Considering Types

In this post I will be discussing the merits of different approaches to writing Project 3, based off of the suggestions given in 412-413 of Writing Public Lives.

I have found that using a combination of Casual and Evaluative arguments will best benefit my project.  I will need to both introduce the situation and it's importance while still persuading my audience that addressing climate change results in the best possible outcome.  Thus I will use the elements of a casual argument to present all of the necessary information and elements of the evaluative argument to analyze this context to prove my purpose.

I will not be choosing position, refutation, or proposal.  I almost went toward position, however I found that I did not want to spend time addressing the con of the situation.  I want to spend my time showing the audience why the Pope speaking can result in positive benefits, which will morph into the heart of the issue of why addressing climate change will result in positive benefits.  Refutation is irrelevant as I will not be refuting what the Pope said or the existence of climate change and I am unable to submit a proposed solution for such a monumental international issue such as climate change.  I might have a much more defined proposal after years of studying environmental science, but as I am very new to the field and have years of experience ahead of me, suggesting a solution to an international issue is not something I am yet qualified for.

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My Rhetorical Action Plan

This blog contains my Rhetorical Action Plan for Project 3.  I have addressed Audience, Genre, and Responses.

Audience

Theilmann, Mira, "Screenshot from my Computer" accessed from
Writer's Public Lives 10/29/15

Knowledge:
The audience understands there is political hatred and general chaos between liberals and conservatives and republicans and democrats.  They also understand how saturated coverage of climate change can be and have likely seen the reaction to such media in social networking or daily life.  Conservatives may have less knowledge on environmental activism and climate change, while liberals may have less knowledge on the Pope's actions.

Values:
The liberal audience will have a higher percentage of non-religious population and believers in climate change.  The conservative audience will have exactly the opposite.  I will have to find a balance between catering to the liberal audience in trying to get them to increase their activism and individual efforts while trying to convince conservatives that the entire environment is worth a second thought.

Standards:
I will need to incorporate both solid and scientific information from unbiased sources.  Not only will I need to present physical facts for the existence of human harm to the environment but also information on the moral climate of the Pope effect and why this issue stems farther than a simple plea to help save the planet.  A combination of facts and figures of an environmental science and psychological standpoint will be incredibly useful for my argument.  I still have to make sure the amount of facts does not out way the argument, as I am still trying to make a persuasive point with my project.

Visual Elements:
There are many images of climate disasters that are directly caused by human physical and chemical waste.  It will be useful to include images for perspective on how devastating the changing environment can be to the entire living environment of the Earth.  I can also include images of the people involved in the Pope environmental campaign for context and images of inspirational people in environmental science.  Including everyday people, and referencing home-grown movements will be incredibly beneficial for the audience to see how easily feasible changing a lifestyle can be.

Purpose:
I would hope the audience can see how the Pope was right in addressing climate change as a character of human kindness and charity.  By reducing our energy and waste habits, we can minimize climate change, save lives, and save a healthy planet for many future generations.  The planet has a waste and population capacity, just as any city or a country does.  To use a commonly known visual example, China's air pollution is not toxic by natural causes.  If we continue to produce billions of tons of waste, there will be negative effects on all living things in the Earth's environment.  Although addressing the issue is difficult and will not be immediately solved, ignoring it will only worsen the situation.  This project's purpose is to show the audience that ignoring the values and benefits of addressing climate change will not save the lives of those killed by climate change.


Genres - Quick Reference Guide and Scientific Magazine Article

Theilmann, Mira, "Screenshot from my Computer" accessed from
Writer's Public Lives 10/29/15

QRG
- Example 1
- Example 2

Functions:
A QRG provides overall context of a particular event or topic in as quick and engaging of a document as possible.  The paragraphs are short, visuals are encouraged, and informal writing is often the most effective choice.  I would choose this format because it is visually appealing and it's main purpose is to keep reader engagement and answer all of the audience's questions.  If I want to appeal to all ages, religions, and political perspectives, I will need to make the document as audience friendly as possible.

Setting:
This type of document can be found online and in print, can be related to any field, and can be written by any and all types of writers.  It has a great versatility that something like a research paper does not have.

Rhetorical appeals:
Ethos and pathos are most commonly used in QRG's, especially if the article is more informative than persuasive.  The article has to establish each source as credible, as it helps establish their own credibility to the audience that they are a reliable source to listen to such a wide breadth of information.  The author also has to appeal to the audience's emotion as it is a key uniting power that makes the issue discussed, the author, and the story telling seem more relatable.

Visual Elements:
Pictures of relevant individuals, graphs and charts, and graphic design elements are all possible elements that can be included in my project should I choose this genre especially.

Style:
QRG's allow for a much more informal conversational tone with the audience.  The point of this genre is to answer every single question the audience may have and to make that information easy to find.

Scientific Magazine Article
- Example 1
- Example 2

Functions:
An article published in a scientific news source is often informational, persuasive, or both.  For example, Scientific American publishes very informational articles about the latest science and technology while National Geographic publishes a variety of persuasive stories about inspirational or fascinating new things.

Setting:
This is also a genre that can be found in print or online.  It is definitely a lot more specific to one particular field and can have an isolated audience.  It also may not reach the same height of popularity or publication that an article in the NY Times may have.  Still, the scientific nature of the article gives off a higher sense of credibility than that of a QRG, as more often than not, it requires experience in the field to write such an article.

Rhetorical appeals:
All three appeals can definitely been found in this genre, but logos and ethos are much more crucial to an article.  Pathos can be used an addition hook for the audience, but the credible and factual information is the centerpiece of the genre.  Without solid information, a scientific article loses it's entire audience, who are often educated and will pick up on a badly written article.

Visual Elements:
This genre can have the same level of visual elements, as it may even require images to keep the audience trudging through some heavily technical information.  A magazine filled with pages and blocks of text simple does not sell compared to a magazine filled with impressive and awe inducing photographs.

