Rebecca's ENGL 505 Blog

Notes on Gender Readings

2008-11-30T13:25:00.000-08:00

Contesting the Objectivist Paradigm

Isn’t this funny how he brings up the shot gun and uses the phrase “common sense”?
And he also sites one of the articles I am using for my research project for this class!

The first main point I am getting from this article is that technical writing has a voice that is objective and task-oriented. This matter-of-fact tone and purpose of technical writing does not always accurately reflect what is really going on in the context that the document is being written in. Social factors of a situation that may aid in the understanding of a document are neglected in standard technical writing tones, and therefore technical writing is not always an accurate representation of what is going on.

I agree that technical writings could benefit from a voice and tone different than that which is normally taught. I don’t necessarily agree that a tech comm. Program really needs to devote an entire class to feminist voice and gender issues. Is technical writing really the genre to deal with such issues. After all, the goal of a technical document usually isn’t to reveal social or gender matters, it is to fulfill a purpose in a workplace. I think a class in gender issues in the workplace may be interesting, but with a specific focus on writing doesn’t seem that important to me. I thought the assumption that the author made that our gender not only effects the way we talk (write) but also the way we think was obvious, but also not something that one obviously thinks about, at least not on a daily basis.

Gender, Technology, and the History of Technical Communication

So, have women really not been present in the history of technical communication? Or have male historians just omitted the presence of women in the field?

There are certain fields that genders either migrate to or that are more acceptable and workers adhere to those ideas. So according to the article, women have contributed to technological history, just not as much as man. Just like I am sure men haven’t contributed to the field of nursing or early child care development as much as women have. And just because women don’t understand hot the technology works that they are using…a lot of men I am convinced use technology and don’t understand the inner workings. I always have a hard time really accepting and buying into issues of gender, but I think a lot of this stuff is gender neutral, despite what the articles say. In other words, I think some of this stuff is pushing it. I’m also surprised this article didn’t mention the “myth” that girls are good in English and history and boys are good in math and science. And from a historical time line perspective, it wasn’t so long ago women didn’t work at “jobs” so why should we be so surprised that they are under represented in the history of technical writing?

Feminist Theory and the Redefinition of Technical Communication

So, are these researchers curious about the writing in the workplace, or the workplace? The actual documents or the context the documents are produced in? Are we studying how being a woman effects how we write as technical communicators or how the workplace influences us differently because we are women?

I agree with this article that feminist theory often times takes an advocacy stance. I think this is often misinterpreted as something negative and perpetuates that women and emotion and dare I say, nagging. I think the feminist studies are presented best when they take a historical or sociological stance. I think feminist studies in technical writing are most important in terms of audience analysis. What do women really want or need in a document specifically geared to them? An insight in being a woman would no doubt benefit this. And yes it is stereotypical to say women use Mix Masters of Diaper Genies more than men, but they probably do, and so wouldn’t it be beneficial for women to write the technical documents that go along with such technologies/products. Just as women writers write web or news articles geared towards women. A male writer, in similar fashion, would be more in tune with an audience of men reading a prostate cancer article or a manual on a beard trimmer.

Gender and Advertisements: The Rhetoric of Globalization

An interesting point is that advertisements in India are geared for both home maker woman and professional women, where as advertisements for men are just geared towards professional men. Advertisements depict activities that are valued by the current culture, looking good and shopping for example.

Advertising language focuses more around the consumer than the product. This is in contrast to technical writing, which is impersonal, objective, and goal oriented.

Western culture has influenced what is means to be a man and women in Indian adverts. Objects and possessions denote power. Is this a traditional Indian mentality? Or the result of Western influence?

My Works Cited

2008-11-23T14:37:00.001-08:00

Works Cited

Burke, Kenneth. "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle." The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings. Ed. Levi, Neil and Michael Rothberg.Rutgers University Press, 2003. 107-112.

Dyrud, Marilyn A. "Looking Backward: German Technical Writers in the 1930's." Frontiers in Education Conference. Reno, NV, USA, October 10, 2001.

Kalfus, Richard. "Euphemisms of Death: Interpreting a Primary Source Document on the Holocaust." The History Teacher 23.2 (1990): 87-93.

Katz, Steven B. "Aristotle's Rhetoric, Hitler's Program, and the Ideological Problem of Praxis, Power, and Professional Discourse." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 7.1 (1993): 37-62.

Katz, Steven B. "The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust." National Council of Teachers of English 54.3 (1992): 255-275.

Mitchell, C. Ben. "Of Euphemism and Euthanasia: The Language Games of the Nazi Doctor and some Implications for the Modern Euthanasia Movement." Journal of Death and Dying 40.1 (1999-2000): 255-265.

Musolff, Andreas. "What can Critical Metaphor Analysis Add to the Understanding of Racist Ideology? Recent Studies of Hitler's Anti-Semitic Metaphors." Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines 2.2 (2008): 1-10.

Perry, Steven. "Rhetorical Functions of the Infestation Metaphor in Hitler's Rhetoric." Central States Speech Journal 34 (1983): 229-235.

PROGRESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

MY OUTLINE

Thesis Statement:

The use of metaphoric and euphemistic language to mask and dehumanize the means of the Final Solution in Nazi Germany allowed the Nazi Party to create documents that effectively aided them in their goals of extermination of non-Aryan peoples.

Outlining of topics and subtopics:

Memo CHECK

Introduction of Thesis Statement CHECK

Thesis Statement CHECK

Description of gassing process CHECK
Mention gassing words CHECK

Exact figurative language in memo CHECK
Tone of business letter, practical, effective, vans used to protect executioners CHECK

Understanding metaphors as more than style, as practical functions CHECK

****How Hitler established metaphors,
deliberative rhetoric, social epistemic rhetoric,
praxis and phronises .
Used metaphors to change an ideology (may need to be added later for more context)

Use of repetition CHECK

Use of Logic CHECK

Metaphors of religion
Charity, good deeds, devil, purity/sexual symbolism

Leads into metaphors of black and white

Metaphors of disease and parasites

Conclusion

MY PAPER THUS FAR:

Geheime Reichssache (Secret Reich Business)
Berlin, June 5, 1942

Changes for special vehicles now in service at Kulmhof (Chelmno) and for those now being built

Since December 1941, ninety-seven thousand have been processed [verarbeitet in German] by the three vehicles in service, with no major incidents. In the light of observations made so far, however, the following technical changes are needed:

[1.] The vans' normal load is usually nine per square yard. In Saurer vehicles, which are very spacious, maximum use of space is impossible, not because of any possible overload, but because loading to full capacity would affect the vehicle's stability. So reduction of the load space seems necessary. It must absolutely be reduced by a yard, in- stead of trying to solve the problem, as hitherto, by reducing the number of pieces loaded. Besides, this extends the operating time, as the empty void must also be filled with carbon monoxide. On the other hand, if the load space is reduced, and the vehicle is packed solid, the operating time can be considerably shortened. The manufacturers told us during a discussion that reducing the size of the van's rear would throw it badly off balance. The front axle, they claim, would be overloaded. In fact, the balance is automatically restored, because the merchandise aboard displays during the operation a natural tendency to rush to the rear doors, and is mainly found lying there at the end of the operation. So the front axle is not overloaded.

2. The lighting must be better protected than now. The lamps must be enclosed in a steel grid to prevent their being damaged. Lights could be eliminated, since they apparently are never used. However, it has been observed that when the doors are shut, the load always presses hard against them as soon as darkness sets in. This is because the load naturally rushes toward the light when darkness sets in, which makes closing the doors difficult. Also, because of the alarming nature of darkness, screaming always occurs when the doors are closed. It would therefore be useful to light the lamp before and during the first moments of the operation.

3. For easy cleaning of the vehicle, there must be a sealed drain in the middle of the floor. The drainage hole's cover, eight to twelve inches in diameter, would be equipped with a slanting trap, so that fluid liquids can drain off during the operation. During cleaning, the drain can be used to evacuate large pieces of dirt.

The aforementioned technical changes are to be made to vehicles in service only when they come in for repairs. As for the ten vehicles ordered from Saurer, they must be equipped with all innovations and changes shown by use and experience to be necessary.

Submitted for decision to Gruppenleiter II D, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Rauff.

Signed: Just

Metaphors are commonly thought of in terms of stylistic choices in non-fiction writing. A metaphor is a tactic a writer can use to represent one idea with another symbolic idea to create depth in his writing and provide another mode of understanding for the reader. A euphemism is a phrase that describes an idea using other words so that the idea in question comes off as more mild or appealing than the original wording would allow. The use of euphemisms calls for an understanding of the potential discomfort the original idea may generate if described one way, and altering the wording in a sense to “soften the blow.”

