Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

The Impact Of Philanthropy, Jonathan F. Denzler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Forwarding a narrative framework of philanthropic impact this thesis problematizes the evaluation methods used by social engagement organizations to measure the impact or change that they are contributing to in a community. By focusing on the example of food access, and the corresponding language of the "food desert", this project locates the power to control the framing of social issues in the hands of funders as opposed to those who experience the real life effects of living in poverty or resource-poor communities. This process then lets the philanthropists set a goal and meet that goal without ever truly communicating or …

Meeting Paul As Rhetor: Creation, Nature, And The Law Written In The Heart, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

No abstract provided.

A Double-Sided Mirror: "Otherizing" And Normalizing The Silenced Voices Of Appalachian Women, Ashley Canter

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Appalachian region was not only exploited for capitalistic gains, but also put on display by outsider voices for being home to a supposed "backwards" and "barbaric" culture. Appalachians experienced exploitation working in mines and other industries that only benefitted those receiving the resources of the mountains. A once self-sustaining, individualized culture was now forced to be dependent and suffer through the "otherization" of its own people. Voices hidden in the murky skies and distant mountains of Appalachia were not only silenced, but more hauntingly, they were spoken for, manipulated, and marginalized. …

Girl Power, Caroline Olesen

The Corinthian

It is now in the 16th year of the 21st century, and as a species, we are trying to improve. We’re trying to reduce our carbon footprint; we’re trying to help the sick and the poor; we’re trying to combat racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism. But as of recent years, sexism has been more on the back burner – not because it is less important, but because of the huge strides that were made in the Western world in the 20th century.

Sexy Technical Communication, Tamara Powell, Jonathan Arnett, Monique Logan, Cassandra Race, Tiffani Reardon

2016 Faculty Bookshelf

Sexy technical writing…we’ve got to be kidding, right? But no, we aren’t. Good technical writing is powerful and clear and gets the job done. It brings people together and solves problems. Good technical writing purrs and hums like that BMW you plan to be driving someday.What’s not sexy about that? On the other hand, poor technical writing skills may lead to a lifetime of asking people if they want fries with that…or worse, selling vacuum cleaners door to door. There’s no need to ask what’s not sexy about that!

WE – your textbook authors – are a team of dedicated …

Blackfish-Ing For Buzz: The Rhetoric Of The Real In Theme Parks And Documentary, Steven W. Schoen

Faculty Publications

In 2014, a year of record tourism in the state of Florida, SeaWorld saw a drop of one million visitors to its theme park in Orlando. The decline followed Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s 2013 documentary film Blackfish, which presented the circumstances of orcas, or “killer whales,” held in captivity at parks like SeaWorld as cruel to the animals and dangerous to their trainers. In 2016, SeaWorld announced it will stop breeding orcas, and phase out its orca theatrical shows by 2019, a move widely attributed in the press to the impact of Cowperthwaite’s film. This article examines the film Blackfish as a …

Rhetoric In The Mass Media: Terrorism Or Freedom Of Speech?, Carolyn Rhoades

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

Terrorism is a widely debated topic on social media networks such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. This is due to the fact that a high percentage of users rely on sites such as Twitter and Facebook as a news source for developing stories and information. In a study conducted in 2015 by Pew Research Center, in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, research found that 63 percent of Facebook users and 63 percent Twitter users depend on these social networks for their news, which is a substantial increase from 2013. This paper presents a rhetorical analysis …

Sabbatical Summary, Paula Boyd

Sabbaticals

My career in writing studies was originally inspired by the convergence of my academic interests and my natural inclination to play with technology. In the 15 years since I was in school, the technology has changed, the way people communicate with technology has changed, the students' technological immersion has changed, and the scholarship had changed. My goal was to walk around in the 21st century landscape to try to reorient and re-inspire myself and make some connections between traditional and digital literacies. In particular, I was interested in reflecting on two areas that had become quite central to the scholarly …

Thresholds Of Invisibility: A Perspective On Moments Of Transition In Scholarly Rhetorics, Robert D. Gilmor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation suggests that certain historical moments of transition generate identifiable schisms in scholarly discourse that leave contemporary scholars unable to communicate with one another. At these moments of Augustinian "unlikeness," established scholarly commitments, such as logocentrism, are rendered invisible to the critics that rely on them as new forms and technologies become the (ostensible) talking points of discourse. The confusion at these moments contribute to a complex of discursive practices that can be called "thresholds of invisibility," or moments of transition and division, when scholars are captivated by new forms and less attentive to the continuing influence of already …

Alien Affects: Movement, Migration, And Landscapes Of Citizenship, Michael Andrew Lechuga

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alien Affects is a materialist examination of the ways citizenship landscapes are shaped by three mechanisms of control - extraterrestrial film, border security, and the legal apparatuses of the State - that accelerate flows of dominant national citizenship and hinder the movements of migrants. As bodies move through borders and through communities in the US, they are subjected to techniques of citizenship control that divide citizens from aliens. This political division maximizes the State's capacity to benefit from the mobility of its preferred citizen groups while subjugating its alien groups - those who might be characterized as such because they …

Writing In College: From Competence To Excellence, Amy Guptill, Aly Button, Peter Farrell, Kaethe Leonard, Timothee Pizarro

OER Main

Writing in College is designed for students who have largely mastered high-school level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing intensive classes. It provides a friendly, down-to-earth introduction to professors’ goals and expectations, demystifying the norms of the academy and how they shape college writing assignments. Each of the nine chapters can be read separately, and each includes suggested exercises to bring the main messages to life. …

