Cornerstone First Semester Midterm
Composing Your Work
The Rhetorical Triangle
Meaning is co-created
Variables to analyze:
The Author— who are they? Why are then an expert? What’s their purpose?
The Audience— who is the author aiming at? What are pour attitudes/values/beliefs/knowledge on the matter? How is that going to affect our interpretation of the message?
The Message—what information is given? What is NOT given? Evidence? Argument? Does everything make sense? What’s the genre?
Context— what else is going on? (Locally? Globally? Nationally?)
Working towards a statement of purpose
Involves analysis of:
Your communication purpose
Will have multiple
Get a good grade
Appear competent to your audience
General purpose: to inform persuade, and/or entertain
Specific purpose: Central idea to your paper/speech/project’s thesis
The audience
Who is your target audience?
What characteristics/attitudes/knowledge/values/beliefs do they hold?
How can you best communicate with them?
This overlaps with strategies
The context
Involves place and time
Also takes into account the overarching situation and what’s currently going on
Example: Sexual Assault on College Campuses. **Girl from UV Mills
Effective strategies
What communication strategies will appeal to your audience?
Think of some that smokes
Think of all the different persuasive appeals to use against smoking
Think about which one would likely be most effective with that person?
The Medium
The best format to use to convert your thoughts
What do audiences tend to expect with any particular format?
Papers
Readability, few to no graphics
Presentations
Professional visuals, handouts, engaging style
Websites
Ease at navigation, simplicity, less text, more visuals, interactive
The arrangement/organization
The order that we present our arguments
Is there a better order?
A Trial Run
Testing our you’re working with some members of the intended audience
Use their feedback to revise work
Beginning Drafting
Find a
The Rhetorical Triangle
Meaning is co-created
Variables to analyze:
The Author— who are they? Why are then an expert? What’s their purpose?
The Audience— who is the author aiming at? What are pour attitudes/values/beliefs/knowledge on the matter? How is that going to affect our interpretation of the message?
The Message—what information is given? What is NOT given? Evidence? Argument? Does everything make sense? What’s the genre?
Context— what else is going on? (Locally? Globally? Nationally?)
Working towards a statement of purpose
Involves analysis of:
Your communication purpose
Will have multiple
Get a good grade
Appear competent to your audience
General purpose: to inform persuade, and/or entertain
Specific purpose: Central idea to your paper/speech/project’s thesis
The audience
Who is your target audience?
What characteristics/attitudes/knowledge/values/beliefs do they hold?
How can you best communicate with them?
This overlaps with strategies
The context
Involves place and time
Also takes into account the overarching situation and what’s currently going on
Example: Sexual Assault on College Campuses. **Girl from UV Mills
Effective strategies
What communication strategies will appeal to your audience?
Think of some that smokes
Think of all the different persuasive appeals to use against smoking
Think about which one would likely be most effective with that person?
The Medium
The best format to use to convert your thoughts
What do audiences tend to expect with any particular format?
Papers
Readability, few to no graphics
Presentations
Professional visuals, handouts, engaging style
Websites
Ease at navigation, simplicity, less text, more visuals, interactive
The arrangement/organization
The order that we present our arguments
Is there a better order?
A Trial Run
Testing our you’re working with some members of the intended audience
Use their feedback to revise work
Beginning Drafting
Find a