Steven Perry notes that for the most part rhetoricians have “…sought to understand metaphor within the stylistic canon of rhetoric as an aesthetic entity to be judged more in terms of its formal qualities than in terms of its practical discourse (Perry, 1).” It becomes clear after World War II, however, that metaphors, euphemisms, and figurative language as a whole, are not simply stylistic devices, but rather can have significant practical functions in certain documents. When used as a tool to generate action and ideology, figurative language can be highly effective, and this is something Adolph Hitler was aware of. The use of metaphoric and euphemistic language to mask and dehumanize the means of the Final Solution in Nazi Germany allowed the Nazi Party to create documents that effectively aided in their goals of extermination of non-Aryan peoples. (Perry)

The memo presented in the beginning of this paper is an example of a technical document written by a mechanic of gassing vans in Nazi Germany. The victims in these particular vans were prisoners that were physically or mentally ill. The victims were put into the vans, most likely being told they were simply being transported to another location, and then carbon monoxide was pumped into the vans and the vans were driven around until all the victims inside had died. The implementation of gassing vans in the Final Solution was the result of several issues. One problem the vans solved was that they lessened the psychological trauma experienced by executioners. Instead of having to look at their victims before shooting them into an open pit, the gassing process did not force Nazi executioners to watch their victims die (Kalfus, #). The vans were also effective and cost efficient in comparison to the cost of one or more bullets per victim.

It is frightening to view this memo as a member of a 21st century audience, and to identify that despite the horrific subject matter, this memo is arguably an excellent example of technical writing. Steven B. Katz analyzes this memo and notes how the memo is technically sound. Just begins with a purpose statement that makes “an assumption or goal shared by the audience (Katz, 265).” Just is aware of his audience and writes this memo for them, with the specific goal of providing solutions to problems. His argument for altering the vans is “technically accurate and logically argued (Katz, 257).” Just even adheres to principals of good document design, numbering his sections and leaving white space for easy readability (Katz, 257).

This memo is being used to do a job, and the genre of a memo alone reinforces the idea of work and productivity. What is most important to Just in this memo is making the process of gassing efficient for his organization. Socialists Max Weber and Karl Mannheim call this a “technocratic mentality”, which basically is a mind set concerned not with long term effects (in this case the killing of mentally and physically ill people), but with cost effectiveness (Kalfus, #).

Emotions and compassion are not usually elements in business writing. Just’s language is the “objective and dispassionate language of a business memo (Kalfus, #).” But despite Just’s attempts at totally dehumanizing the gassing process by the use of euphemisms, a few human-conscious words are still present in the memo, making it highly disturbing and fully demonstrating the attempt to use euphemisms to mask something terribly immoral.

Euphemisms in this memo are used to mask the process of gassing human beings. The words “gassing” or “killing” are never used, but instead the word “processed” in the first sentence of the memo is used in place of “killed.” In the first section of the memo, “operating time” takes the place of “gassing time.” In addition to evading verbs that express killing, Just also uses euphemisms such as “load”, “pieces”, and “merchandise” in place of the words prisoners, people, or humans. Euphemisms are also used to express human byproducts. In section 3 of the memo, the word “liquids” takes the place of urine and vomit and “large pieces of dirt” can presumably be interpreted as feces.

As mentioned above, Just fails to fully remove the presence of human nature from this memo. Where he first falters is in section one when he discusses the balance of the vans and writes, “the merchandise aboard displays during the operation a natural tendency to rush to the rear doors.” A “natural tendency” describes something that is alive and performs an action based on instinct or reason. The entire second section of the memo that discusses the need to protect the lighting would be a tip off to anyone reading this memo out of context that something is amiss and wrong. Just writes, “… it has been observed that when the doors are shut, the load always presses hard against them as soon as darkness sets in. This is because the load naturally rushes toward the light when darkness sets in, which makes closing the doors difficult. Also, because of the alarming nature of darkness, screaming always occurs when the doors are closed.” Again, Just describes a naturally tendency of the “load” and what type of load would “scream”?

Just’s usage of euphemisms in his memo is not uncommon of Nazi rhetoric. Marilyn A. Dyrud lists several commonly used euphemisms in Nazi documentation in her article, “Looking Backward: German Technical Writers in the 1930’s.” Some of these include: evacuation/closing the ghetto/resettlement= deportation to extermination camp, salvage= valuables taken from deported Jews, containers filled with substance= Zyklon B canisters dropped into the gas chambers, special treatment= castration or sterilization of non-Aryans, and fumigation/delousing rooms/morgues= gas chambers. Figurative word choices were made in both documents that were internal for the party and also those that were distributed to civilians (Dyrud, 16-17).

It is important to note that it was not over night that the use of metaphors and euphemisms in Nazi rhetoric became so effective. Much of the success the Nazi’s had with figurative language was in part because of repetition. The euphemisms Dyrud describes and Just uses were adopted by Nazi writers and it is doubtful that if not everyone adhered to the ethos of the party and the stylistic voice, these word choices would not have aided in the Final Solution. Hitler was aware of the power of repetition and he used it in his slogans and propaganda (Burke, 111).

Much of the hateful metaphors for Jews in Nazi Germany were created by Hitler and first published in his memoir, Mein Kempf. Andreas Musolff discusses how Hitler used “iconographic references” in formulating his anti-Semitic metaphors. Iconographic references take something familiar (“simplistic images of our experiences”) and associate them with familiar values (Musolff, 2). Two highly common themes Hitler used in his metaphors were religion and disease. These themes branched off and made many sub themes. The metaphoric images and words Hitler created were projected repeatedly throughout Nazi Germany, constantly emphasizing the threat of non-Aryans on Germany and attempting to logically persuade the masses that the threat was real.
LOGIC

More Progress on My Project

2008-11-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

My research is going pretty well. I have hit a temporary drought in the finding of articles at this moment (I have been going at this all day) so I decided I would take a break and share what I have gathered thus far.

Since narrowing my focus of Nazi rhetoric to the still broad, but not as broad issues of metaphoric and figurative language (be it tropes, euphemisms, or just flat out manipulation of religious vocabulary) I have found a great deal of literature that explains how the Nazis' word choices in documents aided them in their Final Solution.

In addition to my memo, I also found a document discussing and rationalizing the practice of castration and sterilization by means of X-ray exposure. The language in this document was equally cold, scientific, matter-of-fact, and creepy to the max.

Some key ideas I have latched on to about the use of figurative language is that it had to be done repeatedly. The voice, style, and tone of the memo and other documents was a collective one. It had to be agreed upon because if some individuals didn't adhere to this type of word choice then the effects of word choice would not effective. In other words, everyone needed to write this way for the ideology of the Nazi party to permeate the thought processes of civilians, politicians, and military personnel.

There were also some standard terms used and others were inventions that were specific to certain documents. For instance, "delousing room" was a common term used in place of "gas chamber."

At present, I have almost nine pages of typed notes, which will surely make the actually writing of 15 pages easier. I still want to do my own analysis of the memo, a real good look at all the word choice and reference that back to the many articles I have read. I hope to begin outlining and drafting this weekend.

Here are some of the my new notes from the reading I have done in the past few days:

Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Hitler’s Program, and the Ideological Problem of Praxis, Power, and Professional Discourse
Steven B. Katz

-deliberative rhetoric- concerned with policy decisions (37) decides what is possible and what is the best course of action

-“Phronesis allows someone to deliberative about the good rather than the expedient” –Dale Sullivan (38)

-“The problem in rhetorical praxis is that the rhetor must conform to the dominant social, economic, and political beliefs on which communication must be based to be effective.” (38) Just needed to adopt the ethos of the organization to be an effective writer.

-Polis= the workplace, the state, the community, etc (39)

-“expediency was in fact the ethical basis of Hitler’s ideology as praxis (and phronesis)” (39)

-“A certain constellation of economics, ideology and political power can enable one person or group to change the rhetoric and rewrite the ideology of an entire nation”. (42)

-Katz uses the social-epistemic theory of rhetoric which situates rhetoric in ideology , rather than ideology with in a rhetoric (42) *rhetoric as a tool for ideology, rather than rhetoric as a tool which takes into account ideology to “Hitler created in theory and instantiated in practice a form of social-epistemic rhetoric construct the Nazi Party

-“For praxis and phronesis, like social-epistemic rhetoric, are themselves social and thus ideological constructions that can be put to any end” (44)

-“Hitler can be understood to have used the ethic of expediency that enables deliberative discourse to create both in theory and practice a different ideological form of social-epistemic rhetoric: propaganda.” (45)
*Hitler created the expediency (what is advantageous for his society) by creating a Truth/knowledge based on science (his science of race and inherent/biological good) and used logic as a means of persuasion based in his science to use rhetorical discourse as a tool to generate praxis that evolved phronesis, but because the phronesis of the discourse community was susceptible to unethical thinking based on the exigency (loss of the WW1 and the economic state of Germany) he could manipulate the functions of rhetoric to encourage an unethical end . By repetition of ethos (as a knowing voice) and content (messages of propaganda) he was able to change the ideology of society through his rhetoric. You have to first change the ideology in order to generate the action. People will not do for what they do not believe in.
-Hitler ceased the historical, cultural, and material moment.” (45) *the exigency

-technical rhetoric is meant to be a tool, a means to a practical end. But no rhetoric is neutral, it all serves an ideological function. (49)

-“…expediency can be seen as the ideology that underlines deliberative discourse as praxis.” (52)

A Comment on “The Ethnic of Expediency”
Thomas M. Rivers
College English Vol. 54 No. 7
November (1992) pp. 856-858

“words are in fact deeds” (856)

“all of us, in other words, are capable of talking ourselves into anything” (857)
*disagree. Words can aid in swaying thought, but can they really trump morals? Time plays a factor also, conditioning over time. “We can talk ourselves into much, but we can talk ourselves out of much” (858) There were no other voices to talk them out of it.

