Analytical Reflection

Throughout this spring semester, I was introduced to countless gruesome yet exciting projects in Advanced Editing an Writing of which I have learned to withhold an argument and connection with my audience to creating claims and working on editing tasks. However, our Wikipedia project was by far the hardest struggle I had to endure throughout this course but also, it was insightful and prepared me for the type of job I hope to get out of college.

During this course I was taught to draw from each critical texts we had to read that week and argue and connect (sometimes contrast) what their concepts are with how you feel towards a certain topic that was discussed. Our Wikipedia article that spoke on the subject of “Multimodality” had countless theorists and authors referenced but the most important aspect of all was that we had no original claims, and everything that was written was written from our own writing with help to support our argument using other texts.

According to Ridolfo and DeVoss in order to create rhetorical velocity, one would have to “mix, mash and merge.” With Wikipedia, rhetorical velocity is a common factor to be used and executed, especially with this type of online encyclopedia. It creates a much simpler way of knowing how to create and identify a digital composition to your audience. Creating a digital composition such as this Wikipedia entry, I struggled with the claims of each subsection of our article to include in the Lead. The reoccurring question was “What is important in this section that the reader must know in the Lead?” However, with applying rhetorical velocity my group and I found it much easier to make each and every claim flow and come together.

On another note, Lazere taught me that oversimplification isn’t something as valuable as rhetoric. Within Wikipedia and following its rules of “not too wordy” with “no original claims,” etc., rhetoric gives the best dialectical discourse and connection between audience and speaker. Even though Wikipedia isn’t an “essay based” website nor is it a collegiate level website but, it is one that most young teens/adults use. Without my knowledge of rhetoric, I would have found it extremely difficult to deliver my argument and connect with my audience.

Hood really prepared me to lookout for bias information and original research. She mentions in her article, "to focus, then, on the accuracy or inaccuracy of facts, the biased presentation of information, or even the appearance of an obscene fragment of text in a Wikipedia entry..." Because writing is such a process, it becomes a recursive task in which makes us constantly change our opinions in what we want to argue or even simply to get our point across. This Wikipedia project really put a lot in perspective for me along the lines of possible job careers and with my own writing itself.

Work Cited:

Lazere, Donald. “Avoiding Oversimplification and Recognizing Complexity.” In Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: The Critical Citizen’s Guide to Argumentative Rhetoric. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2005. 244-256.

Ridolfo, Jim, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss. “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery.” Kairos 13.2 (2008).http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/intro.html

Hood, Cara Leah. “Editing Out Obscenity: Wikipedia and Writing Pedagogy.” 2008. Available online at http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/wiki_hood/index.html

"Mix Mash and Merge"

As a writer, it is important to be aware of your flaws so you repeat them less and less to where you have completely gotten rid of it. To a certain extent, we as writers attempt to untangle grammatically incorrect statements and attack others opinions to revitalize our own but Jones made it clear that we all have different and multiple standpoints. Editing the Wikipedia article “Rhetorical Velocity,” gave me a lot of insight and practice on editing the larger portion of this assignment. Small errors are my main forefront of writing errors. Actually performing the edits and seeing these edits from a different standpoint, allowed me to completely grasp what my problem is.

In Lazere’s article, chapter 10, “Avoiding Oversimplification and Recognizing Complexity,” she mentions that oversimplification is the essence of generalities such as advertising, talk radio, TV programs, propaganda, etc. When this statement from Lazere came to mind, I thought would this apply to rhetorical velocity? Ridolfo and DeVoss created a much simpler way of knowing how to create and identify rhetorical velocity which is to “mix, mash and merge.” Since rhetorical velocity can be considered to be a digital composition, I wanted to apply the concept when I edited the Wikipedia article I chose. The article, “Construction Sets” had little to no information, no references and no in-text citations nor were there any references inside the text itself. Instantly, I knew my first task was to search for reliable references that my audience and I can refer to when reading and understanding the process of “construction sets.” It is crucial to concentrate more on the body of the product and the claim and its importance rather than focusing on completing a product.

Because I am trained to react to worry about “completing” an assignment rather than focusing on certain aspects of the product, Hood really prepared me to lookout for bias information and original research. Hood mentions in her article, "to focus, then, on the accuracy or inaccuracy of facts, the biased presentation of information, or even the appearance of an obscene fragment of text in a Wikipedia entry..." Because writing is such a process, it becomes a recursive task in which makes us constantly change our opinions in what we want to argue or even simply to get our point across.