Style:
Formal scientific reporting is the style of such a genre.  Informality might edge in as humor or sarcasm, but only minimally.  The integrity of the article drops as the level of informality exceeds the minimal levels.

Responses - Positive Reactions & Negative Rebuttals

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Writer's Public Lives 10/29/15

Positive Reactions:
- The audience may appreciate the Pope's attempt to increase awareness of the human effect on the environment and it's populations.
- The audience may alter there opinions on the importance of addressing climate changes
- The audience may want to look into their own waste habits and try to limit their ecological footprint on the environment.
- The audience may dislike the discourse between political parties and decide to go against the grain, joining forces with their former enemies to make a stand against climate change.

Negative Rebuttals:
- The audience may not see the need to change the US culture of political parties.
- The audience may not see the need to address the human impact on the environment.
- The audience might hate the Pope for his political decision and ignore his call to charity.

How I will address the Negative Rebuttals:
I cannot change political, religious, or moral values of my audience.  My only goal is to show the audience that there are very significant life saving benefits of addressing climate change.  The Pope's decision to address climate change via a very political route is a drastic decision, but when there are potentially thousands of lives on the line, his actions do not seem as terrible.  Such a drastic action is the only thing that can change an entire culture of political hatred and a population set on ignoring the effect of the tons upon tons of waste created by the populations of the world.


RELFECTION:

After reading Casey's and Chelsea's blog, I found some very different genre directions.  My project will likely be very wordy with heavy graphic design elements to keep the reader attached.  Chelsea will likely be braving the youtube comments on climate change, which will be a brave but very unique approach to the project.  Chelsea will likely be successful with a casual or evaluative argument.  Casey has a great topic to analyze a lot of varying opinions on.  She just needs to identify more of the values she has to contend with over such a heated topic.  This reflection has given me a lot of perspective on how different these projects may end up being, and inspire me to really get creative with this project as well.  Casey will likely be successful with a evaluative or possibly a refute argument.

Analyzing Purpose

In this post I have attached a coggle brainstorming the goals of my project, the plausible reactions and their consequences, and the not plausible reactions to Project 3.  The coggle addresses questions 1-3. from Writing Public Lives pg. 326 (pictured below).  I have also included a paragraph addressing the audience of this project which corresponds to question 4.

Theilmann, Mira "Screenshot from my computer" accessed from
Writing Public Lives on 10/30/15

1-3. The link to my coggle can be found here.

4. I hope that my audience can cover the political spectrum, religious spectrum, and a wide variety of levels of scientific understanding.  My goal is to persuade the audience that acknowledging that humans can negatively impact the environment can only benefit the population of the entire planet.  I want to relay accurate credible information to my audience, but I want to also want to avoid drowning the audience in information or sarcastic bias as to avoid losing credibility.  The Pope also took this approach in his appeals to find human kindness and charity and help create a positive impact on the entire planet.  I would like to adapt this approach to convincing liberal audience why a religious voice may be beneficial, a conservative audience why addressing climate change is a charitable action, and the younger generations why this is such an important issue to speak out on.  Hopefully this project will result in the strongest reactions of these three groups; liberals, conservatives, and the new generations.  Liberals are already supportive of the environment, conservatives can find allies in the liberals and team up to make changes, and the younger generation will be the future voices in the government and are crucial to future actions.

Analyzing Context

In this blog post I will be addressing 7 questions about the context and perspectives on the Pope speaking about climate change.

Theilmann, Mira "Screenshot from my computer" accessed from
Writers Public Lives 10/29/15

1. Key Perspectives: Environmental activism, liberals, and conservatives

The main concept I am studying is environmental activism and climate change.  The Pope has become an environmental activist, in the hopes of lessening severe climate change across the world.  Becoming an activist entails he believes that humans have had a negative impact on the Earth and should address it for the sake of both the planet and it's inhabitants.  The alternate perspective does not believe climate change can be created by humans, and that there is no problem to address, that can be addressed, or that they want to address.  Due to the Pope being a religious icon speaking to Congress and the UN, the liberal versus conservative perspectives have also come into play.  Conservatives do not want to address climate change, but now, because of the Pope, they have to consider it as a reality.  Liberals are supportive of the Pope, but do not back him wholeheartedly, as the Catholic church is facing some major moral dilemmas of its own and the seperation of church and state still needs to observed.

2. Disagreements

Climate change and the human effect on the planet are at the heart of the issue.  Whether or not the conservatives and liberals can and will work together on a single issue is also a problem.  Judging by the past decades of political strife in the US, it will be a struggle for the various branches of the US government to unite on a single very controversial issue.

3. Agreement

All parts of the government agree that the poor cannot be ignored or treated irresponsibly.  When the Pope argued that serious climate disasters greatly effect the poorest of every country, it is impossible to disagree.  They will have to confront the worst structural and economic damages as a whole compared to those with enough money to lift themselves out of a disaster.  This is the possible uniting factor that the Pope tried to present to Congress and the UN.

4. Ideologies

Whether or not climate change has been created by humans is a serious issue, the general concepts of Catholicism, and whether or not the Pope is in the right mind in addressing the population on such a political issue.   Catholicism has had very controversial views including on abortion, gay rights, and women rights.  Many may ignore the Pope, simply on the principal that he should address those issues first.  Many liberals may also not appreciate such a religious figure having an impact on the political decisions of a country.

5. Specific Text Actions

Many texts start from either believing in climate change or not, or come from a liberal or conservative bias.  There is not often any middle ground.  Articles choose one side or the other to write on, because there is such a divide in the political sphere on the environment.

