for profiles, you will find them everywhere. Here are several places to find profile writing:

Proposal: Writing About Problems and Solutions

Introduction

Proposing Change: Thinking Critically About Problems and Solutions

Adopting a Problem-Solving Mindset

As you start thinking about a problem you would like to explore, gather information by reading, viewing, or talking with others. Is there a local problem you have noticed—perhaps you think your campus needs better transportation, more diverse food options, more mental health services, or a new student organization related to a cause you care about? Or is there a larger issue that is important to you, such as funding for public schools, better access to health care, or helping the environment?

Distinguishing Fact from Opinion

A proposal contains both fact and opinion. Proposal writers use facts as evidence to show that the problem they are writing about is real. They use facts to show that the proposed solution can work. They give opinions (based on evidence) when they recommend a solution to their audience and call them to action. See Argumentative Research: Enhancing the Art of Rhetoric with Evidence for more about facts and opinions.

Recognizing Bias

Critical thinking and reading of information involve recognizing bias. Bias is commonly defined as a preconceived opinion, or a prejudice, about something—a subject, an idea, a person, or a group of people, for example. As a proposal writer, you will need to recognize bias in the information you read as you learn about the problem and to recognize possible bias in your own thinking as well.

Proposal Trailblazer: Atul Gawande

Medical Problem Solver

Born in New York City, surgeon and author Atul Gawande (b. 1965) graduated from Stanford University in 1987 with a degree in biology and political science. A Rhodes Scholarship enabled him to study at the University of Oxford, where he earned a master’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. Returning to the United States from England, Gawande entered politics and worked for Al Gore**’s** (b. 1948) presidential campaign and later served as a health care adviser during the Clinton administration (1993–2001). Gawande graduated from Harvard Medical School with an MD in 1995 and an MPH (master of public health) in 1999. Among his main concerns and frequent topics of his written work have been patient care and medical ethics.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Features of Proposals

Defining Your Purpose

Your purpose is your reason for writing. The broad purpose for most academic and real-world proposals is to offer a solution to a problem. You, the writer, are tasked with identifying a problem and recommending a solution. You may need to write a proposal for a research project in a sociology class, or you may need to write a business proposal for a marketing class or a business you’ve started. Many topics are suitable for a proposal in a college writing class. For example, some problems are local and can be acted on directly, such as improving access to mental health services on your campus, offering a new food delivery option to campus buildings, designating quiet study spaces in your library, or bringing a farmer’s market to your campus. Others are large-scale, research-oriented proposals such as reducing automobile emissions, providing broadband Internet access nationwide, or reforming immigration policies in the United States. Read your assignment carefully, and be sure you know the requirements and the amount of flexibility you have.

Tuning in to Audience Expectations

The audience for your writing consists of the people who will read it or who could read it. *Are you writing for your instructor? For your classmates? For students or administrators on your campus or people in your community?* Think about the action they can take to solve the problem. For example, if the problem you’re presenting is a lack of diverse food options on your campus, a proposal to other students would perhaps ask students to join you in calling for change in dining options, whereas a proposal to administrators would request specific changes.

Exploring the Genre

A formal proposal may include the components addressed in Analytical Report: Writing from Facts. If you’re writing a business proposal (a document that proposes a transaction between a business and a client and also spells out deliverables, a schedule, costs, and payment), you can find a full discussion in OpenStax’s forthcoming *Business Communications* text.

Annotated Student Sample: “Slowing Climate Change” by Shawn Krukowski

Introduction

The proposal that follows was written by student Shawn Krukowski for a first-year composition course. Shawn’s assignment was to research a contemporary problem and propose one or more solutions. Deeply concerned about climate change, Shawn chose to research ways to slow the process. In his proposal, he recommends two solutions he thinks are most promising.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Creating a Proposal

Considering the Rhetorical Situation

Like other kinds of writing projects, a proposal starts with assessing the rhetorical situation—the circumstance in which a writer communicates with an audience of readers about a subject. As a proposal writer, you make choices based on the purpose for your writing, the audience who will read it, the genre, and the expectations of the community and culture in which you are working. The brainstorming questions in [link] can help you begin:

Summary of Assignment

Write a proposal that discusses a problem you want to learn more about and that recommends a solution. The problem you choose must be a current problem, even though it may have been a problem for many years. The problem must also affect many people, and it must have an actual solution or solutions that you can learn about through research. In other words, the problem cannot be unique to you, and the solution you recommend cannot be one you only imagine; both the problem and the solution must be grounded in reality.

Gathering Information

Proposals are rooted in information and evidence; therefore, most proposal assignments require you to conduct research. Depending on your assignment, you may need to do formal research, an activity that involves finding sources and evaluating them for reliability, reading them carefully and taking notes, and citing all words you quote and ideas you borrow. See Research Process: Accessing and Recording Information and Annotated Bibliography: Gathering, Evaluating, and Documenting Sources for detailed instruction on conducting research. If you are proposing a solution to a problem in your local community or on your campus, you may need to conduct primary research as well, such as a survey or interviews with people who live or work there.

Thesis and Organization

Drafting a Proposal

With a tentative thesis, an organization plan, and evidence, you are ready to begin drafting your proposal. For this assignment, you will discuss a problem, present possible solutions, address objections to the solutions, and conclude with a recommendation.

Revising Your Proposal

A strong college paper is rarely written in a single draft, so build in time to revise your work. Take time with the comments you receive from your readers, and read your own work with a critical eye.

Taking It Public: Publishing or Presenting Your Proposal

Publishing is a final step in the writing process. You may want to consider publishing your full proposal in your campus newspaper (or rewriting it as a letter to the editor) if your topic is related to your school. Or you may want to present it to an organization or committee on campus that can help you make your solution a reality. If your topic is related to the community in which you live, consider submitting your proposal to the local newspaper or presenting it at a city council meeting. (Note that if you decide to present your proposal orally, you’ll need to figure out in advance the procedure for speaking or getting on a meeting agenda.) If your topic is more general and involves substantial research, consider submitting your proposal to one of these journals that publish undergraduate research work in all fields:

Editing Focus: Subject-Verb Agreement

Practice Subject-Verb Agreement

Select the correct verb to complete each sentence.

Evaluation: Conventions, Clarity, and Coherence

Rubric

Spotlight on … Technical Writing as a Career

Portfolio: Reflecting on Problems and Solutions

Reflecting on Your Proposal

Respond to the following questions to reflect on your writing process for your proposal:

Evaluation or Review: Would You Recommend It?

Introduction

Thumbs Up or Down?

Using Evidence to Make a Judgment

When you review or evaluate something, the end result is your judgment about it. *Should your readers see the film? Are the food and service good at the restaurant? Should you use this source in your essay? Does your employee deserve a raise?* Making a clear judgment about the subject of your evaluation provides guidance for the actions that audience members may take on the basis of the information you provide.

Review Trailblazer: Michiko Kakutani

Consistently Objective

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Michiko Kakutani (b. 1955) is an American author and a literary critic. She graduated from Yale University in 1976 and began her career with *The Washington Post* as a reporter. She moved to *Time* magazine in 1977, then in 1979 began working for *The New York Times*, first as a reporter and then as a literary critic. She is probably best known for the position she held as chief book critic at *The New York Times* until her retirement in 2017. Highly respected—and often feared—as a critic, Kakutani won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1998. Her book reviews for *The New York Times* were highly influential, with some reviews creating as much discussion and debate as the book being reviewed. American authors Jonathan Franzen (b. 1959) and Norman Mailer (1923–2007), for instance, feuded publicly with Kakutani after she published negative reviews of their works.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Criteria, Evidence, Evaluation

Key Terms

These are some key terms to know and use when writing a review:

Establishing Criteria

All reviewers and readers alike rely on evidence to support an evaluation. When you review a primary source, the evidence you use depends on the subject of your evaluation, your audience, and how your audience will use your evaluation. You will need to determine the criteria on which to base your evaluation. In some cases, you will also need to consider the genre and subgenre of your subject to determine evaluation criteria. In your review, you will need to clarify your evaluation criteria and the way in which specific evidence related to those criteria have led you to your judgment. [link] illustrates evaluation criteria in four different primary source types.

Providing Objective Evidence

You will use your established evaluation criteria to gather specific evidence to support your judgment. Remember, too, that criteria are fluid; no reviewer will always use the same criteria for all works, even those in the same genre or subgenre.

Modes of Reviews

Not all reviews have to be written; sometimes a video or an audio review can be more engaging than a written review. *YouTube* has become a popular destination for project reviews, creating minor celebrities out of popular reviewers. However, a written review of a movie might work well because the reviewer can provide just enough information to avoid spoiling the movie, whereas some reviews require more visual interaction to understand.

Annotated Student Sample: "Black Representation in Film" by Caelia Marshall

Introduction

In her essay “The Black Experience: What We See and Hear in Film,” Caelia Marshall reviews *Rear Window* (1954), *Number 37* (2018), and *Black Panther* (2018), looking at them through the context of representation of Black people in film. She uses some traditional film-review criteria but focuses primarily on the films’ social and historical contexts. Marshall presents her judgment and provides specific evidence from primary and secondary sources.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Thinking Critically About Entertainment

Summary of Assignment: Review of Primary Media Source

Write a review of a specific film, book, TV series, podcast, play, or video game that you think contributes something significant to the genre and to the culture at large. Show how the subject—the primary source—of your review illustrates something compelling or exceptional about a particular idea or theme common to the genre. For example, the CW series *Crazy Ex-Girlfriend* (2015–2019) is a romantic comedy that eschews and even satirizes traditional romantic comedy tropes such as the “grand gesture,” doing something out of love for someone. Use specific evidence from your primary source to support a central idea, or thesis. In an essay of about 1,200 to 1,500 words, provide an overall judgment about your subject and support it with evidence from the primary source and from secondary sources if applicable. In addition, explore how your specific source has contributed something significant to its genre. In other words, *why is this subject interesting, different, or worthy of analysis?* Be sure to demonstrate awareness of your source’s cultural and historical context as well. For example, if your review is about a romantic comedy, provide relevant information about the history, conventions, or expectations of that genre. Think about and explain the ways your topic adheres to or breaks from audience expectations.

Editing Focus: Quotations

When to Use Quotations

Use quotations to support a point you are making. Avoid using them to *present* a point. Don’t pepper your essay with randomly selected quotations because you think they make your essay look well researched. Instead, present your point, and back it up with a quotation.

Embedding Quotations

In reviews particularly, you may want to use dialogue or narration as evidence to support a point. Because a quotation should illustrate or support your point, be sure to state clearly and in your own words the point you are making. A properly formatted quotation will contain the following:

Evaluation: Effect on Audience

Rubric

Spotlight on … Language and Culture

Offensive Language: When Is It Offensive and When Is It Artful?