However, Lazere taught me that oversimplification isn’t something as valuable as rhetoric. Where as rhetoric gives the best dialectical discourse and connection between audience and speaker and oversimplification gives the lowest result of that. I felt no connection once reading my Wikipedia article. I want to improve my writing skills by being able to expand a work that has many generalities but, the medium being Wikipedia, I was nervous and skeptical on how I should word my input. I want my audience, and Wikipedia’s audience,  to be able to workout through example and by meaning and discourse, what construction sets were and how they worked and their purpose. Congressman Newt Gingrich quoted, “You have to give them confrontation;” something to work through the audience’s thinking to get them to oversimplify.

Another quality of the article I noticed before I edited was its overgeneralizations and its wordy phrases and statements. In fact, the Lead was what confused me so much; I actually was going in circles trying to unpack exactly what this previous author was struggling to say. After skyping with our friend from Wikipedia, she gave me a ton of insight but one in particular stuck out to me which was to remember that majority of the writers are students and young adults, however, not everyone has a collegiate brain and some don’t understand what the word “discourse” entails and what it does. In other words, that is what I mostly struggled with, allowing myself to still be formal and professional in my writing but not to sound too “smart” and be “wordy.” The previous author seemed as if they did not fully prepare their facts and evidence with cases to back up their claim. If Corbett and Eberly were to have read this article they would have responded with, “You can spot discourses that beg the question by looking for such words as obviously… any defense lower would say ‘objection!’ if the prosecution were to say to the jury, ‘obviously, she is guilty.’”

                                                              Work Cited

Ridolfo, Jim, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss. “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery.” Kairos 13.2 (2008). http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/intro.html

Lazere, Donald. “Avoiding Oversimplification and Recognizing Complexity.” In Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: The Critical Citizen’s Guide to Argumentative Rhetoric. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2005. 244-256.

Ridolfo, Jim, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss. “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery.” Kairos 13.2 (2008). http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/intro.html

Hood, Cara Leah. “Editing Out Obscenity: Wikipedia and Writing Pedagogy.” 2008. Available online at http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/wiki_hood/index.html

Verifiability

Marshall McLuhan was a very influential theorist during this time and created notable ideas such as: medium is the message and hot and cool media. Saying that, McLuhan has a very detailed background and one can easily find reliable sources and research.

For starters, the structure of Marshall McLuhan’s Wikipedia page is insightful. I noticed that for some theorist or even political figures, if they had invented something crucial for our society, their biographies would focus more on what they did than who they were and their personal background. The structure of this article was very thorough in the sense of the subcategories in each section. The initial beginning to the body of the article opens with his career path and how he lead himself to being the renowned theorist he came out to be. As a reader, I had not visited his Wikipedia page up until this point in time and I felt as if I knew everything I needed to know. Not only were there perceptive details but there was a ton of reliable sources that were used plenty throughout the entire article. I have come across many Wiki articles and Marshall McLuhan’s article stuck out to me. It was perfectly thought out in detail and had dependable references.

Unfortunately, not every Wikipedia article is ever truly completed but neither is every article as in depth and dependable like McLuhan’s and Michelle Citron’s article is a good example of that. It wasn’t visually appealing to me only for the sole factor of its length. I didn’t trust the article because of how short it was and for how vague it was too. This article is also a great example of what I was talking in the previous paragraph on how decent to almost perfect articles contain what the person did rather than who they were and for the most part, Citron’s article is mostly on her personal background. For all I know, I can learn everything about this individual but, “what she did” is still unclear with its lack of information. This could be personal opinion but, I did not think it was as useful as the Wikipedia author thought it would be, however, the charts explaining the books she has written isn’t as visually appealing if instead the author were to just write it out in detail in a regular paragraph. Even creating subcategories like McLuhan’s article would be effective because I can visually understand what I am reading. Lastly, the sources. Although it wasn’t as satisfying as Marshall’s, I do believe the sources were reliable but they were limited.    

To conclude, I would like to reiterate and say that reading both of these articles and comparing and contrasting both of them only proved to me as a reader and as a student how important verifiability is. I end this post with Wikipedia’s rule for Verifiability: “Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it.” (Verifiability1)

Work Cited:

Marshall McLuhan. Wikipedia Article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Mcluhan

Michelle Citron. Wikipedia Article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Citron

Oversimplification

Once reading the term “oversimplification” I began to think of issues and ideas of what one would consider an oversimplification. As human beings, it is in our nature to be demanding and ask for facts for evidence and truth, we tend to oversimplify and think a lot about our decisions. Our beliefs in racism or even being stereotypical towards a certain stereotype, oversimplification is something one will never be able to turn away from. In Lazere’s article, chapter 10, “Avoiding Oversimplification and Recognizing Complexity,” she mentions that oversimplification is the essence of generalities such as advertising, talk radio, TV programs, propaganda, etc. However, Lazere taught me that oversimplification isn’t something as valuable as rhetoric. Where as rhetoric gives the best dialectical discourse and connection between audience and speaker and oversimplification gives the lowest result of that. Congressman Newt Gingrich quoted, “You have to give them confrontation.” Something to work through their (the audience’s) thinking to get them to oversimplify.