In the time Hitler was creating his rhetoric there were no other competing voices. (858)

Of Euphemisms and Euthanasia: The Language Games of the Nazi Doctors and Some Implications for the Modern Euthanasia Movement
Omega—Journal of Death and Dying
Vol. 40 No. 1
1999-2000 pp. 255-265

“Euphemisms are place holders for important concepts. They may disguise a practice that one might abhor if given another name.” (255)

compares euphemisms to using language like a shield to fend off the unwanted and scary. (256)

In this article, he talks about how Nazi’s made propaganda movies about “mercy killings”. Used religious words like mercy, charity, etc. to defend killing mentally and physically handicapped people. Uses science/truth/the science of inheritance to frighten people that these were traits they could inherit. Also made victims seem hopeless, spiritless, walking dead. Facilities where the killings took place were euphemistically names. Examples: “Realm’s Committee for Scientific Approach to Severe Illness to do Heredity and Constitution” and “Charitable Transport Company for the Sick” (259)

The language allowed people to turn from “healers to killers”. Talks about doctors having split-selves: Auschwitz-self and physician-self. (260)

What Can Critical Metaphor Analysis Add to the Understanding of Racist Ideology? Recent Studies of Hitler’s Anti-Semitic Metaphors
Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines
Vol. 2 No. 2 pp. 1-10 2008

This article sites Burke’s discussion on Hitler describing the Jew as the Devil and a disease that would infect the German people.

*Religion in the sense of good and evil. The Jew is the Devil. Germans are virginal and can be infected. It is merciful, it is charity to kill the less fortunate. Metaphors of religion! Metaphors of disease. And euphemisms to soften the blow of reality, what religious language couldn’t cover up.

Discussing “iconographic references” which take something familiar to us and “simplistic images of our experiences” and associate them with “familiar values.” (2)
So Hitler calls the Jews “black” parasites and that conjures up images of white and black, lightness and dark, purity and imperfection, etc. Doesn’t have to do with Black people, Hitler hated them to but didn’t think the Jews and Blacks were part of the same race, he thought the Jews brought the Black people to Germany on purpose to mess up the German gene pool. (4)

In Mein Kempf calls Jews “slime, maggots, bacteria”. Not as apparent in this memo. Different genre. (6) Euphemisms used for different purposes in memo then MK. *These metaphors don’t just make Jews seem disgusting but they also make them seem like something that can manageably be destroyed. Slime, maggots, bacteria…little things, much littler than humans so can be killed easily and maybe they are even so little no one will notice they were killed. Personification.
*Need repletion and everyone needed to write this way, what would happen if not everyone complied to this type of language use.

This paper appears in: Frontiers in Education Conference, 2001. 31st Annual
Publication Date: 2001
Volume: 3, On page(s): S2G-14-18 vol.3
Meeting Date: 10/10/2001 - 10/13/2001
Location: Reno, NV, USA

More insight into the memo:
Victims were the physically and mentally ill. So maybe not necessarily Jews. They were out into the vehicle while carbon monoxide was pumped in and the van was driven around until they died. Memos like this were written so Nazi’s could perfect extermination technology, both effectiveness and least psychological toll on executioners. (14)

Examples of “masked language”

Evacuation/closing the ghetto/ resettlement= deportation to extermination camp
The Aktion= the final solution
Salvage= valuables taken from deported Jews
Containers filled with substances= Zyklon-B canisters dropped into the gas chambers
Special treatment= castration and sterilization of non-Aryans
Fumigating/delousing rooms/morgues= gas chambers (16-17)

“objectivization” of dehumanization. Both in-house and external memos discussed humans as objects, rather than living things. “the load, the cargo, the pieces, the merchandise” (17)

Notes on Usability Reading

2008-11-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Shape of Text to Come

The first thing I wonder when reading this, the author writes that screen text is not a new/different rhetoric from paper text, just a new medium. I think since the publication of this article people would disagree. There is certainly a difference between electronic literacy and print literary, so why shouldn't a new medium constitute a new type of rhetoric? But again, this article was written awhile back.

Everything has changed since this article has been written in regards to how situationally embedded screen text is. Now we can read screen text on a plane, we do read books and articles off the computer, screen quality is better on the eyes. You can still get in the zone when reading on a computer. He writes as though screen reading is all workplace or task oriented, not for pleasure.

In the functionally mapped text section I think an interesting thing to point out in retrospect of when this article was written is that the writer makes an educated predication that the interfaces of programs and screens will evolve into having similar layouts and cues so that readers electronic literacy will also evolve and a reader will be able to navigate screen text without not knowing the various options avaliable on the computer. This is discussed again in the navigation sections when he mentions how readers are frustrated that they cannot apply what they know about navigating books to navigating screen texts because screen texts vary and have different functions. Where as now we know if a word is blue or underlined it is a linked, then there wasn't consistency.

Text and Action

The discussion of people knowing how to use a lawnmower because they see lawnmowers being used a lot was an interesting point that made me think of some things. I think the writer is right, people know how to use them b/c it is a common image. But I also think lawnmowers have a certain usability about them that makes sense. This makes me think about gaming systems. X-Box, Wii, Playstation...they look different, but for the most part (and for most people) you can take them out of the box, set them up, and everything is pretty self explainable, because the usability on those technologies is so designed for the every day person. Power buttons look the same, there are cues for where you should hold something, etc. In addition, if you've played one, or used a DVD player, or really any electronic with wires and buttons, you can make connections and figure things out. I know this article is about the manual, but you can't separate the manual from the product, and if the product has good usability, the manual will be that much better and less needed.

Writing and Database Technology

The most important point I gathered from this article was that rhetorical choices are beneficial and apart of tasks that you may not think involve rhetoric. I wouldn't image making tables of numbers very rhetorical, but there are still decisions to be made about purpose, audience, and functionality. There is also an element of taking a bunch of nonsense and arranging it so it has meaning. That is very rhetorical. That is why people with written communication degrees get paid the big bucks, isn't it?

Getting to Know Audiences in Cyber Space

Did anyone else find the typo on page 4?

Well, I use Purdue's OWL, not a lot, but enough, so I think online writing centers are a great thing. And I defiantly see how providing an online learning service to such a wide and anonymous audience would make it difficult to create site content. Surveys seem like a great methodology for the OWC developers to obtain information on what would make their site more beneficial. I think it is interesting that they didn't provide an onsite feedback option or a mandatory sign in option to obtain information. But then again, you don't know if that information will be accurate. A lot of corporate websites ask for customer demographic information right on the site.

Project Progress Report

2008-11-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

I have been blogging once a week about the progress of my project, so this post will basically be a summary of what I have written so far.

I have not yet started writing, but I have done a good amount of background reading on my subject. After our last class meeting I am confident in narrowing my topic down, which in turn will alter my thesis statement. My new focus is more defined and involves examining the Nazi and specifically looking at how the use of metaphoric language, figurative language, and tropes are used as stylistic choices to further the praxis the memo will generate. By removing people and the actual process of killing from the memo's language, the author is able to create an ethos of efficiency which is the norm in most technical documents. The language choices are essential to focusing the audience on the task at hand rather than the ethical issues surrounding that process.

My plan of action is to read a bit more on the actual use of figurative language in Nazi rhetoric (and I know there is plenty out there) and how that aided Nazi writers in achieving their goals for the Final Solution. I hope to begin outlining and drafting this weekend.

My literature review has expanded slightly since my last post.

My Project (an element of stress and worry)

2008-11-09T15:25:00.000-08:00

Well it is safe to say at this moment in the semester my head is spinning. I don't know if it is the work load or the looming doom of finding a job, but I am starting to seriously doubt my ability to accomplish tasks and handle stress. This paper, while not unlike other papers I have done, is really freaking me out. Now if there is one thing I can do, it is write the shit out of a research paper. And I like this topic. So why the freaking out? I don't have the answers.

Anyway, as it stands I have read 5 articles that I think will help me. I have written notes out for two of the articles, and I need to go back and reread the orginal 3 I read and write notes out for those. I write my notes as I am reading in a word doc. This helps me translate the author's thoughts into my own, make connections between articles, and write out quotes so that when I go to write the paper I can copy and paste quickly so I don't lose my train of thought. What I am essentially doing is a mini literature review.

