In the first chapter of Ancient Rhetorics, Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee introduce us to a number of rhetorical concepts that we will be learning more about this quarter. Since we weren’t able to meet today as a class, I’d like to know what you found to be the most interesting or engaging idea about writing or rhetoric that you learned from this chapter. Take a moment to tell us what it was that you found to be new and interesting and then explain this concept in your own words. As you conclude your response, tell us how you think this idea might useful to you as a writer. Also, if you had any questions about this chapter—something you didn’t understand or were confused by—go ahead and post them here. We can use these questions to start class on Monday if we need to.
Post your response here as a comment to this post before class on Monday. Aim for 250-350 words. I look forward to reading your response.
I found the first two sentences to be very interesting. They state, “When Americans hear the word rhetoric, they tend to think of politicians’ attempts to deceive them. Rhetoric is characterized as ‘empty words’ or as fancy language used to distort the truth or tell lies.” I have never studied rhetoric or put much thought into what it may mean, but I would have never guess what the authors stated. I also found it interesting that, “In ancient times, people used to rhetoric to make decisions, resolve disputes, and to mediate public discussion of important issues.” When people were in disputes they made deceiving comments to end the fight or settle on agreements. The comments they made were carefully worded to be persuasive and influential over another party. People today still use rhetoric, such as politician like the book stated. Also, in general conversation, persuasion is used frequently to manipulate people or make a statement believable. Many of the terms in the book were intriguing as well. These included proposition and invention. A proposition is a rhetor’s statement that includes any sort of false information or exaggeration. Inventions are the building of rhetorical statements in conversation to help build argument. Rhetoricians are very clever people because creating such persuasion is challenging and must be perfected to affect all different personalities.
ReplyDeleteIn my writing, rhetoric will be useful in forming arguments. Persuasive writing is difficult however through studying rhetoric and learning techniques for being convincing, especially in opinionated writing, will be very helpful. Getting readers to accept opinions and arguments in writing is hard because people are entitled to their opinions and many people choose to play the “devil’s advocate”. Counter arguments can be formed for almost any statement in writing that is not fact but good rhetoric skills will lessen the amount of arguments that can be formed.
Through my experiences in school, evidence has always been pushed to be included, if not the main event, in writing. Crowley and Hawhee address this issue in a way that, at first, upset me, but once the concept was fully explained, I agreed and found the idea more useful than I had thought in the past. As important as I have always found including empirical evidence into writing, I have always supported that personal opinions be a significant portion as well. As Crowley and Hawhee introduced the subject of empirical evidence, I was under the impression that they were arguing it was the most and important piece of rhetoric. However, it was further explained that personal opinion and theory aid in the completion of rhetoric in combination with facts. This point was stressed significantly and pushed me to consider how important this really was. I have always included both entities, but I’m not sure I have done this in a way to carry my argument as strongly as I should have. I have been inclined to use less explanation of my own opinion and more inclusion of hard evidence. Of course my writings have always stemmed from my opinions, but I have shied away from really saying they were mine, rather, it has always been other authors who have voiced the same opinion as my own. It seems to me that without stating your personal opinion, rhetoric has much less conviction. As explained in chapter 1, rhetoric is not rhetoric unless there are conflicting views. I believe that further balancing empirical evidence with personal opinion will improve my writing and argumentative skills significantly.
ReplyDeleteOne concept in the first chapter of Ancient Rhetoric that I found interesting was the network of interpretation. Unless the facts of the world are involved in a larger network of interpretation they will not mean too much to anyone. As an example Crowley and Hawhee talked about football, the network of interpretation in football is the rules of the game. Without the rules of football in place, “the exact placement of a player`s arm or the exact point at which his feet touched the ground” would lose all its relevance. Another example is when “geologists use the fossil record as evidence to support the theory of evolution”. Since facts are unreliable without the network of interpretation, rhetors usually do not argue with only using a list of facts. One very interesting example that is provided in this chapter is the idea of arguments from example. Advertisements for MP3 players may “show a silhouette of a woman dancing energetically, hair flying, while wearing headphones and holding a distinctive-looking MP3 player in her hand”. Advertisers assume that this example will make people believe that if they buy that same MP3 player that the girl in the advertisement is using they too will be able to dance like her and be as fun and energetic as she is. There are no facts presented in this argument although it is still very persuasive to the people watching. Often times rhetors who put full focus on using just the facts, may limit their “persuasive potential”.