Dining With The Cyborgs: Disembodied Consumption And The Rhetoric Of Food Media In The Digital Age, Maggie Cotto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project explores digital media productions based specifically on food and cooking in order to demonstrate that new communication technologies are increasingly incorporating all five of the bodily senses. In doing so, they contribute significantly to the emergence of new ideological apparatuses appropriate for a global community. These apparatuses – including the formation of a posthumanist subject, the use of technology to support embodied cognition, and the establishment of entertainment as an ideological institution – have become the harbingers of a rhetorical evolution. Based on the work of Gregory Ulmer, along with Jacques Derrida, N. Katherine Hayles, Donna Haraway, and …

Feminist Fissures: Navigating Conflict In Mentoring Relationships, Kathryn Gindlesparger, Holly Ryan

College of Humanities and Sciences Faculty Papers

Scholarship in rhetoric and composition has richly addressed the role of feminist mentoring and how a feminist perspective of mentoring might work across various mentoring configurations. However, there is little feminist rhetorical scholarship that discusses the transition from a graduate mentoring group to a faculty mentoring group. This case study examines how one group navigated the change from graduate mentors to faculty mentors, revealing how unarticulated conflict lead to the end of the relationships. In unpacking this narrative, this article argues that feminist mentoring scholarship has not done enough to openly discuss the role of conflict in mentoring. Lacking scholarship …

A Critical Analysis Of The Rhetoric Of Education Reform In The United States, Melanie R. Salome

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation is grounded in research that examines the current education reform policy in the United States through a lens of rhetorical analysis, specifically Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The implication in this study underscores the significance of language and power and how these social constructs synergistically shape changes in policy within society. Specifically, this critical analysis deconstructs the use of language through speech acts and uncovers the reproduction of hegemony by exposing how segments of student populations are marginalized. Exploration conducted within this context explicates the historical significance of reform policy rhetoric, along with a scrutiny of rhetoric from current …

The Storytelling Of Public Spaces: Rhetoric, Community, And Social Change, Lindsay Kathryn Hamilton

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation examines how public art, broadly defined, contributes to the dialogue of public places. It assumes that public places are filled with rhetoric--from commercial, governmental, private, and other sources. This rhetoric is mainly concerned with the public as audience, receivers of information who are then expected to act in certain ways - following the directions of street signs or entering shops when a window display attracts their attention, for example. Public art, particularly community-based art, can be used to make public places more democratic, providing platforms for people and communities to talk back and reassert their identities. The case …

Developing University Students’ Argumentative Discourse: An Ill-Structured Issue Pertaining To Black African Immigrants And African Americans, Olubusayo Olojo-Adeoye

Wayne State University Dissertations

The overarching goal of this three-article five-chapter dissertation was to develop university students’ argument-counterargument integration abilities in persuasive essay writing on an ill-structured issue pertaining to black African immigrants and African Americans. Article One consisted of using phenomenography as a research approach to identify the qualitatively different ways university students perceive black African immigrants and African Americans. The university participants had 24 perceptions in which 10 pertained to black African immigrants and 14 to African Americans. The perceptions were grouped into six descriptive categories. The variations in perceptions were then used as statements for argumentation. The study implies that university …

The Bridge, Volume 13, 2016, Bridgewater State University

the bridge

Editor-in-Chief: Jill Boger
Managing Editor: Kelsey Leuenberger
Lead Designer: Ghada Masri
Photo Editor: David Hooker

Editors:
Hannah Green
Amanda Hankel
Kelci Sylvia
Caitlin Westgate

Faculty Advisor: John Mulrooney

Consultant: Cheryl Tullis

Captain Ahab And Her Crew, Abigail Kauerauf '19

Outstanding Gateway Papers

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the novel’s anti-hero R.P. McMurphy unexpectedly parallels Moby Dick. In the infamous Melville classic, Moby Dick bites off the leg of Captain Ahab. Ahab thusly convinces his crew to join him in a revenge-filled quest to kill the white whale. The life of R. P. McMurphy presents a similar journey. While McMurphy attempts to restore the masculinity of the men on the ward so the men can live freely as they once had before the women’s liberation movement, women such as Nurse Ratched endeavor to hunt down these men and emasculate …

Contrasting Biblical Themes In The Novel And Film One Flew Over The Cuckoo’S Nest, Madeline Gibson '19

Outstanding Gateway Papers

In the beginning of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden and his fellow patients in the psychiatric ward of the hospital are confined in a strict environment, subject to the cruel decisions of those in control, and convinced that there is no way to escape. Renewed hope for the patients comes in the form of the newly-admitted Randle McMurphy, who serves as an advocate for the overthrow of the authoritative forces controlling the ward, specifically Nurse Ratched. As savior of the ward, McMurphy frees the patients from oppression and helps them rediscover their strengths. Clear …

Agro/Hort 403/803: Scientific Writing And Communication—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Brian M. Waters

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Scientific writing is a skill that is useful for science students, since many of them will write about their research in a thesis, dissertation, or in journal articles. The goal of my course is to provide students with practice and training in scientific writing so that after they take the course they are confident and ready to write drafts independently. The class uses many learning activities, such as reading, writing, peer reviewing, revising, and class discussions. However, the first two iterations of the course did not have built-in ways to practice sentence and paragraph editing, or to gauge quality of …