As far as organization of the paper I want to look in depth at specific elements of rhetorical theory in the memo. I will start my paper with the memo, give an introduction/abstract about what my paper will be about and then go into sections that will be preceded by subheads. The sections I want to do include elements such as audience analysis, exigencies, metaphors/figurative language, the rhetorical, situation, ethics, practicality/writing as a tool. If the subheads make the paper seem disjointed and choppy I will remove them and write transitions between paragraphs.

I need to find a few more sources and hopefully I will start writing this week so that I have something to work with for the progress report due next week.

Here are my notes:

The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings
By Neil Levi, Michael Rothberg
Contributor Neil Levi, Michael Rothberg
Published by Rutgers University Press, 2003

Article:
The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle
Kenneth Burke

Specifically this discusses Hitler’s initial rhetoric in Mein Kampf

-The element for unifying people in the Middle Ages was a common enemy- in that case the devil. Hitler used a common enemy (the Jews and others) to unite the German people, and this devil was also international (“the international Jew”). Another Christian theology- the conquest of inferior races.

-Hitler used a fake science to define a bloodline, a Positivistic/”T”ruth. In this way, Hitler “Materialized” the enemy. Burke calls it “inborn dignity”

-Hitler uses sexual symbolism. The masses are a woman who needs a dominating man to lead them. The Jews are the rival male, and if they win they will taint the Aryan bloodline. This can be by mating with Aryans or simply by influencing Jewish culture and tainting their spiritual purity.

-Projection, by handing over one’s “ills to a scapegoat” one can get “purification”

-There is a True cause, centered in race (a science) between people who were born moral. Once you establish the “facts” you can’t argue them, all you can do is prove them.

-Hitler was aware of the power of repetition , used it in slogans and propaganda.

-“The desire for national unity, in the present state of the world, is genuine and admirable. But this unity, if attained on a deceptive basis, by emotional trickeries that shift our the accurate locus of our troubles, is no unity at all.

-Hitler’s exigency: the loss of WW1 and the economy, people were more susceptible to his rhetoric. The situation created an exigency.

Rhetorical Functions of the Infestation Metaphor in Hitler’s Rhetoric
Steven Perry
Central States Speech Journal, 1983
http://www.willamette.edu/cla/rhetoric/courses/Rhetcrit/readings/Hitler.pdf

“…sought to understand metaphor within the stylistic canon of rhetoric, as an aesthetic entity to be judges more in terms of its formal qualities than in terms of its practical functions in discourse.”

“Figurative language as more than an element of style”
“Parasitism imagery” the figurative language is what Hitler used to create his argument of Jewish inferiority

Perry looks at one class of metaphors: disease/infestation of the “national body”

-Edwin Black: metaphors can contain shared attitudes and values and metaphoric logic can sustain such attitudes

-parasites and disease create horror and mystification of the “enemy”
“The strategy of re-naming one’s enemies in a conflict situation is a common one. It is done in order to de-personalize the enemy, to de-humanize him or her, and thus to ameliorate the prospect of extreme action against the enemy.”

-used metaphors as a logic or way to explain how the Jews were a threat, also explains how if the Jews were so inferior how could they pose a threat? Because they were parasites and Aryans were the host. This metaphor reiterates that Jews are biologically evil.

-implies “an end of means moral”

Euphemisms of Death: Interpreting a Primary Source Document on the Holocaust
Richard Kalfus

-What is important to the writer is making the most of time and making the process efficient

-de-humanizing language:
“merchandise” and “pieces” are Jews

-“Objective and dispassionate language of a business memo”
*the genre of a memo alone reinforces that there is a job to do and emotion/compassion are not common elements in business writing

-Just de-humanizing nouns but fails to or cannot dehumanize verbs
“natural tendency”, “screaming always occurs” screaming-“the most human of all actions”

-gassing vans were used to de-humanize the process of killing for the psychological benefit of Nazi executers b/c mass shootings became to emotional for them

-“there is no compromise when efficient time management is a major objective…Any interruption in the gassing process must be avoided”
“Technocratic mentality- sociologist Max Weber and Karl Mannheim…”functional rationality. Not concerned with long term results, but with cost effectiveness.
*A business/a production line. Getting work done. Writing as a tool.

-Memo written by Willy Just, a dispatcher and welder for the SS motor pool
to SS officer Walther Rauff, head of the office of technical affairs in charge of more than 4000 security police motor vehicles.

-not unusual language “they were a norm in a society set as its political goal the annihilation of the Jews” *a discourse community which would have excepted the language choices and content matter b/c they shared the goal.

The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust
Steven B. Katz

-“by an formal criteria in technical communication, it is an almost perfect document.”
Begins with a “purpose statement” that makes an “assumption or goal shared by the audience” *audience analysis/awareness. Then he sets up a problem to be solved. He’s technically justified, and therefore must be right.

-follows the rules of good document design, divided into three numbered sections with white space for easy reading

-argument for changing the vans is “technically accurate and logically argued”

-using cause/effect enthymemes to logically argue for the reduction in load space and how the reduction of load would make the process more efficient (less people, more gas, the faster they die)

-in deliberative rhetoric the goal is expediency (what is advantageous, rather than what is right. A self-interest)

-ethos (the moral element of character) of technical writing is “objectivity logic, and narrow focus” is demonstrated to the max. Calls it the “ethos of expediency:

-de-humanizing language in addition an “ethos of expediency” facilitated the holocaust

-for a writer to perform well in an organization he must adopt the ethos of the organization, “responsibility is shifted from the writer to the organization they represent” by “using passive voice which obscures the role of the agent, and of subordinate clauses that separate subject from verb.”

-stylistic choices “communicate and reveal a group think, an officially sanctioned ethos grounded in expediency”

-Just isn’t just doing his job, he has adopted the ethos. The group think.

-“All deliberative rhetoric is concerned with decision and action. Technical writing, perhaps even more than other kinds of rhetorical discourse, always leads to action, and this always impacts human life.

-In The Rhetoric, Aristotle states “rhetoric is a combination of the science of logic and the ethnical branch of politics.” Rhetoric is a praxis ( a social action) meant to get people to do something, a tool. Phronesis- part of praxis, and it is “practical wisdom or prudence” *which should include ideally what is right and wrong, but if the moral of the society doing the action is unethical and amoral then rhetoric can be used as a means to an evil end and still be considered expedient and useful

-Expediency is always the good, Aristotle says “utility is a good thing” and “any end if a good end”. Progress is a virtue.

-“virture, like knowledge is socially constructed” Hitler made “truths” by creating the science of race and ethnicity. *The society expected it, so it became true.

-science and technology were (and are) the basis for powerful argument to carry out any program. They embody truth, power, capability and thus are logical and ethnical
“Hitler believed in the efficiency of science and technology…
Hitler said: “a movement like ours musn’t let itself be drawn into metaphysical digressions. It must stick to the spirit of exact science.” The ethos of technology is expediency.
-This is what can happen when technology becomes an ethos

-Hitler’s rhetoric was not made to generate conversation or debate, it was meant to indoctrinate, ex: propaganda

-Another example of amoral expediency- when gold filling were taken from the teeth of victims and melted down for the war effort

Articles about writing at work

2008-11-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

Hey Cathy (and Krause),

I am taking this one article at a time. Here are some notes and potential group questions/topics.

Dohney-Farina article: Writing in an Emerging Organization.

*What the researcher wants to know is: how social perceptions influence the writing process and what are the social elements of writing?

*An article like this is relevant b/c it removes writing from school/academia and reveals what parts of writing would be beneficial to teach tech. comm. students.
Also interesting to note, in terms of educational implications of this study, writing is collaborative throughout the process in this scenario, in contrast to writing in college where writing is mostly done as a solitary act until the revision process where there may be peer review or workshop.
Collaboration in this scenario also changed the social and power structure, another example of how writing can change an organization.

*Social and organizational context influence writing and in turn the writing influences the context. So if we sub out the word writing for discourse, and sub social context with rhetorical situation we have again some chicken and egg/Bitzer meets Vatz and Beiscker omletes.
The exigence for the discourse is apparently the financial distress of the company, but arguably another exigence (because there can surely be more than one) is a power struggle between the VPs and the Pres.
Also, if we look at this scenario is terms of the simplistic way he defines elements of the rhetorical situation, we find again another reason to throw stones at poor Bizter because the "audience" is so complex due to their perceptions of their social organization that they can't agree on what the rhetorical situation is.

*The idea that when an organization is forming the initial writing of the organization helps to shape the organization. So in this case, the original business proposal shaped the Microware company, and by rewriting the business proposal in a collaborative way the VPs are trying to reorganize the organization by writing collaboratively to mirror the new production system.

*So the main topic of debate between the VPs and the Pres is the wording in the passage regarding the graphics lab. "At stake in these choices were complex social issues..."

Allen et al: What Experienced Collaborators Say About Collaborative Writing

*Summary of methods: 20 people from different jobs interviewed on what types of collaborative writing they did at work. Data analyzed by demographic information and then by the observations participants made.

