9/15 Post

            Chapter 6 on Ethical Proof made a lot of everyday connections with me. This chapter in ARCS talks about the pattern of behavior in someone’s speech. Their character an make or break a writing or presentation. If one cannot connect to the audience and make them urn for more then they did not succeed as a rhetor. This reminds me of politicians as well and how they conduct their speeches. Whether it is situated to where they are bringing proof, which is most likely true in political cases, or even invented when they bring the proof to the table themselves. This form of rhetors speech has come a long way from ancient Greek times to now. Shaping the way many of us interpret or cast out ourselves. Keeping the attention of the audience through character is something that was taught growing up writing essays as well.

            For Politicians, just like any other speaker needs a god opening to a speech to catch the audiences attention so they want to keep listening. There is room for their troubled past and how they made it to where they are from working through obstacles, or when they are in the media for doing bad things, which happens to most politicians, they need to sugar coat what actually happened to make themselves look better. Having character is almost like having a reputation. As Demosethens put into words you do not want to praise yourself while praising. One should “shy away” from that. Almost as if the speaker/ writer is cocky, which would not be a successful form of rhetor in this case of ethical proof.

            Writing essays in school, from day one, the beginning of the introduction paragraph needs that hook sentence. That question, quote, or amazing structured sentence that keeps the reader intact. I was reminded of this when I read Phaedr Pezzullo’s environment writing about where she grew up. She gives her sense of character to the readers showing them who she is and makes them want to stick with the reading. This was the connection with the first essay lessons we were taught in school. Make that connection with the readers so they will keep reading.

            Having ethical proof is important in writing. The character one portrays, fiction or not, is how to grasp the one on the other side of the writing or speech. It was interesting to learn about this in Chapter 6, and how there are different types of portraying ones character and other aspects of ethical proof in rhetorics.

9/10 Blog

            On a personal note I really enjoyed Chapter 5 in ARCS because of the topic of discussion, reasoning. I am an arguer; I like to think I take after my mom in that subject. “Aristotle taught his students how to reason from knowledge that was already given to knowledge that needed to be discovered.” (Crowley, Hawhee) This is something everyone I think can learn from. Arguing is reasoning and even outside of rhetoric knowledge must have a hand at play when producing reasoning about a topic. There are different types as well as what they consist of to make a good rhetoric of reasoning. Reasoning has been around for thousands of years through rhetoricians developing a correct form.

            Cicero played a huge roll in the courts when it came to rhetorics. His form of oratory made a huge affect in the courts and politically in ancient Rome. Court systems are different all over the world, but juries and trials are all derived from the same way. I think to my roommates mother is currently in a court case in Sri Lanka about her fence being taken down or not for the neighbors. The act of oratory is brought to the case because formal speech and the thought of what knowledge to extract from the case needs to be right on to win. Even in places like Sri Lanka there are people who have lesser knowledge in rhetorics and have different ways o utilizing their knowledge.

            It was interesting to ready about Cicero and how he seemed to not be a successful rhetorician at times. When he had no followers was defeated many times, as well as the position of speaking freely was looked down upon. He was even killed for defending Julius Caesar. Him visiting death was a step in the right direction to make him a powerful rhetorician. His knowledge influenced later eras such as the Renaissance. There is a country song sung by The Band Perry that reminded me of Cicero’s success in rhetorics. The line was “Funny when you’re dead how people start listening.” I think this is similar to Cicero’s life and the knowledge he had.

8/27 post

            I have come across many different defnitions of rhetoric. From the way my high school English teacher put it into words, reading about it in my Digital Technology books, then to the Rhetorics Tradition textbook. After reading the general introduction I have a much better understanding of the word “rhetoric” than I did before. This word is very widespread on the topic of meanings. Then the book says that the meanings have changed over time on what exactly a rhetor means. I look at it as the act of persuading through speech, whether successful or not.