The question of language as a reflection of culture often surfaces in writing and reviewing dialogue, whether in film or books. *When is offensive language gratuitous, and when does it serve an artistic purpose?* The answer is never clear-cut in such areas, but as a reviewer you can ask yourself certain questions to determine whether you think it enhances the work. The basic, if simplified, question is this: *Does the work lose its strength, honesty, sense of reality, or characterization if offensive language is removed?* If the answer is *yes,* then the language serves an artistic purpose. Imagine, for example, dramas dealing with criminals involved in organized crime. The offensive language seems natural and contributes to the drama’s realism. Take away the language, and that realism is lost. Other films, however, would lose nothing in character depiction or realism if offensive language were omitted—not substituted for something less offensive.

Diversity in Hollywood

Recently, more attention is being paid to diversity in television and movies. The #OscarsSoWhite controversy began after the 2015 Oscars, following two consecutive years of all White nominees in the leading and supporting actor categories. The uproar brought awareness to the lack of diversity in Hollywood, and not just in terms of actors. Conversations about diversity behind the scenes began as well.

Publish Your Work

After you have written and revised your essay, share it with the world. One easy way to share is to post a condensed version of your essay online. Here are some sites to consider, depending on the genre and medium of your review subject.

Portfolio: What the Arts Say About You

Reflective Task

Now write a reflection for your portfolio, adding a section about your interest in the genre of the primary source you chose. Discuss your reflection with another student, noting areas of similarities and differences.

Analytical Report: Writing from Facts

Introduction

Information and Critical Thinking

Distinguishing Fact from Opinion

An analytical report provides information based on facts. Put simply, facts are statements that can be proven or whose truth can be inferred.

Recognizing Bias

In addition to distinguishing between fact and opinion, it is important to recognize bias. Bias is commonly defined as a preconceived opinion about something—a subject, an idea, a person, or a group of people. As the writer of a report, you will learn to recognize bias in yourself and in the information you gather.

Asking Critical Questions about a Topic for a Report

As you consider a topic for a report, note the ideas that occur to you, interesting information you read, and what you already know. Answer the following questions about potential topics to help you understand a topic in a suitably analytical framework for a report.

Analytical Report Trailblazer: Barbara Ehrenreich

Myth-Buster

Self-described “myth buster by trade” Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941) has tackled many myths during her years as an activist and a writer, most often confronting widely held beliefs related to health and wealth.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Informal and Formal Analytical Reports

Defining a Specific Purpose

Your purpose is your reason for writing. The purpose of a report is to inform; as the writer, you are tasked with providing information and explaining it to readers. Many topics are suitable for informative writing—how to find a job, the way a disease spreads within a population, or the items on which people spend the most money. Some textbooks are examples of informative writing, as is much of the reporting you find on reputable news sites.

Tuning In to Audience Expectations

The audience for your report consists of the people who will read it or who could read it. *Are you writing for your instructor? For your classmates? For other students and teachers in professional fields or academic disciplines? For people in your community?* Whoever your readers are, they expect you to do the following:

Informal Reports

An informal analytical report will identify a problem, provide factual information about the problem, and draw conclusions about the information. An informal report is usually structured like an essay, with an introduction or summary, body paragraphs, and a conclusion or recommendations. It will likely feature headings identifying key sections and be presented in academic essay format, such as MLA Documentation and Format or APA Documentation and Format. For an example of an informal analytical report documented in APA style, see Trevor Garcia’s paper on the U.S. response to COVID-19 in 2020 in the Annotated Student Sample.

Formal Reports

Writers in the social sciences, the natural sciences, technical fields, and business often write formal analytical reports. These include lab reports, research reports, and proposals.

Exploring the Genre

The following are key terms and characteristics related to reports.

Annotated Student Sample: "U.S. Response to COVID-19" by Trevor Garcia

Introduction

The analytical report that follows was written by a student, Trevor Garcia, for a first-year composition course. Trevor’s assignment was to research and analyze a contemporary issue in terms of its causes or effects. He chose to analyze the causes behind the large numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the United States in 2020. The report is structured as an essay, and its format is informal.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Creating an Analytical Report

Considering the Rhetorical Situation

Like other kinds of writing projects, a report starts with assessing the rhetorical situation—the circumstance in which a writer communicates with an audience of readers about a subject. As the writer of a report, you make choices based on the purpose of your writing, the audience who will read it, the genre of the report, and the expectations of the community and culture in which you are working. A graphic organizer like [link] can help you begin.

Summary of Assignment

Write an analytical report on a topic that interests you and that you want to know more about. The topic can be contemporary or historical, but it must be one that you can analyze and support with evidence from sources.

Gathering Information

Because they are based on information and evidence, most analytical reports require you to do at least some research. Depending on your assignment, you may be able to find reliable information online, or you may need to do primary research by conducting an experiment, a survey, or interviews. For example, if you live among students in their late teens and early twenties, consider what they can tell you about their lives that you might be able to analyze. Returning to or graduating from high school, starting college, or returning to college in the midst of a global pandemic has provided them, for better or worse, with educational and social experiences that are shared widely by people their age and very different from the experiences older adults had at the same age.

Thesis and Organization

Drafting an Analytical Report

With a tentative thesis, an organization plan, and evidence, you are ready to begin drafting. For this assignment, you will report information, analyze it, and draw conclusions about the cause of something, the effect of something, or the similarities and differences between two different things.

Editing Focus: Commas with Nonessential and Essential Information

Nonessential and Essential information

Nonessential information refers to information within a sentence that is *not* necessary for the reader to understand its meaning. Essential information refers to information within a sentence that *is* necessary for the reader to understand its meaning.

To Comma or Not to Comma?

Place commas around nonessential information, but not around essential information. You can test whether information is nonessential by removing the information. If the meaning of the sentence is unchanged, the information is nonessential. If the meaning becomes too general or changes in any way, the information is essential. Often, nonessential information is introduced with the word *which* and essential information with *that*.

Practice Using Commas

Read each of the following sentences. Decide whether the underlined portion of each sentence is nonessential or essential. Place commas before, after, or around the nonessential information as appropriate.

Evaluation: Reviewing the Final Draft

Rubric

Spotlight on … Discipline-Specific and Technical Language

Publish Your Report

Now that you have completed all stages of your report, you may want to think about sharing it with students at your school or other colleges. Your college may have a journal that publishes undergraduate research work. If so, find out about submitting your work. Also, listed here are some of the many publications that feature undergraduate student research. Check them out.

Portfolio: Evidence and Objectivity

Reflective Task: Lessons Learned

As you add your analytical report to your portfolio, write either a cover letter or a journal entry in which you respond to the following questions:

Rhetorical Analysis: Interpreting the Art of Rhetoric

Introduction

Breaking the Whole into Its Parts

Rhetorical Strategies

As part of becoming familiar with rhetorical strategies in real life, you will recognize three essential building blocks of rhetoric:

Logical Fallacies

Familiar with the three main rhetorical strategies and literary language, you also recognize the “sneakier” uses of flawed reasoning, also known as logical fallacies. Some of the roommates’ appeals are based on these fallacies:

Kairos

As a whole, rhetoric also depends on another Greek rhetorical strategy, kairos. Kairos is the idea that timing is important in trying to persuade an audience. An appeal may succeed or fail depending on when it is made. The moment must be right, and an effective communicator needs to be aware of their audience in terms of kairos. Going back to the roommates and pizza example, kairos might be an influence in your decision; if you were tired of pizza, had to save money, or wanted to study alone, your roommates would have less chance of persuasion. As a more serious example, if a recent series of car accidents has caused serious injuries on the freeway, an audience might be more receptive to a proposal to reassess speed limits and road signage. Awareness of rhetorical strategies in everyday situations such as this will help you recognize and evaluate them in matters ultimately more significant than pizza.

Rhetorical Analysis Trailblazer: Jamil Smith

Whose Rhetoric?

Jamil Smith (b. 1975) is a well-recognized print and television journalist and commentator on politics, culture, and sports. He has won three Emmys for sports journalism and is best known for his articles in *Rolling Stone* and the *New Republic* and as a producer for MTV News, CNN, MSNBC, and *The Rachel Maddow Show*.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Rhetorical Strategies

The Workings of Rhetorical Analysis

The aim of rhetorical analysis is not to find agreement with or praise for the writer, although either may be implied or stated. The essential task of analyzing requires a detachment that will convince the readers of the *validity* and *effectiveness* (or lack thereof) of the writing by identifying the writer’s tools and what they accomplish.

Rhetorical Strategies in Advertising and Public Policy

The strategies and other devices of rhetorical writing that are open to analysis are present in many types of communication, including multimodal examples such as advertisements that combine visuals with carefully crafted texts, dialogue, and voice-over.

Rhetorical Analysis: Key Terms

Annotated Student Sample: “Rhetorical Analysis: Evicted by Matthew Desmond” by Eliana Evans

Introduction

Matthew Desmond (b. 1979 or 1980) is a sociology professor at Princeton University. He has published four books, each addressing issues of poverty or racial inequality in American life. He has been recognized by the Politico 50 list as an important contributing voice to national political debate. In the analysis that follows, student Eliana Evans examines Desmond’s work from a rhetorical perspective.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Thinking Critically about Rhetoric

Summary of Assignment: Rhetorical Analysis

The assignment is to write a rhetorical analysis of a piece of persuasive writing. It can be an editorial, a movie or book review, an essay, a chapter in a book, or a letter to the editor. For your rhetorical analysis, you will need to consider the rhetorical situation—subject, author, purpose, context, audience, and culture—and the strategies the author uses in creating the argument. Back up all your claims with evidence from the text. In preparing your analysis, consider these questions:

Editing Focus: Mixed Sentence Constructions

*Just Because… Doesn’t Mean* and *Is When* Constructions

*Just because . . . doesn’t mean* constructions are common in speech but should be avoided in writing. They are another example of mixed sentence construction.

Your Turn

Now, correct the following mixed-construction sentences. After you have finished, go back and check your rhetorical analysis for mixed-construction sentences, and revise them as needed.

Evaluation: Rhetorical Analysis

Rubric

Spotlight on … Business and Law

Rhetoric in Business

The ability to write persuasively by using rhetorical strategies is crucial to the success of a business, including its profitability, employee satisfaction, and efficient operations. More immediately, though, using rhetorical devices to get hired is no less crucial a skill. The purpose of business writing is often to sell, whether an idea, a candidate, a product, or a strategy. For most people, the first step in business writing is an effective application letter and résumé with the goal of obtaining an interview.