*Interesting (for me anyway) to note that people whose jobs were "writers" were excluded from the survey, but most groups reported that in the initial stages of planning they discussed the document's "purpose, content, organization, and audience" (pg 356). Very rhetorical choices.

*Like the VPs in the other study, most groups divided the document up into sections and individually made drafts. Writers reported it was difficult to make first drafts collectively. Most groups used collaboration the most during revision and planning.

*Participants said despite the conflicts and how much more time it took to write collaboratively, the documents produced were better than if they had worked alone. In fact, conflict in the form of opposing view points was thought to help with creativity during group work. In terms of conflict, I think it is important to note that none of these groups had a writing free-for-all. There was a leadership role in each group which kept people on track and just because someone could question a decision didn't mean he/she could change the decision.

*People in these groups created "shared-documents" a term the researchers use to express that collaboration during the writing process was more than a critique or edit at the end, but that a document had co-authors.

*There seemed to be three advantages for group work/collaboration:
1) Labor intensive- it would be a lot of work for one person given the time the document needed to be completed in
2) The task needed people working on it from a variety of areas of expertise
3) The task needed a range of perspectives as one of its primary goals- for instance one of the groups used collaborative writing as a team building exercise in addition to creating a document.

Lester Faigley's What We Learn from Writing on the J-O-B (that spells Job!)

*One of my first thoughts occurred on the second page (560) when Faigley mentions a business letter. I wonder if there has been a decline in the writing of formal business letters with the emergence of email. And if so, there is surely an accepted/professional way to correspond using email. This thought also resurfaced on page 562 in the section about writing off the job where he mentions that people write few personal letters and that the telephone has replaced how people keep in touch. I would assume that now email is used more than phone calls and personal letters.

*The mention of collaborative writing and co-authoring work documents is also present in this article and it is again noted that this type of writing is different than how writing is taught in schools.

*LET'S TALK ABOUT TECHNOLOGY!
When was this article written? The 1400's? Only 25% of people use computers to write!?!
Also, the mention of dictation cracked me up because my dad was a lawyer and used to say everything into a tape recorder for his secretary to transcribe. Poor secretary.

*I think another interesting point is that while these professional were not formally educated in rhetorical theory they knew key elements of it just by the purpose of their writing at work. So what am I going here? Can't I just learn it all when I get there? Oh, I read on and see why....because bad writing leads to miscommunication and is a waste of time. Phew, I was hoping I would be good for something.

Harrison: Frameworks for the Study of Writing in Organization Context

Wow, lady. Ok.

*So Harrison describes three theory lenses to look at rhetoric. Bizter and the rhetorical situation, Classical Rhetoric (which sounds like Positivism), and New Rhetoric which has many theories within it, one of which is that knowledge cannot be separated from the knower and the knower gains perspective based on the social contexts he/she is apart of...because of this, different social contexts have realities and different knowledges.

*Harrison points out that rhetoric in a context is reciprocal. Rhetoric builds communities (like writing/discourse helps to create the identity of a new organization or how discourse can cause an exigence rather than simply being a response to an exigence). In addition, (259) "communities render rhetoric comprehensible"- the rhetoric gains meaning from the realities and knowledge in the community. I think in this same vein of thought, discourse/writing can certainly create a community. Also, discourse is only as useful as the community deems it to be and the community influences what is useful in the rhetoric. Egg egg chicken egg chicken chicken egg.

*This is a problem I have with this article: she doesn't really define terms nor is she constant with terms. What is a context? What is an organization? Are they the same thing? Did you specify and I just missed it because I am so looking forward to watching the Sex and the City movie and this article is all that is in my way? "Organizations are conceived as patterns of symbolic discourse..."?

2008-11-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

Well my first draft of my research proposal for 621 is due this week, so most of my weekend homework hours centered around getting that done and everything that goes with it.

I'm gonna be honest with you, I haven't done any more research for my project because I haven't had a moment. I am still have a few articles (one I have in my possession, the other I am hunting down) that I want to read. I think after I do a mini literature review I'll have a much better idea of what aspects of rhetoric I want to focus on as I deconstruct the memo.

I need to make time to work on the project this week. I've just been so overwhelmed. When is Thanksgiving?

Week 9 Readings, and a Happy Halloween to you!

2008-10-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

Bitzzer: The Rhetorical Situation:

As I understand it, a rhetorical situation is a situation which calls for rhetorical discourse as a way to solve or address exigencies. Rhetorical situations are made up of people, events, objects, exigencies, and restraints. They have to be real (no imaginary eulogies) and they can be complex or simple, organized or unorganized, can mature or can decay (tautological?). I get it, I get it.

The Character of the Rhetorical Situation:

This chapter basically discussed how Vatz disagreed with Bitzer's realist view of the rhetorical situation and argues that the Kennedy assignation example was too ritualistic to be defined as a rhetorical exigency. Biesecker disagreed with Bitzer and Vatz. She said that Vatz just turned Bitzer's words around and made the rhetorical situation objective, rather than realistic. She then deconstructed the rhetorical situation.

Edbaurer:

Jenny thinks that Bitzer's explanation of the rhetorical situation is too simple and looks at other rhetorical theorists who criticize Bitzer and have additional explanations about what goes on in rhetorical situations. By too simple, I mean simple in the way that a communication model set up as a triangle with sender, message, receiver is too simple.

1: Smith and Lybarger say that exigencies are formed both by audience and rhetor. Both the audience and speaker create the sense of a problem. (War on Drugs). This is different than Bitzer, who said the rhetor discovers exigencies that already exist.

2: Another problem Edbaurer has with Bitzer's model is that his terms like audience, constraint, speaker, exigency, objects, are presented as elements. Edbaurer and others argue that real situations are far more messy and that these elements cannot be accurately represented as individual elements, but rather should be presented as a conglamoration.

Then Edbaurer goes on to look at the etymology of the word "situation" and how it comes from the Latin word for "site", which is obviously a fixed and physical place. I don't think this is exactly what Bitzer meant by "situation".

Jenny (as I will refer to her now and from this moment on) begins to discuss the rhetorical situation as more of a rhetorical ecology because this explanation does a better job of making all the elements Bitzer had defined as less static and separate from each other and is a more open system than the one Bitzer described.

To frame her discussion of rhetorical ecology, Jenny talks about Austin, Texas. I will briefly state what Jenny states: Austin had a shit economy up until the 1990's when it become a major player in technological business (lots of dot.coms). Once this happened people moved into the city, the cost of living went up, and many unique shops were replaced by Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc. Finally two guys, one owned a record store and the other a book store, decided to make "Keep Austin Weird" bumper stickers to promote awareness of the commercialization of the city taking away local businesses that had once been staples of the community. Other businesses got the bumper sticker with the logo, and the slogan grew to the point you could find it on all types of surfaces all over Austin. Then, white paper on Austin's economics mentioned "weird Austin", so the slogan made it all the way to the realm of politics.

So what does Jenny explain the rhetorical ecology of "Keep Austin Weird" is? Well initially she looks at how the slogan/rhetoric morphed throughout the community (library, college, font use, make austin normal). She calls it a "viral spread"- the way the rhetoric spread through the community and was used to solve and address multiple exigencies other than the original one (which was created by people who were both audience and rhetors). In my opinion, this example is used basically to say that Bitzer was too simple, a situation is a term that is too grounded, and "ecology" better expresses a more realistic, complicated, messy, and layered rhetorical happening that is a lot of happenings all at once.

Molecular Biology:

I thought one of the most interesting observations made in the Hallohan article was the mention of all three articles being published in the same place at the same time. This was a conscious choice by the scientists because they wanted to reach a wide audience and, if I understand correctly, they knew that their articles would support each other's theories. I also found it interesting that he noted the stylistic tone of the scientist's writing.

Let's talk about my research paper..

2008-10-26T18:13:00.001-07:00

Well I have read 2.5 articles on my topic. More like 2.75. I couldn't finish the last .25 of the last article because I was starting not to understand anything and was falling asleep. I am still in hot pursuit of the article I mentioned in my last blog, but am pretty sure after some extensive looking that our library does not have it.

I know I will need to read a few more articles before I even attempt to start analyzing this memo.

Some terms that are coming up in my research that I am having a hard time getting concrete understanding of are:

social-epistemic rhetoric (as described by Berlin)

political expediency, or rhetorical expediency, or expediency

Phrases I do understand:

deliberative rhetoric

praxis

phronesis

How many sources do we have to have?
Sunday night homework is officially over.

Let's Get Smart!

2008-10-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

Sir Karl Popper:

Well, it is safe to say that a lot of this article went right over my head. However, the parts that I think I understand were fairly "logical".

The first idea I struggled with, and what probably made understanding the rest of the article difficult, was wrapping my head around what Popper meant by inductive. Inductive methods, inductive reasoning, problem of induction, principle of induction. It's everywhere, so I had to first try to understand what induction meant in this context. As I understood it, induction was taking specific details and using them to construct universal principles. So like the faulty example in the text, I see a ton of white swans (specific detail/personal experience) so I make the claim that all swans are white (universal statement). Thus the problem of induction, because somewhere out there a gray swan could exisit.