6. Useful Perspectives

I will use my background in the sciences, knowledge on climate change, and my perspective as a young college student to my advantage.  My science background gives me at least a minimal understanding on how negatively humanity can effect the environment and how important addressing our lifestyles can be.  Being a young college student allows for a bit of understanding from the older audiences.  I do not have decades of experience in the world, simply because of my age.  While this might limit my credibility, it also allows for a lot of creative room.  Supportive audiences will hopefully enjoy seeing the opinion of a fresh voice in a saturated issue.  I also am not writing for a magazine or news source, which allows for my argument to be entirely my own.

7. Harmful Perspectives

My useful perspectives can very easily morph into my greatest threats.  Being a young college student with little experience could result in my audience believing my argument is void.  Being an environmental science major with a heavy bias, also can decrease my credibility.  If I keep the tone and voice professional and my information credible, these difficult perspectives can remain my advantage.

REFLECTION:

After reading Chelsea's and Sam's blogs, I realized I definitely wrote a lot, as per usual.  However, I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with the purpose of my article, and this particular blog definitely helped identify that.  Chelsea and Sam wrote very clear blogs that defined their parameters and context within their purpose.  They look like they both have a very clear direction for their projects.  Mine is still a little up in the air and will need some work-shopping.

Audience and Genre

In this blog post I will be analyzing specific audiences interested in my controversy.

Group 1: Environmental Science Students
Many students have heard of the Pope's visit to America and his new position on climate change.  However, many may not have religious interest or want to avoid delving into such a saturated topic.  They would likely be interested in hearing a fellow students opinion on the matter, especially a student with similar interests.

Places of Publication

1. Quick Reference Guide - This will be an easy way to relay context while still presenting an overall message or persuasive argument to the audience.  It also allows for some informality and humor to keep the audience engaged and interested.  The use of hyperlinks is also incredibly useful for providing the audience with as much context and possibly include tangents about the topic without spending too much time analyzing them in the actual QRG.
Ex. Example 1
Ex. Example 2

2. Youtube video - Youtube would be a difficult platform to spread without an established following, but it also allows for a more comprehensive younger audience.  Millions of young adults watch youtube everyday.  If the video is kept relatively short and information, it can be incredibly useful to draw in a younger audience.  However, it is a rather volatile media, and reception of the video is very hard to predict.
Ex. Example 1
Ex. Example 2


Group 2: Followers of the Pope
Even though my voice is biased towards supporting climate change, the following of the Pope is so large that it is likely some of the conservative crowd may stumble across such a project.  They may not share the same views but they are interested in seeing how the Pope has affected everyone.  Those directly affected by the Pope's words might want to see the perspective of the liberal side in order to clarify their own thoughts.

Places of Publication

1. Religious Publication - The conservative crowd might be pulled into a website or an article that uses religious jargon and references.  In the same way that liberals may relate to information they know and understand, conservatives will want to see information that they have seen and understood, especially with such a religious and moral subject.
Ex. Example 1
Ex. Example 2

2. Blog Posts - This also amplifies the reliability factor to those with differing opinions.  Instead of a professional journalist, people can read directly from someone they can perceive as real.  It forces the audience to recognize that this is another human with an opinion, and not a representation of a news group.  This type of credibility allows for a bit more leeway in informality and humor as well.
Ex. Example 1
Ex. Example 2

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Extended Annotated Bibliography

I have provided a link to my Extended Annotated Bibliography for Project 3 below.  It was formatted in the APA style (reference guide here).

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Here is the link.

Narrowing My Focus

Explain how I will have to address many of the questions in my project, but I will need research 3 of the following more in depth.

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What are the Pope's scientific qualifications and past experiences with climate change?
The Pope has a significant background that many people may have heard of but may not know the full extent of.  The Pope has chosen to speak on climate change for a reason, and it will be crucial to explain why he is the credible and the right source to do so.  It is also important to show how Pope Francis has created his non-conventional lovable Pope status since taking the position.

Why were the main points in his speeches slightly different from that of his encyclical?
The Pope notably did not directly mention climate change in his speech.  It is important to find out exactly what the Pope said and how he changed his speeches according to the location and the people present.  The information he presented differed from the UN hall to that of the US government.

How will the Pope's and the churches history effect the response to the Pope's call to action? 
The Catholic church has a very controversial background, that cannot be ignored.  Although it is great that the Pope is trying to break down boundaries, there are many issues in his own church that also have to be addressed.  I need to find out how extensive these issues go and determine how they will and have effected the reaction to his speeches and encyclical.

Questions about Controversy

For Project 3 I will be continuing with the topic of the Pope and climate change.  Below I have drafted a list of possible questions to address in the project.

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Who:
- Who (organizations/governments) did the Pope direct his speeches to?
- Who, in the US government, has responded to the Pope's comments on the environment?
- Who, were the people that openly opposed the Pope's actions?
- Who were the people that rallied behind the Pope?
- Who were the people that acted on the Pope's words, if any?

What:
- What are the Pope's qualifications in science?
- What were the main points in the Pope's encyclical about climate change?
- What were the main points in his speeches?  Were they catered to the audience differently?
- What actions did the Pope specifically call for?
- What incited the most outburst?

When:
- When did the Pope release the encyclical and how was it initially received?
- When did the Pope first become involved in the environment.
- When was the last time a major religious figure spoke out about climate change?
- When is the Paris conference on climate and what is due to be discussed?
- When was the Pope directly effected by climate change?

Where:
- Where did the Pope visit/speak?
- Where did tour location's have the most obvious reactions to the Pope's visits?
- Where are the Pope's supporters and how extensive is this following?
- Where is the population of the US that supports environmental research?
- Where is there going to be the most drastic changes in the US?

How:
- How have different medias covered the Pope's tour?
- How will the Pope effect the conversation in Paris?
- How will the Pope effect the next US politics and the election?
- How has social media reacted to the Pope's stance?
- How will the Pope's and the churches history effect the response to the Pope's call to action?

Reflection on Project 2

This blog post is a question and answer reflection to the Project 2 rhetorical essay.