Language in Law

In the legal world, communication is equally or even more crucial. In addition to the ability to speak convincingly, the ability to use rhetorical strategies to write persuasively is of critical importance in legal professions and in everyday situations regarding disputes, contracts, and other matters involving legalities. In courtrooms and behind the scenes, the ability to persuade a judge to make a decision or ruling in favor of a particular client before or during a trial affects all aspects of a case, including the legal team’s ability to persuade a jury of its position. Furthermore, disputes between family members, buyers and sellers, renters and landlords, and employees and managers are often settled with the help of appropriately used rhetorical strategies.

Your Turn

**Business.** If you have a résumé, update and revise it according to the suggestions presented in this section. If you do not have a résumé, now is the time to create one. Select a format and complete it with your information, including a professional objective. (You can access the site provided earlier in this section or consult Microsoft Word for résumé templates.) Once you have revised or completed your résumé, find an announcement about a summer job or internship and write an appropriate application letter.

Portfolio: How Thinking Critically about Rhetoric Affects Intellectual Growth

Summing Up and Looking Ahead

An effective way to reflect productively is to compose a “Sum Up” entry for yourself that you can share with your instructor or peers. Your “Reflection on Analysis” may include what you knew of the genre before working on this chapter and what your initial reactions were to reading about Jamil Smith as this chapter’s Trailblazer. *Will you look forward to reading more of his work?*

Position Argument: Practicing the Art of Rhetoric

Introduction

Making a Case: Defining a Position Argument

Position Argument Trailblazer: Charles Blow

Trendsetter

Trendsetting journalist Charles Blow (b. 1970) attended Grambling State University in Louisiana, where he edited his college newspaper, founded a student magazine, and interned (worked as a trainee to gain experience) in various positions. While a student, he heard *The New York Times* was participating in a job conference in Atlanta and decided to attend. When he arrived, however, he learned he was supposed to have preregistered, paid a fee, filled out a form, and submitted an essay. Undeterred, Blow borrowed pencil from a guard, completed the form, paid the fee, and wrote the essay on the spot. He then gained entry into the conference. When he got to the booth sponsored by *The New York Times*, he was told he would not be interviewed because he had not signed up beforehand. Again undeterred, Blow decided to wait anyway, thinking someone who had signed up might not appear for their interview. He waited until early evening and eventually was granted an interview. At the end of his interview, he was told that he had been impressive but that *The New York Times* had no openings at the time. The next day, however, a representative from the paper approached him again and announced they had created an internship for him.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Thesis, Reasoning, and Evidence

Characteristics of Position Arguments

The characteristics of a position argument include the following elements.

Key Terms

These are key terms and characteristics of position arguments:

Annotated Sample Reading: "Remarks at the University of Michigan" by Lyndon B. Johnson

Introduction

In a commencement speech at the University of Michigan on May 22, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed a set of domestic programs that would become one of the foundations of his administration. He called these programs the Great Society. Today, many of the same problems that Johnson addressed continue, and programs that seek to remedy them are referred to as initiatives of social justice, such as those directed toward human rights, health care, alleviating poverty, and guaranteeing democratic practices. To persuade his audience to agree that the programs needed to be adopted, Johnson presented his argument about why they were needed and what they would achieve.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Creating a Position Argument

Summary of Assignment

Write a position argument on a controversial issue that you choose or that your instructor assigns to you. If you are free to choose your own topic, consider one of the following:

Editing Focus: Paragraphs and Transitions

Using Transitional Words and Phrases

To organize your paper most effectively, use transitional words or phrases, which show readers the relationship between different ideas—that is, how ideas connect with or are separate from each other. In the paragraph below, transitional words and phrases are underlined.

Frequently Used Transitional Words and Phrases

**Addition:** again, and, further, in addition, next, then, also, as well as

Evaluation: Varied Appeals

Rubric

Spotlight on … Citation

Types of Citation

In a position argument, you are expected to provide evidence that supports your stance and addresses counterclaims to it. You may use one of three types of citation: quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing. If you are quoting the exact words of a person or a written work, you must

Examples of Types of Citation

American author Jack London (1876–1916) began his novel *The Call of the Wild* (1903) with this paragraph:

Intellectual property

When you create a written work, you do not want someone else to take credit for it. It is your intellectual property, an original idea resulting from your creativity and work and that, consequently, you own. If you look at a book, for instance, you will see a copyright symbol (©) somewhere in the opening pages, usually along with other publication information. This symbol gives the copyright owner legal protection against those who try to plagiarize (steal material and publish it as their own). *Plagiarism* can refer to entire works or parts of works that are not cited as being created by someone else, whether the work is copyrighted or not. If writers or speakers use someone else’s words, ideas, or information, they must cite the source. For detailed information about what plagiarism is and is not, see Spotlight on … Ethical Research.

Portfolio: Growth in the Development of Argument

Lessons Learned

As you reflect on writing your position argument, answer these questions about your writing process.

Reasoning Strategies: Improving Critical Thinking

Introduction

Developing Your Sense of Logic

Analogy

Writers frequently use analogy as a strategy to compare two unlike subjects—one subject is familiar to readers, whereas the other is not. To explain or clarify the unfamiliar subject, the writer emphasizes the way or ways in which the two subjects are similar, even though they are dissimilar and unrelated in all other ways. Analogies are basically long forms of similes (short comparisons of unlike elements, based on the word *like* or *as*) or metaphors (short comparisons without signal words). In the example paragraph, the writer explains unfamiliar aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic by comparing it with the more familiar concept of a robbery spree.

Cause and Effect

Cause-and-effect writing identifies and examines the reasons (causes) for and consequences (effects) of an action, event, or idea. Cause-and-effect writing often answers the question “Why?” and helps readers understand the connections between what happens because of—or as a result of—something else.

Classification and Division

Classification and division are actually two closely related strategies, generally discussed together because of their similarity. When using the strategy of division, the writer identifies a single subject or group and explains categories within that subject or group. In other words, the writer divides the larger unit into component parts. When using the strategy of classification, writers do the opposite. They group various elements and place them into larger, more comprehensive categories rather than divide the whole into parts. In general, the reasoning strategy of classification and division looks at smaller elements as parts of a larger element and thus helps readers understand a general concept and the elements that it comprises.

Comparison and Contrast

Compare and contrast, one of the most frequently used reasoning strategies, analyzes two (sometimes more) subjects, examining the similarities (comparisons) and differences (contrasts) between them. Nearly everything you can think of can be a subject for comparison and contrast: objects, people, concepts, places, movies, literature, and styles, to name a few. To elaborate on the separate points, writers provide details about each element being compared or contrasted. Comparison and contrast helps readers analyze and evaluate subjects.

Problem and Solution

When using this reasoning strategy, writers introduce a predicament or challenging issue (the problem) and offer information about what was done or what should be done to remedy the predicament or issue (the solution). Problem-and-solution writing helps readers understand the complexities of some predicaments and the actions that can improve or eliminate them.

Definition

When using the reasoning strategy of definition, writers elaborate on the meaning of an idea, a word, or an expression, usually one that is controversial or that can be viewed in multiple ways. Beginning writers tend to think that definition writing looks only at the denotation, or dictionary definition. However, definition writing entails much more than relaying a dictionary definition. It also explains and elaborates on the connotations, the emotions and implications the topic evokes. Definition writing is especially useful for explaining and interpreting terms, ideas, or concepts that are easily or often confused or that have meanings beyond their denotations. Sometimes these meanings are personal interpretations and thus reflect a writer’s particular viewpoint. Additionally, this strategy is beneficial when writers want to explain or reinforce a term before making an argument about a larger concept.

Reasoning Trailblazer: Paul D. N. Hebert

Reasoning Strategies in Science

Born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Paul Hebert (b. 1947) earned his bachelor of science degree from Queen’s University, a public research university in his hometown. He then pursued graduate studies at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), where he received his PhD in genetics (a branch of biology dealing with heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics). He spent three years at Sydney University in Australia and then another year in London at the Natural History Museum. Returning to Canada, he began research at the University of Windsor, followed by a directorship at the Great Lakes Institute at Windsor. In 1990, he joined the faculty of Ontario’s University of Guelph, where he became director of the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (a branch of biotechnology that strives to apply concepts of genetics and molecular biology to genetic mapping and DNA sequencing), and he holds a Canada Research Chair in molecular biodiversity (the study of the variety of life found on Earth or in a particular place on Earth).

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Reasoning Strategies and Signal Words

Recognizing Purpose

Throughout your paper, your purpose for writing should be clear and focused. Your introduction, thesis, topic sentences, body paragraphs (which include reasoning and evidence), and conclusion should all reflect your argumentative or persuasive purpose.

Recognizing Audience

Critically thinking about the culture, or common beliefs and lived experiences, of your audience, the people who will read your work, can help you choose an appropriate vocabulary and level of detail.

Recognizing Points

Every point you make in a paper should be meaningful and should relate to the paper’s thesis, its overarching claim or angle. How you make each point is determined by your reason for making that point. In most academic writing, you will use structures that present a thesis at the beginning of the essay. Readers should recognize your thesis because of

Structuring Your Reasoning Strategies

To present your reasoning, which is the main part of your essay, try these suggestions for using the six strategies:

Integrating Evidence from Appropriate Sources

Most academic writing is built on the writer’s own ideas as supported by the ideas of others. Regardless of the reasoning strategies you use in an essay, you will usually need to integrate others’ ideas to

Signal Words and Phrases

Writers use signal words and phrases to steer readers in certain directions. You might use signal words and phrases to give readers clues about

Frequently Used Reasoning Strategies Terms

Annotated Sample Reading: from Book VII of The Republic by Plato

Introduction

The following excerpt is an example of classical rhetoric. It comes from Book VII of *The Republic* by Plato (c. 424 BCE–c. 347 BCE), written in the latter part of the fourth century BCE.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Reasoning Supported by Evidence

Summary of Assignment

Using three of the strategies for reasoning (analogy, cause and effect, classification and division, comparison and contrast, definition, or problem and solution), write at least three body paragraphs for your Position Argument: Practicing the Art of Rhetoric assignment. Write at least one single paragraph for each strategy you choose. You may write additional paragraphs in which you combine strategies.

Checking Validity

After you have completed your paragraphs, check the validity, or soundness, of their logic. To perform this check, begin by assessing the logical connection of your topic sentences to your thesis statement. Because the topic sentences are the major supporting statements for your thesis, each one should support it. Ask and answer the following questions of each topic sentence:

Argumentative Research: Enhancing the Art of Rhetoric with Evidence

Introduction

Introducing Research and Research Evidence

The Research Process

Although individual research processes are rhetorically situated, they share some common aspects:

Types of Research Evidence

Research evidence usually consists of data, which comes from borrowed information that you use to develop your thesis and support your organizational structure and reasoning. This evidence can take a range of forms, depending on the type of research conducted, the audience, and the genre for reporting the research.