If there is such thing as oversimplifying then overgeneralizing has to quickly follow. Overgeneralizing is when a speaker does not fully prepare their facts, evidence and/or cases to back up their claim. For example, “people who drive Mercedes are rude because people who drive Mercedes are rude.” For Corbett and Eberly’s theory this one quote stuck out to me:

“You can spot discourses that beg the question by looking for such words as obviously… any defense lawyer would say “objection!” if the prosecution were to say to the jury, “obviously, she is guilty.”

Below is a photo I have attached to my blog post as an easier way to understand Corbett’s and Eberly’s article. When they mentioned false analogy, immediately I knew there had to be an image to where I can show my audience and my followers exactly the point I am arguing. The definition of an analogy is knowing something by knowing a similarity like it. Resulting in analogies may not be the smartest tactic but, if one enjoys analogies like myself, you can really grab your audiences attention.

Wiki Honesty?

Wikipedia is a multilingual web-based project that combines many featured encyclopedias, almanacs and other forms of informative content. Its articles are written from a neutral stance that gives no personal opinion to its readers. The Wikipedia Project wants its readers and viewers to actively participate in searching for any topic that interests them, especially when any person who has access to the Internet can use, edit and redistribute any and all the articles. Bullard mentions that, there is an underlying theme of policy change and the need to do so, rather than just agreeing or disagreeing. Wikipedia was created to where curious individuals can research very broad and very specific topics and issues without selective standpoints.

Searching through Wikipedia’s website, there is a section called “Subcategories,” which entail very specific and particular stubs that contain unfinished and uncertain articles that need reviewing. I thought it was very interesting that Wikipedia actually took the time to separate those articles that were not sited from reliable sources before a reader or viewer actually believe the information given.

Under the “Subcategories” section, there are thousands of stubs that were reviewed and all of them surprised me, some more than others. Two different stubs that had taken me aback were, California and New York United States Representative Stubs that are listed in this category. I found it quite interesting that our own governments’ stub is listed with articles sited with unreliable sources, and unfinished editing. Jones instantly came to mind when she mentions in her article of truth and logic. The quote, “things that are naturally better and things that are true have always succeeded to be proven right,” reiterated the government’s honesty towards its civilians. If the government can control most of the daily errands us citizens do, why not correctly site their own stub and complete finish editing their own stub? Does the government not want to be seen in the finest of light?

Speaking of good lighting, Guo Shengkun has recently been appointed China’s Minister of Public Security. As jones has strongly repeated in her theory that truth is very important for one’s argument and speech, Shengkun has little to possibly no experience in his new appointed field. Since the article stated that Guo Shengkun was not suitable for his position, when he is not only a native to his country but also has been held accountable for being a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, working during the Cultural Revolution, China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining Corporation and many other positions. Although this may not be a case of discrimination, the content and the treatment of Guo go hand in hand with Bullard’s argument. Since Bullard makes use of extensive historical evidence to support his claims of discrimination throughout his argument, Shengkun has served over two decades of governmental work for China. This operates on the stasis levels of value and policy. The value of Guo Shengkun and how his newly appointed position and how it affects his people is what is driving his evidence. This level affects the concept of policies and how these policies, especially in disasters, are carried out in areas of diversity.

In Guo Shengkun’s article, I immediately noticed that there were not any sources but rather references. Both are equally important, however, both are very different. The three references are the Xinhua News, People’s Daily and South China Morning Post. The Xinhua News is the “official press agency of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in China.” People’s Daily is a “daily newspaper in the People's Republic of China. The paper is an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), published worldwide with a circulation of 3 to 4 million.” Lastly, the South China Morning Post is the Sunday morning paper for China. After researching these three difference references, I found them to be very reliable sources as well as informative. Jones claims that in the history of rhetorical argumentation there is a distinction to be made between being logical and being truthful (163). Logic was lacking from the article because of its lack of detail explaining why Shengkun was appointed his new position. If the editor decided to state, “He had little legal experience,” the editor would have needed to provide sources and strong details to support such a statement.

Work Cited:


Jones, Rebecca. “Finding the Good Argument, or Why Bother with Logic?” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. Available online via WAC Clearinghouse at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/writingspaces1/ .

Bullard, Robert. "How Race Affected the Federal Government’s Response to Katrina." 2005. Online.