ReplyDeleteIt didn’t take me long to find an idea that really caught my eye in the first chapter of this book. I read the sentence “If people didn’t disagree, rhetoric wouldn’t be nessecary. But they do, and it is” (Crowley and Hawhee, 2) about ten times over. It really made me realize how much argument has helped the world progress through time in many different ways. The concept of “argument”, although it isn’t really presented as an idea for writing, has always been an important part of society, especially in America. There are endless amounts of TV shows based upon people arguing with each other, arguments that usually end with security escorting someone off the set while the said debater yells vulgarities at their opponent. In the past, arguments or debates have sparked so many ideas and concepts that may not have ever been possible or even thought of without an argument to get the ideas out. For example, when America put a man on the moon, we only worked so hard to achieve that because we wanted to beat the Soviet Union. Although this was not an argument, the tension between the two nations led them to progress further than they ever thought they would be able to. In some situations, arguments can turn violent, but when used in a proper manner, a civil argument can open up a plethora of opinions and give people new insight on ideas.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of argument is always important in my writing. With my new found knowledge of rhetoric and argument, I will hopefully be able to develop my persuasive writing skills, but also gain the ability to write without being biased towards anything.
Before reading this chapter, the idea of rhetoric was something that generally just confused me. However, after thinking about the ideas presented, the art of rhetoric seems to be a bit more clear. One of my favorite ideas that Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee present in this chapter was the idea of opinions. They stated, “Opinions develop because people live in communities.” This is an idea that really made me think about arguments in general. In the chapter, they talk about how people believe that opinions cannot be changed. Contrary to popular belief, they remind us how opinions are changed, formed, and molded all the time. Opinions don’t belong to individuals because everybody’s opinions are formed from the influences of other people, societies, groups and organizations. This idea reminds me that arguments aren’t supposed to be about forcing your ideals upon someone else. Instead, arguments are supposed to be about listening to others, learning, and trying to have other people look at ideas from a different perspective.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I am an extremely stubborn person. After reading this section of the chapter, I was reminded to stay open minded when listening to other people’s ideas and thoughts. In my writing, I tend to try to force my opinions and ideas upon someone and attempt to make them think in the same way that I do. Now I realize that this is next to impossible to achieve. It is fully okay to express your opinions and beliefs about a subject, but it is also just as important to remain open minded when listening to the other side of the argument. By doing this, you are able to grow in your ideas, generate new ideas, or strengthen the thoughts that you had already.
Before reading the first chapter of Ancient Rhetorics, I would have defined rhetoric as using language effectively. Crowley and Hawhee defined rhetoric much more deeply. I found the definitions of rhetor most interesting. In the fifth century rhetor referred to “someone who introduced a resolution into the Assembly.” It changed to the mean someone who was an “expert on politics.” It later came to mean “one skilled in public speaking.” I find it interesting that a single word could transform meanings over a certain time period. There was a time when only “professional rhetores” would speak in public. I believe now days that anyone can have an opinion and speak for themselves. Ancient and modern thought are so different from each other. This relates to the section where Crowley and Hawhee talk about opinions. Opinions are viewed as not very important. Somebody who has facts will win over an individual who has just an opinion. Since Americans believe that opinions belong to the individual, it is seen as diminishing to challenge someone’s opinion. While this holds true it is also argued that there is not just one person with one opinion. There will always be somebody to agree with an individuals opinion. This is useful in writing for argument sake. Without rhetoric there would be no argument and everyone would agree. In argument writing, you should consider your opponents point of view and opinion, yet create your own. For persuasive papers, one should know that an opinion can be changed. Clearly stated, “the point of rhetoric is to change opinions.”