Argumentative Research Trailblazer: Samin Nosrat

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Introducing Research as Evidence

The Genre of Research: Joining Scholarly Conversations

Conducting research on topics about which you have limited knowledge can be intimidating. To feel more comfortable with research, you can think of it as participating in a scholarly conversation, with the understanding that all knowledge on a particular subject is connected. Even if you discover only a small amount of information on your topic, the conversations around it may have begun long before you were born and may continue beyond your lifetime. Your involvement with the topic is your way of entering a conversation with other students and scholars at this time, as you discuss and synthesize information. After you leave the conversation, or finish your research, others are likely to pick it up again.

Key Terms in Research Writing

These are key terms and characteristics of evidence-based research writing:

Annotated Student Sample: "Healthy Diets from Sustainable Sources Can Save the Earth" by Lily Tran

Introduction

In this argumentative research essay for a first-year composition class, student Lily Tran creates a solid, focused argument and supports it with researched evidence. Throughout the essay, she uses this evidence to support cause-and-effect and problem-solution reasoning, make strong appeals, and develop her ethos on the topic.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Integrating Research

Summary of Assignment

For this assignment, you will write an argumentative research essay in which you take a position on a food-based topic. The objective in developing this essay is to explore a topic, concept, or question with which you may be unfamiliar or about which you want to know more. As a first step, creating a list of possible topics will allow you to consider the range of possibilities. Consider the following, for example:

Editing Focus: Integrating Sources and Quotations

Introduce Quotations

Because readers need to know who is speaking, introduce quoted material with a signal phrase (sometimes called an attributory phrase). A signal phrase is a word or group of words that introduces borrowed or quoted material and informs readers of the source and purpose of the quotation. If the source is well-known, the name alone will be enough of a signal phrase. For example, a first-year student wrote, “Henry David Thoreau asserts in *Walden*, ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation’” (5).

Quote Smoothly and Correctly

A direct quotation repeats an author’s or speaker’s exact words. Slight changes in wording are permitted, but these changes must be clearly marked. Although you cannot change what a source says, you do have control over how much of it you use. Because using quotations that are too long can imply that you have little to say for yourself, use only the part of the quotation needed to make your point. Quotations should support your points, not say them for you.

When to Quote

Reserve direct quotations for cases in which you cannot express ideas better yourself or when the exact words offer the strongest support for your ideas. Use quotations when the original words are especially precise, clear, powerful, or vivid, but ensure they do not substitute for your own thoughts.

Evaluation: Effectiveness of Research Paper

Rubric

Spotlight on … Bias in Language and Research

Language Bias

Language bias refers to words and expressions that are offensive, demeaning, or prejudicial toward individuals or groups on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, social class, appearance, physical or mental abilities, or sexual orientation. One form of language bias is sexist language that includes only one gender. The most common occurrence is use of the word *man* or *men* to stand for all people—including those who are not male. Language has changed to be more inclusive, with terms such as *firefighter* replacing *fireman* and *mail carrier* replacing *mailman*.

Assignment: Reviewing Your Research Essay for Language Bias

First, review your essay, and speculate as to biases or blocks you may have incorporated while researching and writing. Freewrite, reflecting on these possibilities. Next, go through your essay one section at a time, and highlight any people references, pronouns, biased language, and instances of possible stereotyping. Using the information above and your reflective freewrite, complete a bias chart like the one shown in [link]. Next, exchange your essay with two other classmates to see whether they detect bias of which you were unaware. After receiving feedback from two or three people, form a group and discuss what each of you found and how to use alternative language or references. Finally, revisit your freewriting after collaborating with your classmates to reconsider what you wrote before. Add a section to the freewrite in which you relate what your group discussed and what you may have learned from that discussion.

Publish Your Work

After completing your argumentative research paper, you should have a product to be proud of. Your instructor may have a plan to publish papers written by class members, or you may be interested in publishing on your own and joining a wider scholarly conversation. Consider submitting your work to one of these journals that publish undergraduate research:

Portfolio: Why Facts Matter in Research Argumentation

Reflective Task

After reflecting on your argumentative research essay by considering bias, facts, and inferences, you now have the opportunity to reflect on what you learned through the research and writing process in general. Think critically about your writing process, reflect on each stage, and consider how this writing experience was similar to or different from others. Also, estimate roughly what percent of your sources are facts, examples, inferences, or informed opinion. As you reflect, answer the following questions in your notebook or as part of a cover letter for your research paper:

Research Process: Accessing and Recording Information

Introduction

The Research Process: Where to Look for Existing Sources

Generating Key Words

Before you begin locating sources, consider the research terms you will use to find these sources. Most research is categorized according to key terms that are important for understanding the topic and/or methodologies. When beginning the research process, you may find that the ideas or words associated with your topic are not yielding results when you search library or Internet databases (organized collections of information).

Locating Sources

Once you have identified sources to fit both your and your readers’ needs, you can begin to locate these sources. Throughout the research process, look for sources that will provide enough information for you to form your own opinions or answer your research question(s). Use source materials as support for your own words and ideas. The following are possible locations for source materials:

Evaluating Sources

One key to judging the validity of sources is analysis. You already may be familiar with analysis, which involves looking at texts, media, or other artifacts to examine their individual parts and make interpretive claims about them. In the research process, analysis involves collecting data, deciding how you want to use that data *(what are you looking for?),* and applying those criteria to your data. For example, if you were looking at how the presence of social media has changed in television programs in the last five to seven years, you would determine what shows you want to view and what patterns you want to study.

The Research Process: How to Create Sources

Conducting Field Research

If not applicable for this class, you may be asked at some point in your college career to conduct fieldwork, which is considered primary research (the collection or development of primary sources). You may already have engaged in primary research by performing experiments in a laboratory for a science course or by documenting your observation of a musical or artistic performance.

Glance at the Research Process: Key Skills

Synthesis

One skill that will help you develop this original thinking is synthesis. As explained in Writing Process: Integrating Research, synthesis involves combining information gathered from various sources and making connections among those sources to create a new, deeper, or changed understanding of a topic. In other words, you examine how information or opinions you have read in one place relate to what you have read in another place or to your own thoughts. To practice the skill of synthesis, use [link], which illustrates how thinking can change like ripples of water.

Key Research Skills

In addition to synthesis and research log maintenance, a good researcher needs the following skills to perform required tasks:

Annotated Student Sample: Research Log

Introduction

Lily Tran created this log entry during the research process for an argumentative research paper assigned in her first-year composition class, as shown in this Annotated Student Sample.

Discussion Questions

Research Process: Making Notes, Synthesizing Information, and Keeping a Research Log

Summary of Assignment: Research Log

Your assignment is to create a research log similar to the student model. You will use it for the argumentative research project assigned in Writing Process: Integrating Research to record all secondary source information: your notes, complete publication data, relation to thesis, and other information as indicated in the right-hand column of the sample entry.

Creating the Research Log

As you gather source material for your argumentative research paper, keep in mind that the research is intended to support original thinking. That is, you are not writing an informational report in which you simply supply facts to readers. Instead, you are writing to support a thesis that shows original thinking, and you are collecting and incorporating research into your paper to support that thinking. Therefore, a research log, whether digital or handwritten, is a great way to keep track of your thinking as well as your notes and bibliographic information.

Types of Research Notes

Taking good notes will make the research process easier by enabling you to locate and remember sources and use them effectively. While some research projects requiring only a few sources may seem easily tracked, research projects requiring more than a few sources are more effectively managed when you take good bibliographic and informational notes. As you gather evidence for your argumentative research paper, follow the descriptions and the electronic model to record your notes. You can combine these with your research log, or you can use the research log for secondary sources and your own note-taking system for primary sources if a division of this kind is helpful. Either way, be sure to include all necessary information.

Other Systems for Organizing Research Logs and Digital Note-Taking

Students often become frustrated and at times overwhelmed by the quantity of materials to be managed in the research process. If this is your first time working with both primary and secondary sources, finding ways to keep all of the information in one place and well organized is essential.

Spotlight on … Ethical Research

Working with Human Participants and Institutional Review Boards

To comply with federal regulations and ethical principles, universities maintain institutional review boards (IRBs) that monitor how researchers treat their research participants. A range of research involvement exists when working with human subjects; whether your research involves taking blood samples, conducting psychological experiments, or simply distributing surveys, you must be aware of and consult your university’s IRB for policies and guidelines. In most cases, as undergraduates, you will not be working on research that is potentially risky or harmful to human participants. For example, it is unlikely you will be involved in conducting medical or psychological research. However, you may work on a project that requires field research such as interviews or observations. Although participants in a fieldwork project will probably not incur the same amount of risk as participants in clinical experiments, the IRB may have some questions nonetheless:

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is putting one’s name on a paper written by a friend and submitting it as one’s own. Plagiarism is buying or downloading a paper from an Internet site and pretending to have written it. And plagiarism is pasting in a phrase, sentence, paragraph, passage, or portion of anybody else’s work in a paper and not giving that author credit. ln these examples, the intent to plagiarize is deliberate and obvious, something that serious and honorable students would never do.

Annotated Bibliography: Gathering, Evaluating, and Documenting Sources

Introduction

Compiling Sources for an Annotated Bibliography

Compiling Sources

Research projects and compositions, particularly argumentative or position texts, require you to collect sources, devise a thesis, and then support that thesis through analysis of the evidence, including sources, you have compiled. With access to the Internet and an academic library, you will rarely encounter a shortage of sources for any given topic or argument. The real challenge may be sorting through all the available sources and determining which will be useful.

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources

In your research, you likely will use three types of sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary. During any research project, your use of these sources will depend on your topic, your thesis, and, ultimately, how you intend to use them. In all likelihood, you will need to seek out all three.

Authoritative Sources

Not all sources are created equally. You likely know already that you must vet sources—especially those you find on the Internet—for legitimacy, validity, and the presence of bias. For example, you probably know that the website Wikipedia is not considered a trustworthy source because it is open to user editing. This accessibility means the site’s authority cannot be established and, therefore, the source cannot effectively support or refute a claim you are attempting to make, though you can use it at times to point you to reliable sources. While so-called bad sources may be easy to spot, researchers may have more difficulty discriminating between sources that are authoritative and those that pose concerns. In fact, you may encounter a general hierarchy of sources in your compilation. Understanding this hierarchy can help you identify which sources to use and how to use them in your research.

Locating Sources

Academic article databases are the best starting places for finding sources. There are too many databases to cover them all in this chapter, but you would be wise to familiarize yourself with those to which you have access through your school or program. For further information on databases, see The Research Process: Where to Look for Existing Sources. In the long run, this knowledge will save you a good deal of time and a possible headache.