Theilmann, Mira "Screenshot from my computer"
Taken 2015 October 24

1.
My first draft was too focused on the situation being addressed by the article and not enough on the rhetorical strategies.  This lead to a lot of moving around sentence order and rewriting transition sentences.  The analysis of the rhetorical strategies was effective and present, but the overall goal of the first drafts was not clear.

2.
My problems with thesis were derived from the same problem as addressed in the first question.  The thesis was ok, but it was not clear on what the main goal of the essay was.  I spent too much of the introduction explaining the background.  This did not transition well into the thesis.  In terms of organization, I split up one paragraph and I also moved around a lot of the body paragraph analysis.  Hopefully the new body paragraphs are more accurate to my thesis.

3.
When I took the viewpoints and shared views of the new freshman audience into consideration, my essay started to become a lot more relevant.  Originally I did not directly want to talk to the audience, but this kind of analysis works a lot better with the prompt.

4.
I think my credibility remained constant, as my analysis is the most important part of the essay.  I think I addressed the article successfully.  Changing my essay to appeal directly to the audience increases my chances of the audience understanding and agreeing with my points.  So I suppose, because it is more clear I did gain some credibility.

5.
The audience likely shares my views on the environment, so I could spend less time explaining why the event was important and more on how the author was rhetorically successful in explaining the event's importance.


6.
I had a lot of very long sentences and bulky quotes with analysis in weird spots.  When I split up a lot of sentences and placed the analysis either right before or after the quote, my main points were a lot more clear.  I also eliminated as much biased language as possible to maintain credibility.

7.
As I stated in the last question, clarity allows for more understanding.  It was much more benefitial to change the structure to a more audience friendly format and less reminiscent of my own thought process.

8.
No, I was pretty familiar with the conventions of the rhetorical essay genre.  I  definitely have a lot more experience writing in this style, but addressing the right audience was definitely the hardest part.

9.
Writing a paper and moving on without reflection, does not allow for learning from your mistakes.  Reflection requires that you face these mistakes and address them.  Therefore you are much less likely to make the same mistakes again.

REFLECTION:

Chloe's blog related quite a bit to my experience with relaying my points to the audience.  I found that in revising I really had to go back and restructure a lot of my body paragraphs to make sure the point of the essay was explicit.  Samantha's was similar in regards to thesis statements.  Although I really liked my original thesis, the introduction did not transition well and it was a little bulky.  Breaking it up and incorporating more of the main prompt of the assignment into my introduction made the thesis a lot more clear.

Final Draft Project 2

This blog contains the link to the final draft of my Project 2 essay.  Now on to making my own argument about the Pope!

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Here is the link.

Punctuation, 2

In this blog I will be addressing my own common punctuation mistakes colon, apostrophes, and quotation marks.

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Uploaded September 2015 CC0 Public Domain

Colon:
The only cases in which you use a colon are including a list after an independent clause, an appositive, a quotation, or a summary or explanation.  I've found the semicolon to appear much more often in my writing.  Used selectively, it can be an easy way to draw attention to specific words.  Often I avoid using them, because I find fragments the sentence.  Using too many colons dims their effectiveness.

Apostrophes:
Apostrophe mistakes do appear in my writing, but not as often as extra commas.  My most common mistake is using it when the nouns are not possessive and in possessive pronouns.  Apostrophes are a grammatical mistake that will often happen when writing quickly through a draft, and luckily are pretty easy to find and fix.

Quotation Marks:
One mistake I was unaware of was placing the both commas and periods inside of the quotation marks.  I thought the procedure for periods was to leave them out of the quotation and place them at the end of the sentence in any situation.  I will be changing my essay accordingly.

REFLECTION:

I had already gone through and fixed a lot of these mistakes in the first round of revisions, as spell check initially picks up a majority of these mistakes.  One of the notable apostrophes was in the first sentence of the first draft.

"Pope Francis the “super-pope”  has flipped the world on it’s head."
Which changed to "Pope Francis the “super-pope”  has flipped the world on its head."

The quotations I did have to go back and change the placement of the period from:

"He starts the article already with witty analysis of the Heartland Institute, “Their stated goal for the visit - in their own words, including exclamatory punctuation - has been ‘to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science: There is no global-warming crisis!’”  The timing of their trip, like that of the desperate-seeming exclamation point, is telling”."

This changed to the period location being within the quotations:

"He starts the article already with witty analysis of the Heartland Institute, “Their stated goal for the visit - in their own words, including exclamatory punctuation - has been ‘to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science: There is no global-warming crisis!’”  The timing of their trip, like that of the desperate-seeming exclamation point, is telling.'"

Paragraph Analysis 2

In this blog post I have attached a link to my draft of my Project 2 Rhetorical Analysis essay in which I analyze each paragraph.  I have inserted the rewritten introduction and conclusion into this particular copy of the draft.

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Here is the link to the paragraph analysis.

Revised Conclusion

In this blog I will provide my original and my revised conclusion of my Project 2 essay.  I tried to change up my conclusion a lot more, as it did not give a clear sense of finality.  I am still not 100% confident about it, but I feel like it is also more clear.  There were several comments about how earlier paragraphs seemed more final than conclusion, so I will try to move some of that momentum back down to the end of the essay.

Original:

Turrentine’s use of rhetorical strategies are the most successful when the audience of the article is liberal.  Although he uses enough context, factual evidence, and credible sources, his relatively informal tone combined with the deeply moral nature of the issue will be a turn-off to those who oppose the Pope’s words.  Still, when finding and analyzing the rhetorical strategies for the audience of an environmentally active newsgroup, the audience Turrentine writes for is likely to be persuaded of the change in cultural climate the Pope will produce. His strong appeals to the moral beliefs of the audience, his credible analysis of culture in the United States, and his great attention to clear factual detail are his most effective strategies.  

