Response to Readings

After a very eventful first week of school, I start to get into the groove of balancing work, school and a social life.

In this Academic Writing course, we had some reading due for next class. Some of the content I found very interesting.

Lets start with the text Understanding Rhetoric. The first chapter acted as an introduction for the book. The authors casually explained their intentions and motivation behind the literature in relation to the illustrations. The authors believe that by explaining Rhetoric in such a unique way, it could help students become interested in an otherwise dry subject. The first chapter also briefly explained how to address different platforms of communication and the proper way to address them. In other words every situation is different and requires a tailored made message for that setting or point in time.

The second chapter in Understanding Rhetoric touched base on two famous philosophers. Plato and his apprentice Aristotle, are two guys who changed the way people thought was in ancient times and still influence the art of communication to this very day. Rhetoric was originally developed to facilitate discussion. Plato and Aristotle have very conflicting views of rhetoric. While Plato thought of rhetoric as a tool used to deceive and make people turn evil. Aristotle thought of rhetoric as a necessary tool for people to recognize the difference between good and bad. This chapter also explained the differences between Ethos, Pathos, and Lagos. Ethos is using ethics and credibility to get an argument across. Pathos is used as an emotional strategy to attack the heart of the audience. While Lagos deals with reason and logic to win over the viewer's mind. With these three weapons in your arsenal, you could convince anyone of anything. But be careful because with great power comes great responsibility.

The other assigned reading was out the book titled Everything's an Argument. In chapter 16, the author discusses academic arguments and writing. Explained in the chapter is how to differentiate academic writing and argumentation with other forms of communication. It goes into different characteristics of academic journals, debates and research articles. This chapter is very similar to a class I took a couple semesters ago. The class was "Argumentation and Debate". I learned a lot about conducting research in ways to win my side of the argument. This was fun because even if I didn't agree with the side I was on it really opened my eyes to appreciate and respect other's point of views. Not to mention it made me a very good arguer.