Choosing Sources

Choosing sources to include in your annotated bibliography may seem overwhelming. However, if you can find a few good academic articles as a starting point, use them to guide your research. Academic articles are efficient, scrutinized by experts in their fields, and organized in ways that aid readers in identifying key findings that relate to their argument. The following tips will help you choose solid sources to guide your research:

Glance at Form: Citation Style, Purpose, and Formatting

Citation Styles

Academic writing encompasses a variety of citation styles. Depending on the type of source, most of these styles include varieties of similar information: author’s name, title of work, publisher, location of publishing company, journal, website link, and sometimes the DOI (digital object identifier). The citation style you choose often will coincide with the academic discipline involved. Major citation styles include the following:

Annotated Citations

An annotated bibliography goes further than the citation entry. Beginning with the formal citation as shown above, it continues with information about the text, discussing the work’s author(s), authority, and impact on or usefulness to the research project. Most annotated bibliographies also present a short critical analysis of the source. Annotations are written in paragraph form. Depending on the purpose of your project and the instructions given, your annotations may range from relatively simple summaries to thorough analyses of your sources and how you will use them. Typically, you will provide this information in one or two paragraphs of around 100 to 200 words total.

Using Sources in Academic Conversation

Academic writing, particularly an assignment in which you create an argument—a persuasive text using one or more appeals—to support a claim to support a claim through reasoning and evidence, is somewhat like joining a conversation, as mentioned in the introduction to this chapter. You contribute your own ideas to an issue, support your claim by citing other sources on the topic, refute counterclaims, and create meaningful rhetorical appeals. With these contributions, you add your writing to the database of knowledge and opinion regarding that topic. See Glance at Genre: Introducing Research as Evidence for a more detailed discussion of authors in conversation. As you think about creating your annotated bibliography, keep this conversation in mind.

Key Terms

These are key terms and characteristics of annotated bibliographies.

Annotated Student Sample: “Healthy Diets from Sustainable Sources Can Save the Earth” by Lily Tran

Introduction

In this section, you will read a sample annotated bibliography based on the Annotated Student Sample to help you create your own annotated bibliography. As you read, remember that annotations summarize, assess, and evaluate a source, specifically regarding its function in the project for which it is used. Note the purpose of the annotations in this bibliography and how much information the author includes for readers.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Informing and Analyzing

Summary of Assignment: Annotated Bibliography

For this assignment, you will create an annotated bibliography based on your research for one of the writing assignments in this course, preferably Writing Process: Integrating Research. After collecting and choosing sources, you will write citations using MLA Documentation and Format and compose a one- or two-paragraph annotation for each source. Remember, the purpose of the annotation is to provide

Thesis

Before you choose sources, you must have an idea of what you want to say. If you’re creating an annotated bibliography for the argument described Writing Process: Integrating Research, you likely have already drafted a thesis statement. If you are creating an annotated bibliography for another topic, you will need to draft a working thesis. Your thesis will state your position on the topic. It is often a single clear, concise sentence that reveals your side in the argument. You will use your sources to support the thesis you draft.

Citations and Annotations

For each source you choose, first write the source citation in MLA format. An example of a citation for the research project on artificial intelligence might be:

Formatting

The format of an annotated bibliography can vary depending on the discipline and purpose. Therefore, be clear at the outset which style you need to use. In academic writing, that information often will come from your instructor. Generally, annotated bibliographies will be written in MLA Documentation and Format, APA Documentation and Format, or Chicago style.

Descriptive/Informative and Analytical/Critical Annotations

There are two major types of annotated bibliographies. The first is descriptive annotations, or informative, summarizing the material and explaining why the source is useful for your topic. This type of annotated bibliography also points out special features of the text, including any data, graphics, or other characteristics. Although you discuss the author’s main arguments and conclusions, you do not analyze or evaluate them. Descriptive annotations are useful for helping readers understand an author’s main ideas but less helpful for showing how the source has influenced the research project as a whole.

Case Study Profile: What One Person Says About All

Introduction

Tracing a Broad Issue in the Individual

Case Study Ethics

Professional researchers must abide by a complex ethical and legal framework when conducting case studies. More importantly, participants must give their permission to be part of the study and to have their information shared. Researchers are obligated to act ethically when conducting case studies, *but what does “act ethically” mean, exactly?* Most people would agree that it is *unethical* to inflict harm on a case study participant, yet there are instances of researchers injuring their participants either physically or psychologically. One of the best-known examples of a case study conducted unethically is the Milgram Experiment, in which Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) attempted to study the extent of people’s willingness to submit to authority when ordered to do something they know is wrong. Participants were instructed to deliver a range of electric shocks to other participants, who in fact were not actual participants but other researchers. Unbeknownst to the participants, the shocks were not real, and no electric current was delivered when participants pressed the button to deliver the shocks. Responses to shocks—screams and other indications of pain—were prerecorded. Yet some participants reported suffering psychological trauma from what they believed were their actions.

Case Study Trailblazer: Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Ramachandran’s Case Study on Phantom Limbs

Neuropsychologist Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (b. 1951) was born in Tamil Nadu, India. He was educated in India and Thailand before earning a PhD from the University of Cambridge in England. Both a physician and a medical researcher, Dr. Ramachandran is a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his work in behavioral neurology, particularly his research on the phenomenon of phantom limbs.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Observation, Description, and Analysis

Components of Case Studies

Case studies generally have five main parts. They begin by presenting an overview of previous case studies on the topic. Sometimes called a literature review, this part of the case study provides background and helps readers understand where the current study fits within previous research. The second component of a case study is a detailed description of the participants and the observation environment. These descriptions of the individuals being studied and the conditions under which they are being studied provide additional background and context. The third component is the methods section, in which the author explains the ways in which data will be collected, such as interviews, surveys, observations, document analysis, and so on. The fourth component, following the methods section, is an organized presentation of the data collected, or the findings of the study. Finally, an analysis of the results concludes the case study. In this section, the author provides an interpretation of the collected data. This section usually includes an explanation of the limitations of and gaps in the case study’s data, methods, or anything else the author believes is important.

Key Terms

A case study, at its most basic level, is about close observation as a basis for analysis. By observing individuals or groups in a particular setting, researchers attempt to learn something about the participants’ thoughts, actions, behavior, or feelings. To conduct a case study, you should be familiar with the following terms.

Annotated Sample Reading: Case Study on Louis Victor "Tan" Leborgne

Introduction

French physician Pierre Paul Broca (1824–1880), an early researcher of brain science, is credited with developing theories about how the brain controls motor functions such as language. One of his patients, Louis Victor Leborgne, suffered from a continuing loss of speech that resulted in an inability to form any syllables other than *tan*. Following Leborgne’s death, Broca examined Leborgne’s brain and observed some abnormalities in the left frontal lobe. These observations would eventually lead to the larger discovery that different areas of the brain control different motor functions.

Discussion Questions

Language and Expression

One significant finding of Broca’s case study was that Leborgne grew up in the town of Moret-sur-Loing. The town had many tanneries, leading Broca to theorize that Leborgne’s use of the syllable *tan* was related to his home. *Why is this theory important?* It illustrates how personal history affects people. It is possible that Leborgne used language in this way because of his history and cultural association with his hometown. Culture and identity have a big impact on how people use language, even among people who speak the same language.

Writing Process: Thinking Critically About How People and Language Interact

Summary of Assignment

Conduct an informal case study of a classmate, friend, or family member to gain insight into the participant’s use of language, specifically the ways in which their culture(s) and language(s) interact. Try to find a willing participant who is either bilingual or fluent in, familiar with, or an occasional user of a language other than English. You can focus your case study on the ways in which your participant changes their language according to context, how their use of language is different when they interact with family and friends as opposed to in academic or professional contexts, or how using one language affects the other. Be sure to consult your instructor about the school’s policy on student participation in studies, and obtain written permission from the participant before you begin. If you do not know anyone who speaks another language, consider these topics:

Sharing Your Work

Seek out a student conference or publication to present your case study. Many colleges host events and conferences to showcase student work. Your teacher or advisor can probably direct you toward opportunities to present your work at your college or in the community.

Editing Focus: Words Often Confused

Homonyms

Because homonyms’ spelling and pronunciation are the same but their meanings are different, you probably don’t have to worry about misusing them, although they often belong to different parts of speech. However, some awareness of homonyms and their multiple meanings will help ensure that your language is precise. For more information about homonyms, see “Words and Language.”

Homographs

Homographs have the same spelling but different meanings. They are considered different from homonyms because they may be pronounced differently. Some disagreement exists among scholars as to whether pronunciation *must* be different for a word to be considered a homograph. Some experts insist that origins must differ as well. However, all agree that meanings differ. For more information about homographs, see Words and Language.

Homophones

Homophones are words that are spelled differently and have different meanings but sound the same. Homophones are often the words that cause the most confusion and the most frequent errors. For more information about homophones, see Words and Language.

What Is the *Effect*? Or Is It *Affect*?

One final category of commonly confused words are words that sound and look *similar* but have different meanings.

Practice

Choose the correct word to complete each sentence.

Evaluation: Presentation and Analysis of Case Study

Rubric

Spotlight on … Applied Linguistics

Solving Language-Related Problems

Applied linguistics has far-reaching implications that affect the real world. Effective communication in the workplace is one of the language-related problems that linguists study.

Linguistics-Related Task

To learn more about language acquisition, set up an interview with a person you know who has learned another language. It may be English as a second language, another spoken language, a language no longer spoken, American Sign Language, Braille, or even musical notation. Ask questions similar to those you asked your case study participant(s) to find out how they acquired this language. Consider asking some of the following questions:

Portfolio: Your Own Uses of Language

How Language Use Speaks to Who You Are

Pick a specific group of which you are a part, and reflect on that group’s use of language. The group you pick can be somewhat broad, such as “employees of Target,” or more specific, such as “members of the University of North Carolina marching band.” Ask yourself: *What words are used in this group that might not be understood by people outside the group? Has the group changed the spelling or meaning of any words to communicate with one another? Does the group use any acronyms?* Reflect on how language is used in your group to communicate ideas.

Navigating Rhetoric in Real Life

Unit Introduction

Print or Textual Analysis: What You Read

Introduction

An Author’s Choices: What Text Says and How It Says It

Analyzing and Interpreting

*What exactly, then, is textual analysis?* To analyze a text is to examine its various parts to explain its meaning. Analyzing a text implies that the text can be read in more than one way. Your analysis is your reading of it: your explanation of various text elements, your understanding of the text, and how you understand it in a larger context. Others may read and understand it differently. To find out what a text—fiction or nonfiction—means, you look at its language, examine how it is put together, perhaps compare or contrast it with similar texts or other works, and notice how it affects you or how it fits into events outside it, and you keep asking *why*. Always keep in mind, however, that a textual analysis is not about whether you like a text; it is about the meaning of the text—how the author created it and intended it to be understood.

