So you wanna know about visual rhetoric?

 You've come to the right place.

This article intends to teach those of you interested in analyzing imagery, and the professions associated with rhetoric in that sense. We'll also discuss who is using this, and how they're doing it while working in their field. So let's dive in, shall we?

The first thing to understand is what rhetoric is. I believe it to be the deliberate use of a certain language in a persuasive manner, literally the tools of persuasion in an argument, and let's be clear: an argument is not always a bad thing. Using rhetoric in a debate is helpful, but you also may be finding yourself using it when discussing your opinion on a national policy or your view on a federal case.

 Although typically it is used in the sense of text, rhetoric can also be used to dissect an image down to it's bare essentials by moving through these two categories. Not all apply, but some do.

Under the modes of proof are three words Aristotle used: ethos, pathos and logos.

Ethos is representation of the self. Using ethos demonstrates what you know, what you have educated yourself about, your values and morals or lack thereof. When using ethos, you might have an established ethos (meaning you are already well known). You may have to develop an ethos for your audiences by showing them that you have good will toward them; you and your information are there to benefit them. It has also been defined as “earning the trust of the person receiving the message.”

Pathos is used when you appeal to your audiences emotions by calling on events that effect them. Perhaps while discussing the brutality of bullying homosexual youth, you tell your audience about recent suicides in their area, maybe people from their high school. Some of the key things in this hypothetical situation are the approximation to your audience: recent things, in places close to them, in places that are relative to who they are. For instance, they may have their own children in the same high school or live down the street from this suicide victim's family.

Logos is the logical approach, where one would use relevant and legitimate research to emphasize your point, whatever that may be. Statistics, quotes and appropriately accredited surveys are often used. [In the case of visual rhetoric, this may not be necessary.]

It could be argued that the history of visual rhetoric is hard to trace, but imagine that it has as long of lines as textual and oral rhetoric do; it is simply a different sensory perspective. Visual rhetoric  is different from graphic design. In this field, it “emphasizes images as sensory expressions of cultural meaning” as opposed to purely aesthetic consideration. 

Visual rhetoric has been used in a variety of academic fields; art history, linguistics (the scientific study of human language), semiotics (the study of signs and symbols), business and marketing and cultural studies. Rhetoricians are usually analyzing paintings, sculptures, advertisements, movies, architecture, newspaper ads and photographs, even videogames!

To narrow down how rhetoric is used under visual, rhetoric, we’ll take a look at Charles Kostelnick and David Robert’s six tools that they outlined in their book: Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators for dissecting visual images. These guidelines are very similar to another set of techniques under rhetoric, “the canons of rhetoric” (invention [of argument through research], arrangement [of argument to convey information and persuasion], memory, delivery [tone, gestures, ect] and style).

                Arrangement: “the organization of visual elements so that readers can see their structure.”

                Emphasis: “making certain parts more prominent to others by changing its size, shape, color, ect.”

                Clarity: “helps the reader to ‘decode’ the message, to understand it quickly and completely.”

                Conciseness: “generating designs that are completely appropriate to succinct [consolidate] to a particular situation”

                Tone: “tone reveals the authors/designers attitude toward the subject matter”

                Ethos: “earning the trust of the person receiving the message”.

For more information on how visual rhetoric is, and what visual rhetoric is used for, visit Perdue Online Writing lab at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/691/01/ .To see it in use, visit http://thesocietypages.org/ > and their linked site Sociological Images, http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/ to see visual rhetoric in action!

               

Week 4, Assignment 1 Part 2

1.) Identify the article or "text" and author(s) that you read. Why did you choose the article/"text"? What about it captured your attention?

                I chose “Sometimes it’s Okay to Meddle, Or How to Encourage First-Year Students to Visit the Writing Center” by Valerie Pexton. I chose this because, even as a third year college student, I sometimes feel that my inventions in discovering arguments through research can get muddled, like I can’t distinguish one decision from another. I chose it because I can relate, and because meddling is something I also have the habit of doing.

As I read, I began to understand how close that her first example of Captain Kirk in Star Trek was to The Doctor in Doctor Who. The Doctor meddles. It’s just what he does. The premise of this program is a “Time Lord” that lives in a blue box with a companion and travels throughout time to explore, and also land himself in some mind-boggling situations. The different dimensions that he travels to always have something distinctly wrong with them (to create an episode) and we watch how he progresses through the situation and come to a conclusion, then a solution on how to fix this problem.

I use this example because hers was based off of “meddling in student affairs”, and although I don’t agree that an instructor would “meddle” with the prospective future of a student (isn’t that their career?), I do understand how that word could catch our attention and lead us to read the rest of this entry.

                What most interested me in the body of the text was that even through success of the Writing Center’s program, the writing counselors discovered problems;   some people might not detect that there are any non-successes in successes, and I appreciated this as a writing student. They cared to dig a little deeper and find out why first-year students were not attending the offered Writing Center, and what they could do to assist those students.