Revised:

Turrentine’s connection to his liberal audience is his strongest rhetorical advantage.  Writing for the audience of an environmentally active newsgroup allows for Turrentine to focus on convincing his audience of the potential of the Pope’s actions to benefit climate change rather than convincing his audience climate change exists.  Although he used a comprehensive amount of context, factual evidence, and credible sources, his informal tone discussing such a deeply complicated moral issue is a turn-off to those who are conflicted by or oppose the Pope’s actions.  Still, when analyzing how his rhetorical strategies affect his majority liberal audience, his strong moral appeals to the audience, credible analysis of US culture, and his attention to providing clear factual details are his most effective strategies.

Revised Introduction

In this blog I will provide my original and my revised introduction of my Project 2 essay.  In my revision I kept a very similar structure and ordering of information but I tried to clarify what I wanted to talk about.  The overall goal was making it more reader friendly.  I adjusted my thesis pretty minimally, as I was happy with how the first version turned out, but I'm sure even an hour from now it will be different.  My final version of the intro will likely still be different from this.

Original:

Pope Francis, the “super-pope”, has flipped the world on its head (Turrentine p.4).  Much to the dismay of conservatives and climate change deniers alike, the Pope has pleaded with the world in his encyclical “Laudato Si’” - the original document sent by the current Pope to all of the Catholic bishops calling for recognition of the environment -  to realize the human effect on the planet and make a concerted effort to protect it.  By connecting environmental protection with faith and charity, the religious and conservative community has been in a state of conflict over whether or not the Pope was apt to become involved in such a political subject.  Jeff Turrentine, a self-proclaimed climate change activist, predicted this cultural chaos in his article “Forgive Them, Father”, published in the environmental online news source OnEarth, even before the release of the Pope’s encyclical and a public speech tour.  The witty yet relatable Turrentine writes a factually based convincing article covered in credible sources and contextual links.  The rhetorical goal of the article is to persuade the audience of the great potential to inspire change in US culture, in the public and the government, with the Pope’s efforts to become such a catalyst for environmental science.  He does so by analyzing US culture and why there is such a deep divide between Conservatives and Liberals, and appealing directly to the moral and ethical qualms of the audience.

Rewrite:

Pope Francis has brought chaos to longstanding war between conservative and liberal politics.  Much to the dismay of conservative US population, the Pope has released his encyclical “Laudato Si’” and toured across the world as a wake-up call to all of the citizens of the earth to protect their neighbor and the earth we share.  By forcing this connection of environmental protection and faith and charity though the voice of God, so to say, conservatives are in turmoil over whether to stick to their political party or their religion.  Jeff Turrentine, a self-proclaimed climate change activist, predicted this cultural chaos in his article “Forgive Them, Father”, published in the environmental online news source OnEarth, months before the release of the Pope’s encyclical and a public speech tour.  He explains why the Pope’s actions have the potential to change the divide in US political parties and change an entire culture of environmental dismissal to legitimate concern and consequent action.  The rhetorical goal of the article is to persuade the audience of the Pope’s potential to become catalyst for environmental activism and to inspire change in US culture and the government.  He does so by analyzing the current US culture and why there is such a deep divide between Conservatives and Liberals, and appealing directly to the moral and ethical qualms of the audience.

Reflection on Project 2 Draft

After the peer review process, I have found some very similar issues to last week and some that are more specific to the writing style this week.  My very long sentences have been triumphantly and consistently returning (using lots of unnecessary adjectives like so).  Chelsea and Alex had very different issues to address in that they generalized statements or had sentences with confusing structure.  These two issues are hard to avoid in any essay, as mine also had these issues present, but sentences with a long string of words obliterating any sense of clarity are more common (again very similar to this long sentence).

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Do you have an identifiable thesis?
Yes, I felt pretty good about how my first thesis turned out.  It was focused and addressed the main rhetorical strategies from the author and how I would discuss them.  In editing I will clarifying my thesis and making sure it also talks about importance of why each rhetorical strategy is relevant.

How have you decided to organize your essay?
I have the standard 5 paragraphs in which I discuss one of my points in each of my paragraphs.  The first body paragraph being about the audience, the second about US culture, and the final one addressing the logos and ethos in the argument.

Did you identify and analyze several important elements text's rhetorical situations?
Mostly, in my head everything is analyzed and presented well, but my version makes sense in my own head with my own context.  The essay is not quite reader friendly and could use some simplification.

Did you explain how these strategies were employed?
Mostly, there were some quotations and examples that were a little abrupt or I included too much surrounding context.  I will need to cut down on some of the irrelevant analysis of the controversy and add more analysis of rhetorical strategies.

Are you thoughtfully using evidence?
I think so.  My major goal when writing an essay is to write a strong well thought out argument.  While it may be more clear if I focused on sentence structure or grammar first, I find that my rough drafts yield a lot more successful final drafts if a ramble a bit.  Cutting down on text and unnecessary context is a lot easier than adding on to an essay.

Did you leave your readers wanting more?
I think so, at least for the liberal audience.  My bias might lead to a similar effect of Turrentine's writing in that I turn off the more conservative crowd.  The more clinical and analytical I can try to be, the better, when addressing such a morally confusing topic.

Punctuation 1

In this blog I will be addressing my own common punctuation mistakes, commas, unnecessary commas, and use of the semicolons.

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Unnecessary comma

Commas have always plagued my writing.  Even when making the concerted effort to avoid adding a surplus of commas, there are always a few that peak through the cracks.  My most common mistake is separating a concluding adverb clause that is essential to the meaning of the sentence.  It was also helpful to see specific examples of the difference between adding a comma before a dependent clause and without a comma.  I had not really realized how different the meaning of a sentence can change with or without a comma.


