In this post, I will analyze the intended audience of my essay about the rhetorical strategies used and rhetorical situation of Cecilia Tilli's article, "Striking the Balance on Artificial Intelligence." This audience is not to be confused with the audience of the text I will be analyzing, which is completely different.
 |
| Burns Library, Boston College's photostream "Theater audience wearing 3-d glasses" 28 September 2010 via flickr.com. Atrribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) License. |
Who am I writing for? What are the audience's beliefs and assumptions?
I am writing my rhetorical analysis for students in my field of interest (computer science) and who are in that major. These students also do not have a firm understanding of rhetorical analysis, and are struggling with developing skills necessary for reading an argument and deconstructing it for analysis. Thus, I am writing the essay to demonstrate how to perform a rhetorical analysis, with my example of an argument being Cecilia Tilli's article "Striking the Balance on Artificial Intelligence" that appears on slate.com. My audience, then, has the belief that rhetorical analysis is important, difficult, and that they need to learn from my example on how to conduct such an analysis. Additionally, being computer science majors, my audience also values the study of computer science and its applications, and thus likely are interested in an argument that speaks on the research and development of artificial intelligence.
What position might they take on this issue? How will I need to respond on this issue?
If the issue in question is defined as me conducting a rhetorical analysis, then my audience will take the position of a dedicated reader, who is using my writing as an example of how to improve their own skills in rhetorical analysis. I will need to respond to this by ensuring that my rhetorical analysis thoroughly explains rhetorical strategies and their usages in my selected text, as my purpose of writing is to inform my audience on how rhetorical analysis is done and what is important in constructing one.
What will they want to know?
As stated above, my audience will want to know how to effectively write a rhetorical analysis, as they are struggling with writing one. They will want to know what rhetorical strategies are, and how they can be applied in the construction of an argument. Additionally, they will want to know how to examine and define the rhetorical situation of an argument, considering purpose, audience, author, and context.
How might they react to my argument?
The audience will react to my writing by using it as as example of an effective, well-done rhetorical analysis, and will likely study it to improve their own skills. As a result, I will need to ensure that my rhetorical analysis is informative and well-written.
How am I trying to relate to or connect with audience?
I am trying to relate to my audience through two methods. Firstly, I am attempting to assist them in constructing a rhetorical analysis, and thus I am trying to help them improve their writing skills. I am also going to be connecting with my audience by analyzing a text that relates to our shared field of Computer Science, which will be a discussion of research guidelines and ethics surrounding the development of artificial intelligence. This topic will hopefully appeal to my audience by interesting them, so as to make the learning of how to conduct a rhetorical analysis more intriguing and even fun (hopefully).
Are there specific words, ideas, or modes of presentation that will help relate to them in this way?
I think that keeping my essay focused on the construction of rhetorical analysis will be the best way to relate to my audience because, while the text I will be analyzing does have to do with Computer Science, my purpose of writing is not to inform my readers about the topic. My purpose in writing this analysis is to teach my audience, through example, what a rhetorical analysis should look like. I might also reach my audience more easily if I try to provide helpful and concise explanations for the effects of the applications of certain rhetorical strategies. Through these methods, I hope my readers will learn and benefit from my example.
Reflection
For my reflection on the quality of my above analysis, I read and examined those of Kelly and Brandon. I think that Kelly's analysis was similar to mine in that we both emphasized the purpose of our writing - to inform our readers on how to conduct a rhetorical analysis - and discussed how to reach our audience accordingly. Brandon, however, was mistaken in saying that the purpose was to construct a rhetorical argument in response to our selected texts, and I commented on his analysis to point out this issue. Otherwise, he had a very firm understanding of the content of his chosen text and of the shared ground between him and his readers, the neuroscience major.
After reading their analyses, I feel as though my analysis was accurate, useful, and of a good quality. It was helpful to write this assignment out because now I have a strong understanding of the purpose, and thus audience, of my essay.
You did a good job of recognizing your audience and the popular views and values for such an audience. My audience is similarly scientifically oriented. I think the issue in the second question is actually referring to whether or not the audience would be likely to agree with your critique of the example article. So if the article is in favor of artificial intelligence, and you say that the argument is effective, then your audience is likely to agree with you. I think your audience would probably also like to know why rhetorical analysis is valuable, as computer science majors may not be particularly familiar with it. Like you said, staying focused on construction of rhetorical analysis is beneficial. Good work.
ReplyDelete