The next idea I latched on to was tautology. I decided (after some reading on dictionary.com) that this word in this context meant a faulty kind of logic (A is or is not A). An example of tautology from the text: "It will or will not rain tomorrow." Well duh. This is my way of testing if something is good logic, if you want to say "well duh" after it, that means it is bad logic. And in a sentence s simple as the one about rain, it is well duh. But I bet since scientists are smart people that a tautological sentence could be written and the "well duh" factor would be much more difficult to detect. Because of this, Popper feels that a statement or theory must be both provable and falsifiable for it to be empirical and true.

There was a conflict of thought in the text I found interesting and also unresolved. Popper seems to be saying that science needs to be objective. Biases and opinions take away from the possible validity of theories. There is a better chance of proving something if metaphysics stays out of the way. But Einstein is quotes in the text as saying that all theories, theses, and ideas about the natural world are based in creative thought and opinion. I agree with Einstein, but I can see how letting your heart guide your research can make some pretty garbage research.

This article just reinforces to me how problematic the positivists notion of Truth is.

Kenneth Burke:

I found the discussion of symbols and reality pretty intense, specifically the part where Burke is talking about how dependent humans are on symbols for out constructs of reality. He almost suggests that without maps, the layout of the continents and the oceans wouldn't really be "real" for us, despite existing.

I think the idea of terministic screens was explained clearly in this article. The example of Watson, Bowlby (creeper), and St. Augustine demonstrated how all three men observed the habits of infants, and based on their observations created/used different terms to describe similar actions, thus creating different realities of the same actions. Terministic screens seem to not only involve word choice, but also the context of the words in the field and social situation they are being used in.

Continuity and discontinuity are like comparing and contrasting terms. We can use terms to describe how something is like something, or how something is unlike something. But based on the Darwin example, using terms like this shouldn't be mutually exclusive because then the terms can fail to be accurate. It is the same as omitting the mention of certain writing that contradicts the claim you are trying to make on a certain topic. By neglecting to accurately present all sides of an argument or idea, the idea you are making is inaccurate and can be unethical.

Working Thesis Proposal

2008-10-20T08:36:00.001-07:00

Rebecca Hurvitz
October 20, 2008
ENGL 505
Working Thesis Proposal

Last fall in my ENGL 424: Technical Writing class, we were given a memo to read and discuss. The memo’s To, From, Subject, and Date lines had been covered up with marker, removing it from a context. The memo embodied many aspects of quality technical writing. It presented a problem and gave suggestions and rationales for fixing the problem. It was also organized in a user friendly way that conformed to the conventional standards of memo writing. It was not until the context of the memo was revealed, did the formerly seeming perfect memo become beyond problematic.

The memo was written during WWII and is regarding technical changes made to vans used to gas prisoners of the Nazis. This memo exemplifies many aspects of deliberative rhetoric discussed by Aristotle. Within the memo, there are issues of ethos and logos. Pathos is highly avoided for reasons of avoiding discussions of human beings. There are also elements of document design, organization, and word choice that make this memo a solid example of technical writing. The memo also uses various topoi, as described by Aristotle. Ultimately, the memo is meant to be a tool to generate action, a means to an end. But what if the ends are unethical? What if the means of persuasion are used to persuade people to do terrible things?

Aristotle wanted deliberative rhetoric to cause people to make a decision and act quickly so that there would be more time for other things, presumably philosophical enlightenment. In the memo being discussed, the writer wanted modifications made to the vans to be done quickly so that the process of gassing prisoners would not slow down. Technical writing and deliberative rhetoric have been and continue to be used as an effective means of getting things done in political and business arenas. When this type of writing is used to generate action that can be deemed moral and ethnical (or at least harmless) it is considered a good thing and a useful tool. But this memo clearly displays a way in which rhetoric was used to create efficiency for an unethical purpose.

Much literature exists on Nazi rhetoric. Propaganda, for instance, is a perfect example of the Nazi party using rhetorical practices to target a specific audience and change their thinking and behaviors using enthymemes, metaphors, and the presentation of “scientific facts”. For the purposes of my research paper, I am most interested in analyzing this specific memo that I have mentioned. I find this interesting because it is essential of piece of business writing, an example of technical communication, which is the field I will entering.

When thinking about a topic for this research project, I initially was trying to pay attention to current events and political happenings. I realized early on that a recent event would be difficult to do a rhetorical analysis on because there wouldn’t be much preexisting literature available. After we rhetorically analyzed the Challenger disaster, and looked closely at the memos exchanged between technicians and managers, I remembered seeing the Nazi memo last year.

My working thesis statement for my research project is, “Just [the author of the memo] demonstrates through his memo an understanding of rhetorical elements that stimulate action and agreement. This memo can be rhetorical analyzed to reveal the different means by which the Nazi party used rhetoric to facilitate the Holocaust.” The rhetorical elements I plan to write about include the ethos of the author and the logical ways he presents his suggestions. I also want to discuss his word choice, and how it is intended to make the prisoners sound like non-human objects, but clearly fails in certain places in the memo. In addition, I want to talk about the role of deliberative rhetoric to promote action and agreement, and the potential repercussions if it is not used in a moral way. I think it might be important to also note in my paper how Aristotle writes about ethics in rhetoric, and how it should be practiced and taught.

I knew before doing some primarily research that there would be a lot of articles on Nazi rhetoric because I have done research papers for other classes that had topics involving WWII. I did not know, however, if I would find any analyses of this particular memo. Miraculously I have already found two. I don’t think I will need to find any more articles specifically relating to this article, but rather I will need to find more general articles about the use of rhetoric by the Nazi party. This way I will be more able to form my own opinions and theories about the use (or rather misuse) of rhetoric in this memo. I also anticipate consulting Aristotle’s On Rhetoric frequently while writing this paper.

One of my concerns about this project is that I am limiting myself by only focusing on one memo. I wonder if I will be able to write 15 pages of rhetorical analysis on a document that is only about a page long. I chose to focus on one document, however, because I feel that the amount of literature on Nazi rhetoric will be so overwhelming that it is in my best interest for both sanity and time’s sake to have a very focused line of inquiry. If I am finding difficultly generating writing when I actually begin to write the paper, I may expand the documents I am studying and tweak my thesis.

As stated earlier, I have an interest in this specific document because it is an example of technical communication, which is my area of study and hopefully will be my future field of work. I also have an interest in the study of the Holocaust. As an undergraduate I took the course Culture and the Holocaust, as well as Jewish American Literature. For my capstone paper in Literature 490 I wrote about how Jewish American authors write using the Holocaust as a topic for their literature. I have an interest in the Holocaust, as well as a decent amount of previous knowledge on the subject, therefore I do not feel that I will become bored or disinterested while writing this paper.

****An article I sitll want to get my hands on for this paper:

The Rhetoric of Hitler's "Battle" by Kenneth Burke

Reading, reading, reading...

2008-10-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hey, I know this is GRAD school, but MAN...there is a lot of paper in front of me this week. So here we go:

Alford:
What an interesting article. To me, this article is all about discourse communities. Modern doctors reading Thucydides not only understand the writing, but trust it. Why? Well, because T is using terminology accepted and known in the medical world. Despite "emotional" aspects in the account of the plague, T writes using medical terms that are currently used today. He also writes in a format that doctors write in today. So while a rhetorician or translator, or any other scholar outside of the medical field may find this confusing and difficult, a doctor can find familiarity in both wording and format. The text is useful to those in the medical discourse community b/c it uses terms they use and it written in a way they are used to.

Harris:
Since I started this program, the difficulty in explaining what exactly we are doing has been ever present. It is difficult it explain what rhetoric really is. It is difficult to list everything technical communication entails. It is impossible to explain to aunts and uncles how a professional writer earns a living. It is nice to know scientists in master's programs also have this problem.

So people want to study and discuss rhetoric of science. But this is problematic because both rhetoric and science have "many loose ends". But basically, very basically, scientists want to present their findings of things that happen in nature, and they want other scientists to accept their findings. To do this, they use rhetoric as a way to persuade and present to a specific audience. Rhetoric is like a tool, used by scientists, to share with others what is going on in nature.

Zerbe:
According to this article, scientific discourse is writing that describes scientific data using the IMRAD scheme (kind of like Thucydides). To me that is the same as scientific rhetoric, except that the format is specific. The word discourse to me also connotates a sense of community or communal understanding. So people writing and reading this type of discourse will know the purpose of it and how to navigate through the text. This is a personal assumption, probably having to do with the term 'discourse community'. What makes this described discourse different from Harris' described rhetoric, is that because this discourse is dealing exclusively with empirical evidence it seems more goal-centered in providing a Truth. Once again, I still feel like writing and everything it entails is used in the sciences and other fields and a communicative tool.