Comma

This section was equally as important, as I had not realized how many different instances commas were required.  I do not focus on grammatical analysis in my writing as much as I should, so seeing how many different grammatical settings were created by such a tiny punctuation was pretty interesting.  I did not find any particular situations that were brand new to me, but I had never seen them all written out.  As I mentioned above, the difference between separating independent clauses and dependent clauses is something I can definitely be aware of more in my writing.

Semicolon

For some reason, I have a habit of avoiding sentences that require semicolons or colons.  Possibly because a teacher somewhere down the line told me to simplify my sentences and avoid such "complicated" punctuation.  I think it is fair to say that said teacher was not accurate and semicolons are in fact useful.  It was nice to see the exact definition of a semicolon and examples as a reminder to how I can add the semicolon in my writing correctly.

REFLECTION:

I reviewed Alex and Chelsea's essays.

Commas are definitely an common issue, especially because they seem like such a minor punctuation.  However in Alex's essay, a common issue was a large amount of short sentences.  For example,

"Again their facts and logic make for a very good argument.  They lay out real life numbers that cannot be argued or falsified. As they continue to lay out statistic their points get stronger and stronger and the audience starts to buy in more and more making them more and more effective."

This can easily be combined into a sentence separated by commas in order to avoid repeating a similar statement multiple times.

In Chelsea's essay, the order of sentences was the main issue, "Depending on who was speaking, changes in the soundtrack would occur." I find that that flipping the sentence to "Changes in the soundtrack would occur depending on who was speaking" to be a lot more clear. The comma separates what she is talking about and the explanation, but combining the two creates a forward momentum to the next sentence.

Draft of a Rhetorical Analysis

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Here it is!  It is definitely still a work in progress.  Any comments on how to focus my essay back onto the incoming freshman is much appreciated.  The article addresses the rhetorical posibilities of the Pope's speech, so I may have spent a bit too much time on the speech itself.  I was trying to show how the article rhetorically showcased the Pope's rhetorical strategies, which is kind of confusing.  I also had a pretty heavy bias that kept popping up in the essay so feel free to comment on when my opinion gets in the way of the rhetorical analysis.  Anyways, any and all thoughts are appreciated!

Practicing Summary & Paraphrasing

This blog is an exercise in practicing paraphrases and summaries in which I will be using my text as a source.

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Original Source: Quotation from "Forgive Them, Father" by Jeff Turrentine.

"For one thing, you couldn’t ask for a more effective messenger to deliver this message. At the moment, Pope Francis is enjoying something like super-pope status, his every utterance making headlines and sparking conversation among Catholics and non-Catholics alike. And by rhetorically tying climate action to the Christian mandate to aid the afflicted and give comfort to the needy, he’ll be doing much more than merely acknowledging the severity of the problem. By virtue of his moral authority, the pope has the singular ability to mobilize people all over the globe to take whatever form of action they can" (Turrentine p. 4).

My Paraphrase of Original Source:

Turrentine classifies the Pope as currently holding an undying love and support from millions of Catholics and non-Catholics.  His face, being plastered across national news every time speaks, and status could potentially give him the power to unite an entire community of millions under the common goal of good will and charity.  This rhetorical decision of the Pope to connect saving the environment to morality and ethics is not only recognition of the existence of climate change, it is also a call to action of all individuals of good moral complex.

My Summary of Original Source:

The Pope is one of the world's most influential figures in religion and in the media whose speech will have an impact on the entire world on a grand scale because he tied the environment directly to religious morals and ethics of good will and charity.

Project 2 Outline

This blog includes an overall outline for my Project 2 essay on "Forgive Them, Father" written by Jeff Turrentine from OnEarth.

Based off of the reading, this essay will be very similar to that which I had been writing in high school.  The composition of a rhetorical essay seems to be what AP style writing is based off of.  The main focus is the analysis first and foremost.  My opinion might pop up every once and a while, but I am not making an argument.  This was a heavily stressed point in the reading.  I am looking forward to writing a paragraphs that cover one main issue and each have a substantial conclusion to them.  Writing shorter paragraphs in a blog is nearly impossible for me, after years of being trained to write a fully developed idea confined to one paragraph.  I am much more accustomed to writing a defined outline for a defined introduction, individuals paragraphs, and a conclusion.  I often build an essay continually presenting the most important points towards the end.  Of course this means there is often some rambling in the middle confined by a much more specific introduction and conclusion.  With this rambling in mind, I wrote an outline that limited my paragraphs to very specific topics.  Although this may result in a much slower writing process, the rough draft may be a little more focused.

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Introduction:
This is the one location for the background and context of the issue.  I will include the information about exactly what the pope has released (encyclical and his speeches), his stance on the environment, and the public reaction.  The context of his speech is important for the audience to know and understand in order to realize the rhetorical importance of the speech itself, first and foremost.  I will then address the successful rhetorical strategies used by Turrentine, as his efforts of persuasion from his own article are what I will be discussing in the rest of the essay.

Thesis:
This will present to the audience what main rhetorical strategies will be addressed in the following essay.  So it must have a balance of concise information that simply gets these main points across.  The thesis below is a possible option, but it is not quite where I would like it to be.

Jeff Turrentine, despite having a bias as a self-proclaimed environmental activist, writes a factually based credible article with a witty voice that remains convincing and relatable to the audience.  The rhetorical goal of the article is to persuade the audience of how great the potential of the Pope becoming the catalyst environmental science is to inspire change in the US population and government.  He does so by creating logical arguments about US culture the reasons for the split between Conservatives and Liberals, and appealing directly to the moral and ethical qualms of the audience.

Body Paragraphs:

I - Audience + Pathos
Turrentine's article is an analysis of the possible public reaction to the speech and the reasons for their reaction.
- Who is the audience?
- Why does this matter?
- Identify Turrentine's appeals to the audience, especially using humor.
- Identify the ethical and moral appeals that Turrentine presents to this particular audience.