ReplyDeleteOne of the more interesting things I saw in the first chapter is the section on opinions located on page 15. I really liked how the author discussed how people get their opinion and how opinions change. When you hear someone you respect and admire give an opinion on something, you are likely to change yours because of him or her. Now this is not entirely true, but you respect somebody because of what they believe in and how the carry about their lives, you value their opinion. It was also interesting to read about how the general population is less likely to engage in debate or disagreement about someone opinion because they want to avoid confrontation. Unless you are someone who strongly believes in something and are very outgoing, you would never approach someone of the opposite political party and disagree with them. Some Americans live for this and those are the people who run for office. An opinion is your identity and it shaped who you are. As argued in the chapter, if there were no humans to interact with, we would not need opinions. They offer the example of living on a deserted island and how until you meet another human being, you need no beliefs or opinions. There are many concepts in addition to people you respect that will change your opinion. For example what type of community you live in and where about the community is located all play into your opinion. Questions regarding this chapter would be “how can the required chapters be broken down into an easier way to understand them?”
ReplyDeleteThe idea that I enjoyed the most in the first chapter of Ancient Rhetorics is the idea of telling fables. I never knew or realized how gruesome some of the fables are (Disney really did a great job of cleaning them up, too). My eyes were opened to this in an 11th grade English class. We watched “The Brothers Grimm”, and also had a few lessons on old fairy tales. The versions I were told as a kid were much different than the originals! I guess the ones that I was told weren’t supposed to use fear as a tactic for teaching as the originals did. And the fact that ancient rhetors used this as a technique to hone their language and ability to argue on the fly is rather intriguing! The idea was to make up, or tell your own version of a fable that had an observed lesson with it. If done on the fly, rhetors gained the ability to make things up spontaneously; it helped them develop the ability to defend and attack linguistically when caught off-guard. If I were to use this technique, it may help me to craft stories more elegantly. My words could have a better ebb and flow to them (how can you latch onto a story with strange grammar?) I might also be able to attain my goal of the course, too. The whole idea was I wanted to be able to form opinions in writing. In telling fables, I could begin to do this more quickly and with unprecedented fervor.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting idea that I have learned after I read this chapter was Aristotle’s three intrinsic rhetorical proofs: ethos, pathos, and logos. These three words were all new to me. After I found them in my dictionary, I knew that they are not english, and then I kept reading the chapter. I knew that Ethos means writer’s character; Ethos means the emotion that the writer can affect on the reader; Logos means logic, it was reasy to understand. We need evidences, facts, and examples to proof our logic when we were writing something. Sharon and Debra also gave us an example of pollution of our environment. This example really gave me a further understanding of ethos, pathos and logos. The ethos in this example is Lisa Simpson herself is an astronomer. The pathos in this example is because of the change of climate, more and more people believes that the environment pollution is a big issue nowadays. The logos is she can use the cause of effect and parallel case to proof the issue.
ReplyDeleteI think these three proofs would help me to improve my writing skills, especially for an argumentative writing. Firstly, I have to proof myself to my audience which is my character. I have to let my audience to think that the writer might be right. Secondly, I have to bring my audience’s emotion out. After they read what I wrote, they can feel it and think the same way as mine. Thirdly, I have to use facts or evidences or examples to show my audience that my side is the right side. I think if I include those three: ethos, pathos and logos in my writing. I would be a at least very clear writer.
The most engaging idea of rhetoric in this chapter is the concept, network of interpretation. Network of interpretation makes a rock a valuable object, such as a fossil. This definition allows facts and physical observations become concrete and important. An example that Crowley and Hawhee used to define network of interpretation is about the significance of a fossil. When you first look at a fossil it can be known as a simple door stop or rock, but a geologists can show that it is a fossil from evolution. Either a rock or a fossil, they are two different networks of interpretation. When a little boy picks up the rock it is a simple rock, but when a geologist picks up the rock it is a fossil with evolutionary stories and facts. Depending on the person viewing the object changes the perspective for interpretation. Without a network of interpretation facts and observations have no value. Another example is how the rules of the game in football, is the network of interpretation. Football would just be a big men running around and hitting each other for no goal. But it becomes a game when the placement of an arm or leg on the ground makes or breaks a winning team. The rules give the game structure and relevance. Each game portrays a different type networks of interpretation depending on the referee. The opinions of each individual ref change by their own observations. This chapter proves that without interpretations of the world, everything would have no meaning or value. There would be no individual opinions, the world would be blank.
