Learning to blog was an integral part of LA101H. I've found that as I look back on my older blog posts, there are things I've learned since writing them that are so relevant to the posts that I can add to tighten my argument, while fine-tuning some of my diction. Here are three of my rhetoric blog posts that I found needed some revision, based on what we've learned since.
Those Little Things...
I wrote this blog post in response to President Obama's visit to campus, urging for a more efficient energy plan. While thousands flocked to go see him speak, I was able to hear people's thoughts about his speech. This post was important to me because I was able to fully realize how important your ethos is to your audience and how, for some people, however nit-picky, the tiniest slip of tongue can completely ruin it. I thought it was astounding that out of the President's whole speech, someone thought the most important thing to remember from it was the "Nittaly Lions." I revised this post to try to make my point clearer in saying that while many may have brushed Obama's mistake off, others may have been completely turned off by it. As a result, it's so important to know your audience as well as what you're speaking and how you present it. In addition, I included the fact that it's clear that when people are invested in what you're saying, looking neat and speaking well are only part of the formula for establishing adequate ethos.
Rhetoric: Available Everywhere
After our speech and essay on ad analyses, I've found that it's really become near impossible to not see rhetoric in any television or magazine ad I see. Both projects aided in gaining a deeper insight towards how advertisers try to gain our trust and loyalty as consumers both on an obvious level and a more hidden one. So when I look back on the visual ad "analysis" I did way back in the beginning of the semester, there are elements of rhetoric being employed that I'd missed. I edited this post to include what I missed by talking about the advertisers use of color and pathos to not only convince us that they'd enable consumers to look slim, confident, and sexy (obvious), but that they were a high-end and reliable producer (more hidden). Overall, I've come to realize that while rhetoric really is everywhere, its also hidden in places you have to search to find.
So I Guess I'm Going to Hell?
We've all seen the various preachers on campus, handing out pamphlets and copies of the New Testament, and usually more or less talking at us rather than to us. In this post I talked about one such incident I had with one of these preachers who told me I was going to go to Hell. I chose to revise this post because these incidents without fail, always bother me whenever they occur. It's never made any sense to me why these men keep doing what they do when its clear that 99% of the student body ignore them. While I have no bone to pick with them for their beliefs, the fact that they don't try to change how they address us students to persuade us confuses me to end. I revised this post to tighten my point about getting to know your audience. We learned about how important it is to shrink the distance between you as the speaker and your audience. If you're going to try to persuade someone to change their way of life, shouting at them is probably the worst way of doing this. Finally, I edited some of my grammar and diction to complete an overall better blog post.
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