Newman:
I think this article demonstrates how modern thoughts and practices involving scientific and technical writing can be looked at through an Aristotelian framework. I wish Newman would have given some more concrete examples of how that works, like what types of examples she showed her classes. For instance, when she mentions warning labels, I wish she would have written what elements of that were so Aristotle on rhetoric. I think I crave examples because I am really into particulars at the moment. I also thought this article would have been even more interesting if she elaborated on what she alluded to in her conclusion about Aristotle's theory of rhetoric being applied to other aspects of technical communication, such as document design and audience analysis. I know we are focusing on scientific writing this week, but I would really like to read something about how Aristotelian rhetoric theory can be applied to forms of PR writing.

Myers:
Isn't that funny? Didn't I just say I wanted to read something about rhetorical theory and PR? And this was the next article! Dr. Tracy told us in my PR class last winter that if you can get people to donate money then you will always have a job. It seems slightly unethical to get people to donate money by playing with their emotions, but is it really "playing?" A lot of people donate because of personal reasons, like guilt or a personal investment in a cause. Audience analysis and awareness of audience demographic are ways of (for lack of a better word) targeting people who will feel connected to a charity and therefore be more inclined to donate. I liked Myers discussion of how style plays into a charity letter. Style can make a letter seem more professional and legitimate, as well as "clever", which could increase the odds of someone donating. I also thought the use of religion in charity letters was interesting. I liked this article. I think we should write charity letters as a class activity.

Thoughts on a Thesis Topic:

2008-10-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

I think I want to look at documents created by the Nazi party during WW2.
In the technical writing ungrad class, we looked at a memo that I mentioned in an earlier blog entry. I bet I could find a lot more memos like that and a lot of articles about them. I am pretty set on this topic, but I would like to talk about topics in class and hear what everyone else is doing...and maybe get some feedback on this idea. I haven't started doing any research just yet. I hope I kept that memo.

More on A

2008-10-08T18:57:00.001-07:00

I think it is interesting that ancients like physical evidence in trials, but rather preferred probability. That is pretty much opposite of everything I know about trials today, based on Law and Order episodes.

Paradigms: 1)talk about things that have happened 2)make up illustrations (comparisons, fables).

I don't understand the talk about paradigms and enthymemes in 2.20.9. It is something about when to use an enthymeme over a paradigm, but I can't really wrap my head around this one.

The conclusion of an enthymeme is a maxim (thought, opinion given as judgement, assertion of a generality). The maxims a speaker makes can affect how an audience views the speaker.

I think the chapters 23 and 24 my view that this books seems like a rhetoric cook book. I also think it is interested how he uses examples to demonstrate how to use the different kids of enthyemes. This shows an understanding of learning, that people learn from seeing examples as well as from explanations.

Book 3
Ch 2

-style is defined as being clear, which is different from how we would define style now. And style should be appropriate.

I don't think modern people would agree that people like what is far off and unknown (words or otherwise.) I think now people are more inclined to like what is familiar. In terms of public speaking, I think a speaker may sound arrogant of he used a bunch complex or jargony words on an audience who wasn't in the exact same discourse community. Later in the chapter, A suggest stylizing with the audience in mind and usin words that are suitable for them.

Ch 14

According to A, the most important need for an intro is to make clear what the "end" of the speech will be. So in that way, it is like stating a thesis up front, and the rest of the speech is supporting the thesis. It is also the time to ask for the audience to be attentive. I the audience knows already about the subject, or if the subject is straight forward, an intro is not needed.

Letters to the editor:

I think the second letter reflects ideas of word choice and style that A discusses in 3.2.

The first and third letter call for attention to community problems and exhort on the topics. This seems liek one of the categories A would suggest we need rhetoric for.

Notes on Aristotle, but only from the begining of book 2 to 2.19

2008-10-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

Rhetoric is concerned with producing a judgment. Still true. Although I think a modern writer when writing about the purposes of rhetoric would elaborate. To make a judgment sounds less sneaky than persuading.

Things I thought about in the discussion of PATHOS:

By giving emotions opposites, there was a neglect to view emotions in a range. In other words, by describing emotions as polar opposites, the variations of emotions isn't addressed. While this does read like a psychology book, much is missing (at least to a modern reader). I also think it would have been helpful for more explanation of how to use emotion for the purposes of rhetoric. A's readers are reading to learn about rhetoric. If knowing about emotions is important to being a successful rhetor, I am failing to find where A specifically says how and why. He does say that evoking emotion is helpful in swaying judgment, but that's not enough explanation for me.

I just learned the word sycophant. Brown noser. Ass kisser.

From the chapters so far I am finding A's description of these elements of rhetoric as very theatrical. In these chapters, ethos seems more like developing a character when acting, which is much different than how a modern reader/writer may explain ethos. I would explain it as the persona a writer takes on; for instance, creating a sense of credibility in writing.

As for the discussion of possible and impossible:
If it is possible for writing to be clear, it is clearly possible for it to be impossibly or possibly unclear. That's what I think about that.

2008-10-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't given much thought to my project because I have been so wrapped up in reading and writing for a literature review on my master's project question.

I would love it so much if I could make the project for this class relate to my other project. I mean, they don't have to be on exactly the same subject, but if I could just write about something that would expand my knowledge or lead me to new resources I would be happy.

So I am trying to find a topic involving writing in the workplace. Or maybe something about software...or document design.

When is Thanksgiving break?

A is for Aristotle

2008-10-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

Intro, Ch 1-7 and 12

I have been feeling a little under the weather all weekend, and am admittedly on some –the-counters right now, so please forgive my short and possible incoherent blog entries for this week.

I thought reading this would be like reading Shakespeare. You can get through it on the first pass, and pick out a few sequences of words that make sense. But more often than not you need to read it a few times, check out some foot notes, and google a few choice phrases. So while this text wasn’t in Old English, I still had some googling and footnote reading to do. These are some words that took me a few tries to wrap my head around.
Parts of logic in rhetoric:

Inductions- the use of examples
OR
Deductions/Enthymemes- a syllogism is which the conclusion isn’t explicit because it assumes that the knowledge is well known and doesn’t need to be stated

Syllogism: all a is c, all b is a, therefore all b is c

Dictionary.com is a good source to start when trying to figure out what these words mean. The introduction helped a lot too.

I guess I don’t really have a good understanding of the evolution of human development. It seems to me that if these people could think about huge concepts of philosophy and rhetoric, they could easily figure out an advanced system of indoor plumbing or electricity. And further more, it seems to me in certain parts of this text, that rhetoric is in large part a tool for explaining philosophical ideas. That seems like a simple thought now that I have typed it out, but in my head it seemed like a big deal not but a few seconds ago.

I think I understand dialectic as like verbal logic wars. Or maybe like a debate team. I wish that was still taught. I guess law school could count.

I also think it is pretty funny that this book is the combination of several books, the first meant for students who studied dialectic, and so A wrote the book with them as the audience in mind. Then, if I understand it right, added on to the book with a different audience in mind, thus making certain parts of the book not line up. Since audience is such a big part of the rhetorical practice, and he is writing as an expert on rhetoric, shouldn’t he have maybe done some rewriting?

Oh, I know what a treatise is now.
Exhort- to give urgent advice or warn.

I thought it was interesting that A points out 3 times which rhetoric should be used. We think of it as being used all the time, especially when writing. I also thought it was interesting that A identified the components of rhetoric, like a audience, the speaker, the shared knowledge, the purpose. These along with ethos, pathos, and logos are how I have come to understand rhetoric through school.

My chapter on wrong doing seems like an ancient Greek psychology.

Journal 2: what am I going to write about...

2008-09-27T14:14:00.000-07:00

Well my paper topic is still up in the air. But I was recently remembering a reading I did in Old Steve Benninghoff's class last year. It was a memo used by the Nazi party about transporting Jews and other prisoners in camps. We (the students) didn't know any background about the memo and after reading it made predictions about the context in which the memo was used. None of us figured it out. We were all pretty shocked at the wording of the document.

I also read another article, for what class I'm not sure, about the use of radios in French and German tanks during WW2. The argument in the was basically that the radios in the German tanks gave them an upper hand over the French in the onset of the war and thus possibly changing history. The French did also have radios in their tanks, but not as many, and more importantly...they were not using them as affectively as the Nazis.

These two glimpses into rhetoric and technology during WW2 makes me think I can certainly find an event of phenomenon during the war to write about that would interest me.

Journal 2, on readings, now Phaedrus

2008-09-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

When reading this bit I paid closest attention to the section on writing, speech making, and rhetoric. I did this because there was a lot to read, and I figured this was the stuff that was most important for our purposes. The auxiliary reading on the play sure helped a lot, specifically the WIkipedia stuff, which served as a translator and a Cliff Notes.

So here are some of the key points I thought were relevant:

Phaedrus claims that you don't really need to know the truth about what you are arguing as long as you know how to argue. Pretty much creating the idea that anyone can bullshit if they are a good bullshiter. Socrates disagrees and says that while that is not only unethical, it is also ineffective. If you really want to persuade, you have to know what you are taking about and here is why...you need to make metaphors and similes. If you can't do that, then you can't persuade, and you can't make those word combinations unless you know the truth about what you are talking about. So the bullshitter would be like the doctor who can raise and lower body temp, but a rhetor or a good speech maker/writer knows why and when to change the body temperature.