Textual Analysis Trailblazer: bell hooks

Talking Back

Born Gloria Jean Watkins, bell hooks adopted the name of her great-grandmother, a woman known for speaking her mind. In choosing this pen name, hooks decided not to capitalize the first letters so that audiences would focus on her work rather than her name. However, this stylistic choice has become as memorable as her work.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Print or Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis and Interpretive Communities

How you read and analyze a text depends on who you are. Who you are depends on the influences that have shaped you, or the communities to which you belong. Everyone belongs to various communities: families, social and economic groups (e.g., students or teachers, middle or working class), organizations (e.g., Democratic or Republican Party, Masons, Habitat for Humanity), geographic locales (e.g., rural or urban, north or south), and institutions (e.g., school, church, fraternity). Your membership in one or more communities may determine how you view and respond to the world. The communities that influence you most are called interpretive communities; they influence the meaning you make of the world. People who belong to the same community may well have similar assumptions and therefore are likely to analyze texts in similar ways.

Conventions of Textual Analysis

When asked to analyze or interpret a literary work, whether fiction or nonfiction, you will likely focus on some of these literary elements to explain how an author uses them to make meaning.

Annotated Student Sample: "Artists at Work" by Gwyn Garrison

Introduction

Student Gwyn Garrison wrote this textual analysis for a first-year composition class. In the essay, Garrison extends her analysis beyond the texts to discuss outside events and real individuals, making connections among them.

Discussion Questions

For Reference: “The Storm” by Kate Chopin (1850–1904)

The leaves were so still that even Bibi thought it was going to rain. Bobinôt, who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son, called the child’s attention to certain sombre clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar. They were at Friedheimer’s store and decided to remain there till the storm had passed. They sat within the door on two empty kegs. Bibi was four years old and looked very wise.

Writing Process: Thinking Critically About Text

Summary of Assignment

Write an analytical essay about a short story or another short text of your choice, either fiction or literary nonfiction. If desired, you may choose “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, reprinted above. Consider the author’s form and organization, tone, or stylistic choices, including diction and sensory or figurative language. You might also consider the historical or social context, the theme, the character development, or the relation between setting and plot or characterization. If you are free to choose your own text and topic, consider the following approaches:

For Reference: excerpt from *Walden* by Henry David Thoreau *from* “Where I Lived and What I Lived For”

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defense against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music.…

Peer Reviewer’s Comments

Final Version

When Calixta acts outside of societal norms, **however**, she discovers the freedom of self-expression and passion. **All of the parts of her womanhood that have no place in the society in which she lives have been repressed until this one moment. In this scene, Chopin takes possession of the term *whore* and redefines Calixta’s behavior as a transformative awakening.** Chopin’s diction evokes a spiritual transcendence that allows Calixta to exist momentarily outside social norms that exist only in the physical plane of existence: “when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery.” The affair becomes a vehicle that allows Calixta to get to a place of true self-expression. The storm, an aspect of nature or the natural world, acts as the catalyst in Calixta’s natural self-realization of womanhood. As the storm breaks externally, it also breaks internally for Calixta. Chopin’s depiction of Calixta’s sexual liberation and fulfillment outside of her marriage is an early step in the fight to bridge the gap between women’s bodies and their sociopolitical lives. By presenting female sexuality in a way that is enlightening rather than degrading, Chopin helps destigmatize labels such as *whore,* which have been used to shame women for acting outside of traditional gender expectations.

Editing Focus: Literary Works Live in the Present

Use the Literary Present Tense with Consistency

Although the present tense is used in literary discussions and references to literary texts, some instances will occur in which you have to distinguish between times of events. Thus, using the present tense may not apply to all actions within a text. The characters within a text often have done something, or something has happened, in the past—before the action of the story. In such cases, refer to these past actions in the past tense. Also, use the past tense when referring to the author and events in the author’s life that do not relate directly to the text. See the examples below:

Evaluation: Self-Directed Assessment

Rubric

Spotlight on … Humanities

Careers in the Humanities

Because humanities subjects emphasize critical thinking and clear writing, the skills humanities students obtain are valued in many fields other than the most obvious ones. Humanities majors have gone on to careers in law, medicine (humanities plus pre-med), advertising, journalism, TV and film writing and production, public relations, graphic design, teaching, technical and medical/scientific writing, human resources, and many others. For more information about career opportunities for humanities students, see these sites:

Students’ Stories

Despite strong interest in the humanities—especially in reading, writing, and language—some students avoid humanities subjects as majors because they think they won’t find jobs after graduation. Such fear, however, is unwarranted, as many organizations actively seek students who major in languages or in other humanities disciplines. These graduates are valued for their ability to interpret and analyze text and to write clear, concise, and compelling prose. Moreover, employers realize that students who concentrate on studying people—whether real or fictional—develop insights into human behavior and understanding of how to deal with it. For example, these students who graduated with degrees in humanities subjects have found rewarding work in humanities-related and business fields.

Thinking, Writing, and Publishing

Critical writing requires critical thinking. When an individual or collaborative team articulates their perspective, they provide new knowledge for audiences. In essence, all texts have potential to create new knowledge. A writer of any type of text has the potential to enter a conversation and show audiences new ways to look at a subject.

Portfolio: The Academic and the Personal

Reflective Writing: Genres of Reflective Writing

Reflective writing is not limited to a single genre. Because it is highly personal, it is most frequent in, but certainly not limited to, diaries, journals, autobiographies, and memoirs. One common way that it appears is in letters or essays that writers craft to reflect on, or think about, their writing process for a particular text they have written. Consider the following suggestions when you write reflectively about this assignment for your ongoing portfolio compilation:

Image Analysis: What You See

Introduction

“Reading” Images

Interpreting Visual Information

Both words and pictures convey information, but each does so in different ways that require interpretation. *Interpretation* is the sense a person makes of a piece of communication—textual, oral, or visual. It includes personal experience, the context in which the communication is made, and other rhetorical elements. (See Glance at Genre: Relationship Between Image and Rhetoric for a list of key terms related to visual elements and rhetoric.) By the time readers get to college, they have internalized strategies to help them critically understand a variety of written texts.

Visual Rhetoric

Written texts rely on strategies such as thesis statements, topic sentences, paragraphing, tone, and sentence structure to communicate their message to their audience. Images rely on different strategies, including point of view, arrangement, color, and symbol. When writing about images or including them in your writing, think critically about the visual strategies they use and the effect they will have on your audience.

Selecting and Incorporating Digital and Visual Media

In addition to analyzing visual and digital media, you may be asked to find, create, or manipulate such materials for a variety of situations and audiences. Following are some considerations to keep in mind, including copyright issues, appropriate selections, and technical manipulations.

Image Trailblazer: Sara Ludy

Sara Ludy and Hybridity

This chapter focuses on images. Still, most of the images with which viewers interact have been either created or manipulated digitally and contain textual, animated, and cinematic content. In the field of digital manipulation, Sara Ludy is a pioneer, combining painting, sculpture, floral arrangements, animation, sound, and video. She was raised in Bluemont, Virginia, a small town in the Appalachian region. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and lived and worked in New Mexico and California before settling in Chicago. Her work includes images of water, clouds, water vapor, birds, fabric, glass, and plants. American painter Georgia O’Keeffe’s (1887–1986) influence—see Figure 17.12—on Ludy’s work is obvious in its lush, open petals and wings, as well as in the vibrant natural colors.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Relationship Between Image and Rhetoric

Reflecting on Images

When you reflect on an image, you process its technical elements through the dual lens of critical thought and personal experience. You may ask questions such as the following:

Analyzing Images

When describing an image, you might state that a line is blue. When you analyze an image, you might discuss what the color and the line *mean* or *do*. The images in ‘Reading’ Images are analyzed according to genre elements specific to visual media. In these discussions, the analysis begins with description, but it does not end there. The elements of visual rhetoric are both described and analyzed to discover the artist’s intentions. (You will read a detailed analysis about painter Charles Demuth’s *Dancing Sailors* in the Annotated Student Sample.)

The Language of Visual Rhetoric

Images speak to viewers in a language that short-circuits their critical thought processes and goes directly to their sensory receptors. Yet unlike a simple, instinctive response to stimuli, the goal of critical thought, reflection, and discourse is to consider *how* and *why* viewers respond the way they do to certain images. To do so, viewers should consider the techniques that artists use to elicit such reactions. In this way, artists and viewers create a shared language of visual rhetoric in which both can discuss the virtues and demerits of a work of art as well as its historical and artistic contributions.

Key Terms in Visual Rhetoric

Annotated Student Sample: “Hints of the Homoerotic” by Leo Davis

Introduction

Below you will find a student analysis of a painting by Charles Demuth. As you read it, pay careful attention to the way in which the student author, Leo Davis, describes technical details of the painting, such as color, line, and technique. Also notice the way he analyzes those details, moving beyond mere description into the realms of context, analysis, and reflection.

Meet American Modernist and Precisionist Charles Demuth (1883–1935)

Charles Demuth was an American painter of the modernist and precisionist movements. Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he traveled to Europe and worked as an illustrator before striking out on his own, first as a watercolorist and then as an oil painter. His watercolors follow languid lines of vegetation, reproducing plants and flowers in stronger geometric patterns than those of his friend and fellow artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986). His work in the precisionist movement, like that of other similar artists, often focuses on industrial subjects enhanced by exaggerated geometric techniques. Few human characters appear in Demuth’s paintings, which tend to erase any suggestion of his own personality or brushstroke on the artwork.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Thinking Critically and Writing Persuasively About Images

Writing Persuasively about Images

Like reflection, persuasion starts with context and description and can include personal reflections. The difference is primarily in the purpose and often the tone, or attitude toward the subject and audience. The purpose generally falls into one of three categories:

Summary of Assignment: Writing Persuasively about an Image

Public works projects such as stadiums or convention centers, private developments such as condominiums and shopping centers, and online spaces such as websites and social media platforms all commission artists to create exclusive works for display. These works are intended to reflect the vision of the artist as well as to promote the brand or mission of the space. Imagine that you have been asked to analyze an artist’s work to determine whether the artist should contribute to the development of a local space that you select. Select the work of an artist, either Sara Ludy or another artist whose work is familiar to you or whose work you would like to learn more about. See Further Resources at the end of this chapter for suggested museums to visit in person or online. You can choose from historical figures or living artists. You can even choose an artist who illustrated a graphic novel you have read. Once you have chosen an artist and an image created by that artist, identify the aspects of the work you wish to assess, and support your analysis with technical descriptions of the image. Then, explain why you reached your decision about the artist’s contribution to the selected space.