ReplyDeleteI found on of the more interesting things in this first chapter was about people opinions and how they differ from one another. Obviously we are all entitled to our own opinion, and thats one thing someone can never take away from you. But, I found it interesting that your opinion can change when you have heard other peoples opinion, which I definitely can see as true. I know there have been times when my big brother has introduced his opinion after i have introduced mine and i say to myself, "hey that kinda makes sense...Yeah I feel the same way!". I found that section very intriguing. I also found the section on pathos, ethos and logos interesting because I had studied these three words in 11th grade when I took a humanities class. I found it interesting the way they tied those words into writing and rhetoric because I didn't really know what they meant in regards to that. Ethos talks about the character or maybe reputation of the author. Pathos has to do with emotion. And Logos is the basis of logic and reason, one must use logic and reason when writing.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting topic for me in the first chapter was how the authors describe language as power. Crowley and Hawhee explain that language is transparent. This is shown through the representative theory of language. This clarifies that “language represents meaning, that it hands meaning over to listeners or readers, clear and intact.” This concept interests me greatly, because I agree with the book when it says that the language we use is tightly linked to our identities. People express themselves through language and that in itself indicates the inside of people: how they live and react to things and other people in their environment. Crowley and Hawhee also stress that language is not the same for everyone. The meaning of a single word is not the exact same for everyone. Everyone’s perception of the world differs; therefore, everyone’s use of language to describe the world is different. The book states that language could “work on a person’s spirit as powerfully as drugs worked on the body.” The power of language also extends to its strong persuasive force. However, Socrates wrote treatises on how language is separated from thought. He assumed that mental experiences are totally separate from language (Crawley/Hawhee). This confused me because earlier in the chapter it seemed as though they were advocating the idea of thought and language being the same, but now they used Socrates’ argument to prove just the contrary.
ReplyDeleteI’m a little surprised by the beginning of chapter one. The author introduced his aim of writing this book. He gives us what’s rhetoric refer to in both modern time and ancient time. I can understand he says rhetoric means “empty words” nowadays, and also that rhetoric means in the ancient time by his introduction. It is true that scientists change their theory all the time. Not because what they find is not wrong, but by using the technology they can only do research like that. In another word, technology give them space to discover new things, also it limit people’s invent in someway. So factors are not as important as we considered. The author also talked about opinion. He says opinion can be changed. I had never thought about it, especially the religion. In my point, as people choose their religion they would not change. As he considered, when we talk to each other and exchange our points, there might exist some different ideas in our mind. While we are still think it’s not polite if we say some conflict words to others religion. The author keep talking about it’s not good to support our ideas by factors, but in page 12, the last paragraph, I think he also use factors from ancients time to support his own idea. The author mentions three way of intrinsic rhetorical. They are ethical, pathetic, and logical. I think some time it is not fair to judge something by pathetic. Because everyone has different statement for a same factor.
ReplyDeleteXiaoting Liu
To be honest I have not learned about rhetoric before. This is the first time I can remember talking about rhetoric. I have heard the word before but never actually talked about it. One of the interesting things I read about in the first chapter was about how someone’s opinion can differ from everyone else’s. Opinions can changed based on numerous things such as an influence of someone else. The could introduce in opinion and it could make me agree with them and alter my opinion. This is not going to happen every time someone states their opinion but it could happen. Rhetoric will overall help me state different idea and argue different opinions.Another interesting idea was about ethos, pathos, and logo’s. To be honest I have never heard of these concepts before. It was interesting looking them up and actually figuring out what they mean and how to use them.
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