II - Culture (US specific)
Turrentine addresses the cultural roadblocks that previously were a hindrance to recognition of climate change, but that now may benefit the confusion created by the Pope's argument.
- What was the culture surrounding the environment and climate change?
- How does this culture conflict with the Pope's appeal?
- Identify how Turrentine addresses this cultural conflict (using quotations).
- Identify the use of logos.

III - Logos + Pathos
Turrentine successfully uses the combination of a slightly informal humorous tone paired with a plethora of factual information, quotations, and credible sources.
- ((Logos) How was the article credible/factually based and why does it benefit his persuasion?
- Identify 2-3 specific mentions/quotations of credible sources and how he uses them effectively.
- (Pathos) Why is his use of informality and humor effective, especially when paired with the elements of logos?
- Identify 1-2 specific mentions/quotations of this type of word choice.

Conclusion:
This will be a wrap-up of exactly how Turrentine uses of rhetorical strategies were successful in amplifying his level of persuasion.  It will include an analysis of the main claim of the article that the Pope's speech will cause confusion and turmoil in the conservative and religious community and my own analysis of the impact of the rhetoric of this article and the Pope on environmental science.


REFLECTION:

After reading Chelsea and Sam's blogs I found the outline to be a much more diverse method of planning than I had previously thought.  I use an outline to block out the main focus of the paragraphs, questions I need to address, and identifying several specific ideas I need to address.  Chelsea follows a similar format, but instead of using questions, she writes out full sentences that could easily be incorporated into the actual essay.  She uses the outline to eliminate rambling and really block out exactly what she wants to say in each paragraph.  Sam used the outline to show herself where she wanted to go with each paragraph.  The set-up of the outline was great, but I found the body paragraph stuff to be a little too minimal.  I find that I had to write out what points I wanted to use from the article in my analysis, in order to avoid rambling and focus in on the main idea of the paragraph.

Draft Thesis Statements

Before writing my essay, I will be crafting 2 thesis statements and writing my thoughts about their strengths and weaknesses.

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Thesis 1:

Jeff Turrentine, despite having a bias as a self-proclaimed environmental activist, writes a factually based credible article with a witty voice that remains convincing and relatable to the audience.  His clean and accurate writing style amplifies his moral and ethical appeals to the audience and successfully persuades the audience of impending cultural shift due to occur in the aftermath of the Pope's speech.

Thoughts:

This option includes the bias of Turrentine and presents his article as a successful because it can convince a Conservative audience even with the unavoidable heavy bias.  I'm not sure if I want to include this particular point in my main thesis, I might simply address it in my first body paragraph.  Otherwise this is a good starting point for my thesis, as it addresses most of the points I want to talk about in my essay.

Thesis 2:

Jeff Turrentine appeals directly to the moral and ethical qualms of the audience and analyzes the reasons for the cultural split between Conservatives and Liberals.  Jeff Turrentine's witty piece successfully persuades the audience of how the Pope may become the catalyst environmental science needed to inspire change in the US population and government.

Thoughts:

This thesis is a lot more specific to the article I am analyzing, but this also means I address the cultural part of my argument, where the first thesis did not.  It also is a little clumsy, so although I like the idea of this thesis, it is not my final choice.  I will likely use a combination of the two.

REFLECTION:

After reading Chelsea and Sam's I found a lot of variation in how we wrote our thesis statements.  I wrote two very detailed thesis in an attempt to cover all possible routes.  Normally my theses are more focused on starting an argument, so I really had to focus on exactly what rhetorical strategies I had to develop.  Chelsea wrote 3 thesis, and I found her last one to be the most effective in setting up her essay.  Sam had 2 very direct theses, but she spent a little two much time identifying the author and article.  By the end of the introduction, the audience should know the author and article, so it will be more effective to address the context, main idea, and rhetorical strategies instead.

Analyzing My Audience

In this blog I will be addressing six main questions about the audience related to my final Project 2 essay.

Who am I writing for?  What are my audience's beliefs or assumptions?
I am writing for incoming Freshman in the field of Environmental Science.  Overall, the students in my field will support the science behind climate change and humans impact on the environment and agree with the importance of calling the public to action.

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What position might they take on this issue?  How will I need to respond to this position?
Due to their interest in the environment, they are likely to side with the call to the population and governments of the world to address climate change.  They may not, however, agree with this message coming from a religious figurehead such as the Pope, as this has been an issue of conflicting beliefs across all ages and field.  I will be responding to any possible qualms from the audience by highlighting the inherent rhetorical and moral strength that comes from such an influential figure, no matter his deep connection to Catholicism.  The conservative and religious portion of, at least the US population, may be swayed by the words of the voice of their own religion.  Connecting protection of the environment with ethics by means of religion may even be the jump-start in environmental science.

What will they want to know?
They will want to know exactly what the Pope's position on the environment is, and how he addressed it.  This background information will be presented in the beginning of my essay to present the situation and then move on to addressing the rhetorical power of this event.  This article focuses on addressing the impact of the speech and who it will impact.  It is not a discussion on the merit of climate change, so I will be focusing on the public reaction to the speech.

How might they react to my argument?
I do not think that they will be vehemently opposed to my essay, as most likely we share the same ideas regarding environmental science.  There will be confusion and concern, as no one really knows what the extent of the impact of this speech will be on the actions of the US government and population.  This is an issue that is only a few months old, in terms of when the Pope released his encyclical, so the nature of a developing issue is that the audience will not know exactly how to react to the situation.

How am I trying to relate to or connect with my audience?
I will used the shared ideas on environmental science, such as supporting the possible devastating effect of climate change and humans on the entire environment, to showcase how such a public event could have a positive impact on the support for our field.  Objectively, this speech could result in a lot more jobs, research, and funding to the field if the general population takes the side of the Pope.  The possibility of the environment to benefit from this speech is a shared interest amoungst the environmental science field is a uniting factor I can use to my advantage for rhetorical strength in my essay.