Editing Focus: Descriptive Diction

Practice Using Descriptive Diction

Revise the following descriptions to eliminate abstract nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and extra words. Be sure to keep the same meaning.

Evaluation: Relationship Between Analysis and Image

Rubric

Spotlight on … Video and Film

Lights, Camera Angles, Actions

This chapter focuses largely on still images, but many of the same principles apply to moving images, or film. Documentaries in particular combine a series of still or moving images with historical and narrative text. This section shows how the concepts of visual rhetoric apply to the documentary work of Ken Burns. It also encourages you to examine your experience through such techniques by creating a film autobiography.

Publish Your Work: Film Autobiography

Make a documentary of your own! Document the process of writing your essay or select a meaningful moment in your life—an event, an anniversary, an accomplishment, a disappointment—and create a 3–5 minute multimodal video about it, incorporating video, still images, and text that explore the significance of the moment in your life. Post your finished product to YouTube. [link] lists resources you can use to produce and publish your video, including ways to limit viewership and address privacy concerns.

Portfolio: Interplay Between Text and Image

Interacting with Images Online

As you add your essay to your portfolio, continue conscious and reflective practice in your own writing by thinking about an image you recently posted on one of your social media platforms. Consider the following questions, returning to “Reading” Images as needed.

Multimodal and Online Writing: Creative Interaction between Text and Image

Introduction

Mixing Genres and Modes

Multimodal Trailblazer: Torika Bolatagici

Digital Representations of Embodiment and Cultural Identity

Torika Bolatagici is a creator, educator, and art historian who works with various modalities, including photography, video, fine art, and mixed media. Bolatagici was born in Tasmania and, as a young person, spent time living in Hobart, Tasmania; Sydney, Australia; and her father’s village of Suvavou, Fiji. Her work has been featured across the globe, including in exhibits in the United States, Taiwan, and Mexico as well as throughout New Zealand and Australia. She has a PhD from the School of Art and Design, University of New South Wales, where she wrote her dissertation on “Somatic Sotia: Commodity, Agency and the Fijian Military Body.”

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Genre, Audience, Purpose, Organization

Audience Awareness

As with any type of composition, knowing your audience (the readers and viewers for whom you are creating) will help you determine what information to include and what genre, mode(s), or media in which to present it. Consider your audience when choosing a composition’s tone (composer’s attitude toward the audience or subject), substance, and language. Considering the audience is critical not only in traditional academic writing but also in nearly any genre or mode you choose. Ask yourself these questions when analyzing your audience’s awareness:

Blogs, Vlogs, and Creative Compositions

Among the modes available to you as a composer, blogs (regularly updated websites, usually run by an individual or a small group) have emerged as a significant genre in digital literature. The term *blog*, a combination of *web* and *log*, was coined in 1999 and gained rapid popularity in the early 2000s. In general, blogs have a relatively narrow focus on a topic or argument and present a distinctive structure that includes these features:

Effective Writing

Experimenting with modes and media is not an excuse for poorly developed writing that lacks focus, organization, thought, purpose, or attention to mechanics. Although multimodal compositions offer flexibility of expression, the content still must be presented in well-crafted, organized, and purposeful ways that reflect the author’s purpose and the audience’s needs.

Exploring the Genre

These are the key terms and characteristics of multimodal texts.

Annotated Sample Reading: “Celebrating a Win-Win” by Alexandra Dapolito Dunn

Introduction

As a multimodal composer, you may choose to employ ethos, a rhetorical method of persuasion. In this context, ethos is an appeal to readers in order to establish the author’s credibility and character. In a rhetorical appeal, you can use ethos through fair, neutral language to show trustworthiness. In multimodal composition, ethos aims to convince readers that you are a reliable and an ethical expert on the subject. When using ethos, authors present sources that support their argument in balanced and honest ways, revealing their writing to be reliable. Authors also seek to understand their audience, establishing commonalities between those who support the issue, those who are undecided or indifferent, and those who dissent. Often, authors invoke the words or ideas of respected figures, authorities, or even religious texts when using ethos to convince readers. Analyzing multimodal compositions can help you learn how to use rhetorical frames in the multimodal composing process. In the blog post you are about to read, the author uses ethos, along with structural aspects of multimodal texts, to establish herself as a trustworthy expert on the subject of pollution prevention. Studying the components of multimodal writing in this blog will help you understand how multimedia platforms utilize elements of text, media, and modes.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Create a Multimodal Advocacy Project

Summary of Assignment

Create a multimodal advocacy project for a cause or an issue that you choose or that your instructor chooses for you. If you are free to choose your own topic, here is a short list from which you may draw inspiration:

Evaluation: Transitions

Rubric

As you know, *how* you present content within your compositions is as important as what content you choose to include. Moving smoothly among elements, genres, and incorporations of various media has a powerful impact on how your audience experiences your composition. Refer to the following rubric throughout the process to help you evaluate your transitions and other conventions.

Spotlight on . . . Technology

Digital Deserts

One challenge posed by the incorporation of technology in multimodal composition is the presence of digital deserts, or places affected by a digital divide, where residents have no access to the high-speed internet connections required to consume and create digital media. The Federal Communications Commission produced data indicating that in 2017, 21.3 million Americans lacked access to high-speed internet service, and of those people, 2.2 million households had no internet access at all. Studies show that this data may be understated, with even more people living in digital deserts. Rural parts of the country are disproportionately affected, but people living in low-income urban areas make up a significant portion of these numbers.

Enhancing Usability and Accessibility

Other considerations affecting multimodal compositions are usability and accessibility for readers of differing abilities. These may be associated with speech, hearing, vision, and/or motor impairments, among others. Universal accessibility aims to produce content that all people, regardless of abilities, can use, often with assistive technologies, solutions, and tools. Although new fields within the education landscape, such as universal design, have made great strides in usability and accessibility, multimodal content can enhance these strides in unique ways for students and for all consumers of multimodal compositions.

Publishing Your Work

One of the most exciting parts of composing is publishing your work. Technology affords multimodal composers numerous options for publishing. Whether or not you create your composition through digital means, you can use technology in the publishing process. First, know that you want your published product to be a finished work that incorporates the revisions and edits you made during the peer review process. This step is occasionally skipped in the multimodal composition process, mostly because digital publishing can be more accessible than other traditional publishing methods. Nevertheless, as a composer, you want your published product to be your best work.

Portfolio: Multimodalism

Reflective Writing: Letter to Your Instructor

As you reflect on your multimodal composition and the process you used to create it, answer these questions, supporting your answers with evidence from your project. Then compose a letter to your instructor that incorporates your answers and addresses any other parts of the composition process that come to mind.

Scripting for the Public Forum: Writing to Speak

Introduction

Writing, Speaking, and Activism

Writing for and beyond the Academy

By now, you are likely familiar with the concept of rhetoric, which, in academic terms, describes how writers and speakers use language to persuade. Rhetoric has its roots in ancient Greece, dating back to Homer’s epic poems (mid-8th century BCE), and was developed by the philosophers Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE) and Aristotle into a system for understanding and teaching persuasion. If you have ever analyzed a speech or story to determine how the author develops or supports claims, chances are you have studied rhetoric. Refer to Rhetorical Analysis: Interpreting the Art of Rhetoric and Position Argument: Practicing the Art of Rhetoric for more about rhetoric.

Identifying General Purpose

The purpose of speech, like any type of writing, is directly related to the rhetorical situation, which defines how a speaker will use communication to influence an audience’s perspective. Speech is created for a specific time, place, and audience, by a speaker who makes choices on the basis of the rhetorical and cultural context.

Audience Awareness

When you are writing to speak, audience awareness is particularly important. After all, the audience is often right there in front of you! Your goal is to speak directly to them, to evoke emotion or make them react, even if silently. Consider your audience when choosing your tone, language, and approach to a topic. Knowing your audience and crafting your writing for them will help you connect and thus fulfill your purpose. Among the most famous speeches of all time, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is known for inspiring civil rights progress in the United States.

Cultural Context

Culture—the shared values, customs, arts, and other traits of a group of people—is an important consideration when developing a relationship with your audience. Speech—particularly formal, persuasive speech—is a part of the American social and political systems. Candidates for political office commonly use speech during campaigns. Consider former president Barack Obama’s (b. 1961) introductory speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which political scholars credit with his rise to the presidency. Lawyers regularly use speech to argue their cases before judges and juries. Religious leaders have long used speech from the pulpit to challenge and influence congregants. Moreover, as American culture morphs and grows, speech has become an important part of everyday life in ways not witnessed in earlier times.

Podcast Trailblazer: Alice Wong

The Disability Visibility Project

Alice Wong (b. 1974) is an activist, writer, and media creator from San Francisco, California. After graduating from Indiana University in 1997 with majors in English and sociology, Wong went on to earn a master’s degree in sociology from the University of California, San Francisco, where she later worked. Wong has been widely published, including feature pieces appearing in publications ranging from the *New York Times* to *Teen Vogue*, and her activism work has been featured in CNN’s series *United Shades of America*. In addition to writing, Wong regularly creates multimedia content, including podcasts. From 2013 to 2015, she was a member of the National Council on Disability, appointed by then president Barack Obama.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Language Performance and Visuals

Writing for Listeners and Readers

The script for a speech may begin as a traditional text, but it must be written and delivered in a way that makes it available and accessible to readers and listeners alike. Think of your favorite radio show or podcast. If the author wrote as if composing a written text with no consideration for listeners, the effect for listeners would likely be compromised.

Writing for Delivery

Text for speech will be only as good as its delivery. If you write for speech in the exact way you write an academic paper, the result is likely to be lackluster, for speech is immediate—that is, it makes an impact as soon as it is heard. A powerful written argument, if orally delivered without voice modulation or emphasis, is unlikely to move listeners and likely to have fluency glitches, as written sentences tend to be longer and more complex. Although topical outlines for a paper and a script might look similar, the way you translate ideas into writing for speech will vary to increase effectiveness. One strategy for making this “conversion” is to read your script aloud during or after writing. Hearing the script will allow you to make revisons and edits to ensure oral fluency, or smooth delivery, including pronunciation, phrasing, stress, and tone.

Writing with Media

Script writing and presentations often take a multimedia approach. Multimedia can include a variety of channels, media types, and visual aids, including videos, images, infographics, and animations that enhance understanding and bring a new level of engagement among media consumers. The use of media can reinforce the content of a script or presentation, provide a vehicle for delivery, and generally enhance the speaker’s purpose and message.

Key Terms

Below are key terms and characteristics of scripts and other oral media.