            First that is how the definition started out in ancient Greek times. Then Aristotle subjected rhetoric down into different parts. What you have to do in preparation, depending on the type of speech that will be given. There became rules for rhetoric’s from finding what the topic of argument is to how one will deliver the speech. The change in rhetorics over time is very interesting to me. Throughout different ages such as all the way from ancient Greece to medieval and the renaissance years rhetor changed. The impact of women learning rhetor even changed the usage of it in ways. As other topics developed like psychology for instance the book uses as an example, changes as the topic develops as well. That brings us to the modern rhetorics that are used in our world today.

Rhetorics now are not just the persuasion through language, but also the “study of communication and understanding” according to I. A. Richards. As language evolves and words are seen as more than just definitions of something, rhetorics are also being affected. Seeking for knowledge is what this world is about, in science politics, schools and learning about knowledge. This causes rhetorics to be involved. Every category wants to translate their knowledge to people through speech, just the way they produce, and exhibit the speech is what makes rhetorics a rhetoric, whether it is successful or not.

9/8 post

I became a little confused by the difference in conjecture, degree and possibility in the common topics. Not by which is mean and how each impact different ideologies. Just more questions came about once I realized Aristotle had separated everyday topics into different categories. How much do these three topics overlap with each other? Then when they do which type of topic would it become? Maybe depending on the person viewing the common topic, based on who and what their beliefs are like the subjects discussed under the conjecture. 

            I would have thought that the common topic of possibility would be the most popular topic of discussion. Before I wrote this blog I mentally was keeping track on the arguments that were being brought up with my roommates after I finished the chapter. This could have been a coincidence but the most common topic that was brought up was whether there was a possibility or not about something happening. As the book says this is mostly the least one brought up. I think my distinction between all three is a little hazy possibly. For example in the kitchen there was argument whether certain items would taste good in the pasta. The possibility was not there for one of my roommates but for the other one, yes.

            This chapter was intriguing in the sense that no one ever really goes back to Aristotle’s topic references to find out which topic it fits under. Maybe in politics more so often to know which way to respond back. But I find that most of the examples of these topics resulted in them as disagreements with one other. The reasons topics are brought up is between ideologies, the different beliefs, locations, political stances. When topics get brought up in discussion between different sets of beliefs, the topic is most likely an argument more so than a discussion. Conjecture is seen as more of a “fact” form of topics. Then in the examples this is more of the topic of discussion because it does state the past, present or future of a fact. Such as science or courtroom final judging. Whether these topics are seen as facts or not, there is always room for argument.

9/3 Blog

            The amount of times that I used the term “agree to disagree” is almost an every day thing. Never did I really stop and think about the full terms of what it means exactly and what it takes to achieve disagreeing with the one who agrees on a topic. I always used this saying in a sense to just get the argument over, which hardly ever works and now I know why.

             To achieve the stand of agreeing to disagree as stasis takes steps, time, even experimenting as the books example on abortion showed us. The steps include having the right disagreeing argument. ARCS explains that to rebuttal against someone who believes in abortion you need to have arguments back that disagree along the same reasoning as the one who agrees. Just in opposite form. Even when stasis as surfaced there is always much more work to be done than just finding an argument. From growing up in America with abortion as one of the heaviest subjects politically, and privately with people, I can relate to some of these arguments having been in them myself. After the fact of disagreeing there are always questions to be asked.

            There are right and wrong ways to ask a question considering the stand someone has against another on the topic at hand. When I think back to my times on arguing with family or friends, even classmates, I either did this all out of order or hot headily just went to the conclusion of actually saying I agree to disagree after shorting taking a stand. To achieve stasis that would be considered a big fail. For the abortion topic the public usually brings up their stands and arguments and always eventually disagree but never agree on disagreeing. According to the ARCS book “The argument assumes further that deciding to have an abortion is a private, not public, matter.” When questions evolved the possible search for the answers needs to spread as well, adding more to the question. The reason why most of my arguments that I have referred to most likely never went anywhere was because of their worth. The questions at hand along side the argument itself were not as important. With an issue such as abortion the bringing certain arguments and questions to back up the stasis have been thought out for many decades.

            There is always going to be one argument that leads into another argument that causes this topic to hardly see a result. Yet the act rhetor’s take to make a stasis starts with all these basic things. Whether or not the argument will end as a victor in your hands, there is a start form to achieve stasis.