Are there specific words, ideas, or modes of presentations that will help me relate to them in any way?
Staying away from overtly religious words might help focus the audience on the possible impact on our field, rather than the confusing religious association might cause.  I will be addressing the moral and ethical concerns created by this issue in the public, but my end goal is to highlight the possible long-term benefits of the speech.

REFLECTION:

After reading Bri and Chelsea's blogs I found that I was missing including the audience of my essay being the incoming freshman.  I was more so addressing the audience of the article than that of the final project.  Bri addressed mainly the incoming freshman, but I still felt like it was important to address the audience of the article as well.  Chelsea mentioned another factor of the audience being those supporting controversy.  I tended to focus on my audience being those invested in environmental science, as the article was written in an environmental news source and my essay being written for such students.  Still, it is possible for the flip-side of the argument to be a part of the audience.

Cluster of "Forgive Them, Father"

This blog contains a link to my cluster explaining the rhetorical strategies, rhetorical situations, and cultural ideologies in the article "Forgive Them, Father" by Jeff Turrentine.

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Here is said link.

Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in "Forgive Them, Father"

In this blog, I will be analyzing "Forgive Them, Father" written by Jeff Turrentine from OnEarth, based on the appeals to credibility or character, emotion, and logic.

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Appeals to Credibility/Character

• Turrentine uses references to credible sources, relevant word choice and some jargon, a sarcastic yet informed formal tone, gives a brief look at his own public stance on the issue, and appeals to values and beliefs from both sides of the issue.
• OnEarth states in their mission statement that accuracy of information and basis in scientific fact are of the utmost importance, right next to encouraging a unique opinion from the author.  This is absolutely represented in Turrentine's article, in which he hyperlinks to outside information, and includes quotes, facts, and names of involved parties.  
• Facing such a negative stigma from climate change deniers, requires solid credible information and a strong relatable voice.  By incorporating credible sources and establishing their authority within the text, Turrentine automatically seems like a more educated relelvant author.
• Ex. "Emory political scientists Steven Webster and Alan Abramowitz"
• The article, in my opinion is a very well-written piece.  Of course I will admit to a personal bias of being very attached to this particular topic, but the way Turrentine presents the information is still very effective.  Turrentine creates a character of himself for the audience that is passionate enough about the information to be knowledgeable, but not biased to the point of being unpalatable.
• Turrentine works at OnEarth, a very environmentally active news source, as is also a self-claimed climate activist.  His bias is very obviously towards supporting the Pope speaking on climate change.  However, his purpose on the article is addressing the changes that such a stance will cause on the religious and non-religious community.  From his perspective he address how combining such a touchy topic with coming from the voice of a religious figurehead will cause some obvious chaos.  Thus, he partly removes his own opinion about climate change from the issue and offers up a possible future scenario and why it might happen.  Therefor, I did not find his credibility on the issue marred due to how he organized and wrote the article.

Appeals to Emotion

• Turrentine uses repetition, a mixture of informality and formality, humor, and tone of voice.
• Turrentine keeps his formality with accurate scientific information but pushes towards being more informal with sarcasm and humor.  This allows for a wider breadth of people to read the article and understand the topic at greater depth.  This keeps the reader engaged with interesting relevant information and humorous language which already reads as more credible than the flip-side, entirely opinionated ranting.
• He keeps his tone light and professional to keep a personable relationship with the audience.  It is much more difficult for the audience to passively leave angry comments when they were required to calmly read and think about the information first.  They are also less likely to find fault in a author who uses relatable language and appeals directly to their values.
• The piece becomes infinitely more entertaining when humor is used.  After reading dozens of incredibly dry or overly angry articles about climate change, personally it was very refreshing to find such a balanced article.  One of my favorite portions of the article was the great introduction to his article about the Heartland Institute,
•  "Their stated goal for the visit - in their own words, including exclamatory punctuation - has been "to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate change.  There is no global-warming crisis!" The timing of their trip, like that desperate-seeming exclamation point, is telling" (Turrentine p. 1-2).
• In terms of effectiveness towards the audience, I think because of the subjective nature of humor and it's context of a very controversial topic, it could either annoy or loosen up the audience.  If the audience clicks on the article angry and with hopes of angry commenting, the humor might be detrimental.  For those of the still confused or openly liberal audience, this humor might be a refreshing change from the general media.
• I found the humor to enhance the logic of the text.  As in the Heartland example, I would have passed by that quotation without a second glance.  The humorous note on the exclamation point being "desperate" pointedly characterized the deniers in a tumultuous situation.  They had realized the public culture on climate change was about to get a lot more murky.

Appeals to Logic

• Turrentine used some statistics, expert opinions, and effective organization.
• Most of the logic portion of this article comes from his use of comments from relevant sources like Cardinal Peter, Steven Webster, Alan Abramowitz, Erza Klein, the Public Religion Institute, and the Heartland Institute.
• The author wants to make sure he accurately represents the ideologies and opinions from his referenced parties.  It adds both a layer to his argument and his credibility.  The comments and information are also a form of perspective for the audience on the individuals involved in the situation.
• The result is a more quotable and accurate paper that can be published on a scientific level news source such as OnEarth.
• While incorporating as much logic as possible seems like it could only benefit a piece, when being presented to the general public, appeals to emotion and credibility are also incredibly important.  The audience needs to stay engaged in order to want to understand the logic being presented.  Turrentine did a good job of mixing information with a lot of analysis and witty commentary.

REFLECTION:

After reading Swati's and Sam's, I found my own blog a little too blocky.  I liked how they really broke up the bullets and the questions and made it easier for the audience.  Still, I would like to keep my blog in it's rambling form, as I used this blog to discover exactly how much of a bias I had.  I spent a long time revising this and trying to eliminate my own bias in my analysis, which was very difficult.  When looking back at this for my final draft, I will make sure to remember how my bias effected my writing and what methods I used to try to eliminate it.