Plato also points out that writing, unlike speaking, can only serve as a reminder to someone who already knows about the subject matter being written about. To really gain knew knowledge, speech is needed because it is interactive and allows for questions.

Journal 2, on the readings for 9/29

2008-09-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

Well I know I printed that Ong article, but I can't find it and am not anywhere where I can reprint it. So if I find it before Monday I will update my blog for sure. IN the meantime, I just finished reading the Reid article. I have a sneaking suspicion this is one of those readings that we will talk about in class and I'll think "oh, I get it now." In other words, I bet somewhere in here among words like "materiality", "discursive", and "cognition" there was a fairly easy to explain point that just sailed right over my head. I will for blogging purposes, however, try to point out some things I did understand.

I understand that there is a school of thought that considers thinking an internal process and writing an external practice. Writing, speaking, and the use of symbols (all rhetoric, really) were a way to make knowledge a social and on-going act. This creative explosion that Reid talks about seem like a symbol-use explosion. When early people began to use symbols it gave them a way to represent something that wasn't physically present, thus making them aware of dimensions of space. It was also a way to help remember things by making a concrete representation of the memory or thought they were trying to keep. In this article, writing and symbol use is considered a technology.

OK, now we're going to talk about the readings...

2008-09-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

For what it is worth, I liked having a focus question when I was doing the reading. In my last blog about the reading I mostly summarized. I found myself thinking more critically about the articles this week, and also comparing them, because of the focus question ("think about which article is rhetorically more persuasive? "which one makes the most sense?")

I read Winsor first and thought her argument was weak. Her argument being that one of the reasons for a failure in communication was because people don't want to talk about and take in bad news? While I am sure you could find evidence to support such a theory, she really didn't do that in her article. Rather, she used her theory as explanation.

In my opinion, Tufte's argument was the most persuasive and made the most sense. I read this one second and based my opinion of the other three off of this text. To summarize what I think the point Tufte is trying to make is: the engineers had a lot of data, and to a good extent knew what was going on. What the engineers failed at was relaying the knowledge they had to the managers in a way that the managers could ingest it. While the graphs and charts they presented contained empirical data, it was not presented in a clear and easy to interpret way. Riddle me this...these people are rocket scientists (literally) and they can't effectively create a chart or present an experiment. Where is Bill Nye?

In the Gross and Walzner article, I felt like the rhetorical strategy was to represent fault in two other theories, and make the air-is-toe-til-yan theory sound the best. While the Aristotelean theory does sound pretty good, it didn't hurt to shoot down positivists and postmodernists early on. One point in this article I though interesting was when the authors claim that when Lund (an engineer) was asked during the discussions to delay the launch to take of his engineering hat and put on a manager hat, that is proves people can see things in other perspectives outside of their community. I don't think that Lund's compliance proves anything, it could simply mean he didn't want to get the boot.

Something I though of while reading (after I read Tufte) was the rhetoric is not only an act of persuaded, but also includes the act of being persuaded. May seem obvious, but this is my blog and that was my thought.

Another connection I made was in the Hendrl, Fennell, and Miller article in the discussion of the interpretation of the two memos based on the background of the two authors and how it related to Tufte's discussion of the graphs lacking authorship and that affecting how people would read them as credible sources.

I wrote a lot of notes in the margins, but right now my eyes are crossing so I am done typing. Good night.

A first time to think about a research paper...

2008-09-18T17:07:00.000-07:00

And maybe it won't even be a paper. Maybe I will cross over the threshold and really embrace this thing called technology. Let's not talk about the medium just yet. First, a little brainstorming of the content is in order.

So I have only read the Winsor Challenger article so far, but the idea of looking at something like the Challenger disaster is giving me ideas. First I thought to think of current events, and while I shamefully admit I don't watch the news as much as I should, I thought of the Kwame text messages and how technology and rhetoric played into that scenario. I am not going to totally rule this option out, but I am shying away from it because I don't think there will be much literature analyzing that particular writing just yet. Maybe in a few years. Maybe by the time I come back for my doctorate...SIKE! (not).

Another idea I had was to think of something related to my writing project question. I think this would be a good way to scholastically multi-task. I could cross use readings and research. My research question has to do with the percentages/ratios of actual "writing-writing" and computer tasks in professional writing careers.

I always like writing papers about Tower Inn. I never realized how much writing goes on there and how many rhetorical communities make up my shitty job sight. I have written a one or two papers about Tower since I have been in grad school. I like it because I am truly an expert on the subject, having worked there for 4 years and knowing a lot about positions other than my own. Because of this I can really apply a theory or argument to the subject of Tower because I am so immersed and knowledgeable about the place and practices.

Most likely, however, I will read an article in here that will create a small thunder storm in my brain. I am waiting for some serious inspiration, and am attempting to achieve it through heurisitic exercises, but if it doesn't come as organically as I would like it I am pretty much a master of thinking up paper topics. In other words, I ain't stressin'.

Journal 1

2008-09-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Since we haven’t discussed the research yet, I am going to go ahead and focus this very first blog entry on the readings. The reading being: Booth Ch. 1 and 2, Herrick, Young, and Miller.

Let’s start with Miller, since I read this one once before and maybe therefore have a better understanding of it this time around. One of the things I have liked most about my graduate career is the new and smart words I have not only learned, but also learned how to use in sentences. Words like this include (but are not limited to): epistemology, pedagogy, heuristic, empirical, and positivism. Many of said words are in this article.

So basically Miller starts of the article explaining the positivist view of science, which relies of things that can be seen and measured as ways of proving scientific truths. Words, rhetoric, feelings and emotions are not accurate ways to record and present reality because they are imperfect and unquantifiable.

Technical and scientific writing need to be objective to be effective (positivist view). The problem is that there needs to be a way to discuss and present scientific findings. Language is the way to do that, but can be subjective.

In the second part of the article Miller examines the problems with trying to define what technical writing is, and how trouble in defining the field and practice makes teaching technical writing problematic.

Something I thought was interesting about the later part of the article was the communalist perspective on technical writing. This includes ideas of discourse communities, agreeing on terminology, and bridging the gap between the sciences and humanities.

Glamour and grammar, if it wasn’t in print this would seem like a stretch.

The first point I noted in the article was Genung’s idea that creativity cannot be taught, however, style and form can. This reminded me of the two schools of thought that surround what makes a good writer: good writing can be taught vs. good writing is a talent/gift. The new rhetoric camp is trying to ways to teach discovery and inspiration. I think it can be taught, in the sense that you can aid creativity by doing certain things. For instance, in a poetry workshop I took we were giving assignment like “go for a walk with your ipod in and think about the lyrics of the song in contrast to the scenery, then write a sestina about it.”

The rest of the articles discussion of arts vs. crafts was interesting. I personally think that some people are naturally more creative then others. Left brain, right brain, no brain…some things just come more easily to some. And I do agree that anyone can learn what a memo looks like, or a fact sheet and it would be harder to teach someone what makes a great press release or short story. However, I firmly believe that within all forms and genres of writing there is a level of creativity.
Herrick’s article, like the other articles, presents the way rhetoric has and continues to be viewed as a means of persuasion. Persuasion has some negative connotations, like propaganda. But really Herrick explains that when we communicate, verbally or through writing, we are looking for agreement and understanding. These agreements and understanding come by negotiating ideas, and compliance to these ideas often comes from one rhetor persuading or convincing the other.

I noted how this article broke down rhetoric. Rhetoric is a huge idea, hence the difficulty in defining it. Herrick breaks off rhetorical discourse and rhetorical theory into separate part and therefore more specific definitions. Herrick also breaks down methods of persuasion. Presented in this way, it seems less like propaganda and more like a well thought out legal defense.

Herrick also points out all the good things rhetoric can do. Why didn’t Plato think of this stuff? Distribution of power, advocacy, discovery of facts, and so on.

The first things that interested me in the Booth chapters, which I could relate to the Young article, is that during and after The Enlightenment inventio fell in importance and elocutio rose up. Creativity became less important in the study of rhetoric, and form and style became more important. The fact that elocution was easier to teach and more conducive to scientific writing may have had something to do with the shift in importance.

There was a lot to digest in these chapters. One thing I thought when I was reading the many synonyms for rhetoric, both bad and good, was that it is probably made even more difficult to come up with a modern definition of rhetoric because of all these names.

Another point of interest in my reading was when Booth discusses how even though there is a new interest in the field and new literature being published on rhetoric, some people are reluctant to include the word rhetoric in the title. This reminded me of a Dr. Dunn relaying a story Dr. Baker told him about being a HS English teacher and not telling me at parties what he did for a living because of their negative assumptions of what it meant to be a HS English teacher.

Where did summer go?

2008-09-08T18:52:00.001-07:00

Testing, testing....1,2,3.