2.) Briefly summarize the article/"text" that you read. Why do you think it is important to the field of rhetoric and composition? Explain its significance and value to the profession.

                Valerie Pexton discussed the decrease in first year composition students participating in the writing center. She pointed out possible explanations, including the upward trend of International Students and their ability to seek out more resources than native Wyoming first year students; then, that first year students (typically straight out of high school) are overwhelmed with college course-work and come to the writing center too late, or don’t prioritize their time correctly and end up not making it at all. The International students promptly made appointments with the Writing Center for a 30-minute one-on-one tutoring session and booked the Writing Center out for the whole term, effectively cutting out the rest of the students that also might need help. This was no fault of international students, it just was.

                She then went on to explain her plan of attack. Within months, she had devised a new program focused solely on freshmen incoming students that allowed for walk-in appointments and team efforts. It can be extremely helpful to discuss writing prompts, thesis’, the results of research with fellow students because they are all in the same boat. Discussion often leads to discovery, and from there, students can develop a clear topic, position and body of a paper with the help of the experts standing by in case of trouble or confusion.

                I saw rhetoric helpful in her article because even though she was not a student working on a project, rhetoric assisted her in day-to-day activities as a tutor or instructor. She assessed the problem beyond the supposed success of the writing-center (probably with added feedback from the student-population), and figured out a way to not cut them out of the system, making sure everyone got at least a few minutes at a time of one-on-one discussion with someone who chose composition and writing as a profession. She even mentioned that students came in just in case they needed help, using the quiet and presence of expertise as reassurance while forming their papers.

Week 4, Assigntment 1, Part 1

1.) Consider what is rhetoric and what is composition. Do you think that there is a difference between rhetoric and composition, or do you think they are both the same? Explain your answer.

2.) How has the field of rhetoric and composition evolved over the years? Consider what was valued and what is valued now to answer this question.

1.) Rhetoric is a broadly used technique across varied forms of communicated information, used in our daily conversations and used by media, writers, educators and as employable by our own body language as it is in visual concepts such as art.

English majors may use it to analyze the modes of persuasion in text and in speech to further discern, and then exercise similar methods when answering essay questions or forming a clear, concise and effective persuasive argument paper.

I might consider rhetoric in a more familiar way than a new and foreign thing; it has been loosely defined as “putting a name to what I already know”.

For example, when writing a paper, students are instructed to form a thesis. To form a thesis, it would be necessary to first decide on a subject and assess what we already know about that subject by gathering our own personal experiences and opinions. To be more of an effective writer, we would also need to consider the audience that we are speaking to, perhaps their general education level, their class and status, their concerns, questions and knowledge about the subject. We would also need to distinguish ourselves as a knowing, well-intentioned speaker; to do that, we must add to those personal experiences by dedicated research and familiarize ourselves with the subject so that we can assure our audience that we are well informed and mean them good will.

I’ve been taught this technique since grade-school, but it has never been as distinct and universally useful as it is now. Rhetoric has become more and more conventional the more times I read about it.

I believe that composition and rhetoric are very different. Composition is the ingredients of a paper: a thesis, a premise, evidence for the body of the paper and a conclusion. It is just that; composing. "Rhetoric" is how to compose. Its the tools given to us to make a convincing argument, to persuade effectively, to use with ethos, pathos, logos and deliver it with gestures and the appropriate tone of voice and presentation of information.

2.) The valued steps of composing an effective speech have been gradually shaped and modified over time. They first began as a five-step model containing what we still consider important aspects today and what are known as the “canons” of rhetoric: invention (discovering ideas or arguments), arrangement (organizing ideas), style (putting the organized ideas into words), memory and delivery. Classical rhetoricians maintained that we first learn knowledge and then put it into words, but it was argued that knowledge is created by words. Aristotle solved this by creating a system of inquiry—questions to ask to analyze and renew interpretations made by audiences [and students].

It was said that classical rhetoricians divided discourse forms according to different social functions. There were speeches that were formed for politicians, for clergymen and for lawyers; these categories were later transformed into ways that the “audience or social context affects the interpretation of written text”.

During Medieval and Renaissance years, rhetoric transformed from “deliberative” discourse intended for the speech a politician might employ into one used for religious purposes, perhaps to persuade or redirect the audience from a different form of religion to a Christian one. “The goal became saving souls, not leading the state”.

Students studying grammar, rhetoric and dialect would be studying them for preparation of logic in oral argumentation on historical, religious or legal issues and were techniques to continue their profession into the art of composing official letters through which church and state were conducted and the art of preaching. Poets also studied rhetoric.

If we were to fast forward to the 20^th Century study of rhetoric and composition, we would see that rhetoricians have considered it crucial to include in the language an understanding of the importance of diversity, not only in terms of race, but in gender (including sexual identity), marital status and class. 
While rules of rhetoric and composition were once more important, it has become the practice of goodwill towards the audience and an understanding of the audience that is the priority.