Annotated Student Sample: “Are New DOT Regulations Discriminatory?” by Zain A. Kumar

Introduction

A script may take many forms, but effective speakers connect with their audience, clearly state a main idea or thesis, and support that thesis by backing up key ideas with evidence and reasoning. In this feature, you will read a speech that examines whether U.S. Department of Transportation regulations discriminate against people who depend on service animals. The full transcript of the speech, rather than the outline, is provided here to allow you to study aspects of delivery as well as preparation. Notice not only the disapproving tone and conversational style but also the way in which the author builds and supports the thesis.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Writing to Speak

Summary of Assignment: Writing to Speak, Speaking to Act

You may have heard that merely believing in a cause is not enough; you must take action to create change. As you keep the idea of social, political, or economic change in mind, your task is to develop an outline as the basis for a speech to a live audience or on a social media platform of your choice. The topic is an issue you care about. Speaking from an outline rather than from a written script helps ensure that your speech is natural and smooth. Your audience should not feel as though you are reading aloud to them. If you are free to choose your own topic, consider a cause meaningful to you, or consider using one of the following suggestions as your topic or as inspiration for it:

Checklist for Revision

Evaluation: Bridging Writing and Speaking

Rubric

Spotlight on … Delivery/Public Speaking

Speaking Genres: Spoken Word, Pulpit, YouTube, Podcast, Social Media

The world today offers many new (and old) delivery methods for script writing. While the traditional presidential address or commencement speech on a stage in front of a crowd of people is unlikely to disappear, newer script delivery methods are now available, including many that involve technology. From YouTube, which allows anyone to upload videos, to podcasts, which provide a platform for anyone, celebrities and noncelebrities alike, to produce a radio-like program, it seems that people are finding new ways to use technology to enhance communication. Free resources such as YouTube Studio and the extension TubeBuddy can be a good starting place to learn to create these types of media.

Your Turn

Now it’s your turn. Using the principle illustrated above, create stage directions for your script. Then, practice using them by presenting your script to a peer reviewer, such as a friend, family member, or classmate. Also consider recording yourself practicing your script. Listen to the recording to evaluate it for delivery, fluency, and vocal fillers. Remember that writing is recursive: you can make changes based on what works and what doesn’t after you implement your stage directions. You can even ask your audience for feedback to improve your delivery.

Podcast Publication

If possible, work with your instructor and classmates to put together a single podcast or a series of podcasts according to the subject areas of the presentations. The purpose of these podcasts should be to invite and encourage other students to get involved in important causes. Work with relevant student organizations on campus to produce and publicize the podcasts for maximum impact. There are many free resources for creating podcasts, including Apple’s GarageBand and Audacity.

Portfolio: Everyday Rhetoric, Rhetoric Every Day

Reflective Task

As you reflect on writing for your presentation, ask yourself the following questions:

Portfolio Reflection: Your Growth as a Writer

Introduction

Thinking Critically about Your Semester

Reflection Trailblazer: Sandra Cisneros

Finding a Home in Writing

Poet and novelist Sandra Cisneros (b. 1954) is best known for her novel *The House on Mango Street* (1983). Born in Chicago, Illinois, Cisneros was the only girl in a family of seven children. When she was a child, her father moved the family several times between Chicago and Mexico City, the capital of Mexico. With these moves back and forth between the two countries, Cisneros felt detached from both cultures, forcing her to create her own path to understand herself better.

Discussion Questions

Glance at Genre: Purpose and Structure

Areas of Exploration

When you write a reflective piece, consider three main areas of exploration as shown in [link]. The first is the happening. This area consists of the events included in the reflection. For example, you will be examining writing assignments from this course. As you describe the assignments, you also establish context for the reflection so that readers can understand the circumstances involved. For each assignment, ask yourself these questions: *What was the assignment? How did I approach the assignment? What did I do to start this assignment? What did I think about the assignment?* If you think of other questions, use them. Record your answers because they will prove useful in the second area.

Format of Reflective Writing

Unlike thesis statements, which often come at the beginning of an essay, the main point of a piece of reflective writing may be conveyed only indirectly and nearly always emerges at the end, almost like an epiphany, or sudden realization. With this structure, readers are drawn into the act of reflecting and become more curious about what the writer is thinking and feeling. ln other words, reflective writers are musing, exploring, or wondering rather than arguing. In fact, reflective essays are most enlightening when they are not obviously instructive or assertive. However, even though reflective writing does not present an explicit argument, it still includes evidence and cohesion and provides lessons to be learned. As such, elements of persuasion or argument often appear in reflective essays.

Key Terms

As you begin crafting your reflection, consider these elements of reflective writing.

Annotated Sample Reading: “Don’t Expect Congrats” by Dale Trumbore

Introduction

Dale Trumbore (b. 1987) is a Southern California composer and writer. In addition to composing for chorus and orchestra, Trumbore often writes reflectively about artistic conflict and its resolution. In her book *Staying Composed* (2019), she writes about the anxiety and self-doubt that often accompany a career in the arts: “You have to be willing to be a little vulnerable. Real people are flawed.” In the following blog post, she reflects on gender in her career field.

Discussion Questions

Writing Process: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Prewriting

Before beginning your reflective essay, take some time to review your work from the course. Write a few sentences or paragraphs about specific aspects of each assignment, such as its purpose, your feelings, what you learned, what you did well (and not so well), and where you think you can do significantly better. This prewriting work will be useful later.

Summary of Assignment: Portfolio Reflection and Self-Evaluation

In the form of a letter (e.g., “Dear Reader”), respond to several questions and discuss various topics related to your writing development in this course. For example, you might be asked to identify and discuss your strongest piece of writing. For each claim you make about your strongest assignment, provide reasoning and evidence from your portfolio to support the statement. When you quote directly from your own writing, be sure to state which assignment or draft you are quoting. Within the context of your responses, include commentary on most of the following course topics as well as others that have been significant:

Editing Focus: Pronouns

Reference, Antecedent, and Case

Types of Pronouns

When you think of pronouns, personal pronouns such as those discussed in the previous section, referring to a specific person or object, are likely the first that come to mind. However, the world of pronouns extends to reflexive, indefinite, and demonstrative pronouns as well.

Common Mix-Ups

In Chapter 20, you have learned how to use different types of pronouns to substitute for nouns and noun phrases. You have also learned about common mix-ups when using pronouns.

Evaluation: Evaluating Self-Reflection

Rubric

Spotlight on … Pronouns in Context

Eliminating Gender Bias

It is important to remember that many thoughtful and powerful English-language works from the past took masculine words for granted. English use of words such as *man*, *men*, *he*, *him*, and *his* was, one would hope, meant to include both men and women. Consider Thomas Jefferson’s “All men are created equal” and Thomas Paine’s “These are the times that try men’s souls.” The contemporary equivalent of those words might be “All people are created equal” and “These are the times that try our souls,” which are two of several possible fixes for such gender exclusivity. When you read historic texts, recognize that the rules were different then, and the writers are no more at fault than the culture in which they lived. Contemporary writing, however, should reflect inclusivity, which in turn reflects the culture in which you live today. (See Spotlight on… Bias in Language and Research for more about language bias.)

Pronouns for Nonbinary and Transgender People

You cannot always know how individuals identify themselves, nor can you assume their gender is either male or female. The best approach with people you don’t know is simply to ask which pronouns they prefer and to respect their choice. Some people identify themselves with the pronouns *they/them/theirs*, and this preference is generally acceptable politically, socially, and grammatically. Other gender-neutral pronouns exist as well, such as *ze/hir/hirs*, but they are used less often. If you are unsure, an option is simply to use the person’s name.

Handbook

Introduction

This handbook is a brief yet comprehensive reference for you to consult as you write papers and other assignments for a college course. You can refer to it as you draft paragraphs and polish sentences for clarity, conciseness, and point of view. You can read it to learn how to identify and revise common sentence errors and confused words. You can use it to help you edit your writing and fine-tune your use of verbs, pronouns, punctuation, and mechanics. And you can have it open as you integrate and cite quotations as well as other source material in your papers in MLA or APA style.

Paragraphs and Transitions

Paragraphs help readers make their way through prose writing by presenting it in manageable chunks. Transitions link sentences and paragraphs so that readers can clearly understand how the points you are making relate to one another. (See Editing Focus: Paragraph and Transitions for a related discussion of paragraphs and transitions. See Evaluation: Transitions for a related discussion of transitions in multimodal compositions.)

Clear and Effective Sentences

This section will help you write strong sentences that convey your meaning clearly and concisely. See Editing Focus: Sentence Structure for a related discussion and practice on effective sentences.

Sentence Errors

These four common sentence errors can make your writing hard to read: fragments, comma splices, run-on sentences, and mixed constructions.

Words and Language

The English language is rich and always evolving, offering you many ways and words to express yourself in writing and speech.

Point of View

Point of view refers to the vantage point from which a story, event, report, or other written work is told. The point of view in which you write depends on the genre in which you are writing. For example, you will likely use first person in personal narrative writing. For most academic writing, you’ll use third person. (See Editing Focus: Characterization and Point of View for a related discussion of point of view in narrative writing.)

Verbs

In a sentence, a verb expresses an action, an occurrence, or a state of being.

Pronouns

A Pronouns is a word used in place of a noun. Some pronouns are *I, you, he, she, we, they, who,* and *everyone*. The noun a pronoun replaces or refers to is its antecedent. (See Editing Focus: Pronouns for a related discussion of pronouns.)

Punctuation

This section covers the major marks of punctuation: commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons, periods, question marks, exclamation points, dashes, and parentheses. (For using brackets and ellipses, see Quotations.)

Mechanics

Quotations

A quotation reproduces the exact written or spoken words of a person or an author, which may include a group. (See Editing Focus: Quotations for a related discussion of direct quotations and Editing Focus: Integrating Sources and Quotations for help with integrating quotations from sources.)

Index and Guide to Documentation

Although formal differences exist among the conventions for documenting sources, the underlying principle of all documentation systems is the same: When borrowing words, facts, or ideas from someone else, writers must indicate that the material is borrowed. They do this by providing a citation in the text of their paper that points readers to detailed publication information about the source of the material, usually at the end of the paper but sometimes in footnotes. The following examples are in MLA style:

MLA Documentation and Format

MLA style is the preferred form for documenting research sources in English and other humanities disciplines. The following are general features of MLA style:

APA Documentation and Format

Disciplines in the social sciences—psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, social work, and often education—use the APA name-and-date system of documentation. APA style highlights authors and dates of publication because timeliness of published material is of primary importance in these disciplines. The following are general features of APA style:

Further Reading

*MLA Handbook*, 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016.

Works Cited

Addams, Jane. *Twenty Years at Hull-House. Digital Public Library of America*, 1910, dp.la/primary-source-sets/theodore-dreiser-s-sister-carrie-and-the-urbanization-of-chicago/.