Rhetoric Commons^™

Gore's Science The Kairos Of An Inconvenient Truth And The Implications For Science Writing, Carolyn M. Glasshoff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modern Americans are exposed to scientific and technical information on a daily basis that urges them to react as well as learn about new ideas. The popular science writing that circulates this information must be portrayed in a way that makes it easy for lay people to understand complicated ideas while at the same time remaining complex enough to convince readers that the information is reliable, accurate, and worth learning. In making decisions about how to accomplish this balancing act, science writers make decisions that influence the audience's opinion about new scientific ideas, how easily the audience will accept or …

Using Narrative To Improve Reflection In Technical Communication, Carrie Brkich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores why instructors should use narrative intentionally and effectively with reflection to better understand adult students' perceptions of experiential learning activities in technical communication. The frequent use of narrative in technical discourse reminds us that the tone of technical texts is often appropriately informal, personable, and reflective. A closer analysis of narratives provides instructors with valuable opportunities to learn more about the motivations for and barriers to learning for adult students and to better understand how these students situate themselves in larger social and cultural narratives. Narrative serves many purposes in technical communication. Not only does narrative add …

A Burkean Analysis Of Jehovah's Witness Apocalyptic Rhetoric, Katherine Elizabeth Kacarab

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis uses principles from Burke's Rhetoric of Identification to examine how apocalyptic prophecies foster and maintain an apocalyptic group identity. Jehovah's Witnesses were used as a sample apocalyptic group because they comprise a group with a heavy textual and symbolic focus on the apocalypse.

The Cultural Self: The Novel As Griot In African American Fiction, Eric Christian Atkinson

Theses Digitization Project

This paper addresses the Western African oral concept of griot, as it utilizes nommo, the Bantu term which denotes the magical power of words to cause change, as a critical African American lexical lens. It will foreground the fiction of Octavia E. Butler and John Edgar Wideman through the critical lens of griot as a means to construct African American community and culture through narrative by utilizing nommo. Nommo is an "African concept in which the word is a life force; the word is creator rather than created" even after it has been spoken or written. Traditionally the griot is …

International Graffiti And The Israeli Separation Barrier, Veronica Evangelina Miranda

Theses Digitization Project

This purpose of this study is to show that graffiti can be more than mere vandalism and can be a powerful way of communicating resistance to injustice when used as protest. Graffiti on the Israeli Separation Barrier is one way people can speak against an oppressive force that alters their physical environment, which can be a site of continuous argument.

Cyborg Rhetoric And Revelation Of Self: Identity, Writing, And The Instantiation Of The Cyborg In Digital Texts, Thomas Keywon Cho

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis examines three "digital texts" and explores the ways writing, technology, and narratives embedded in popular culture reveal cyborg language.

A Burkean Analysis Of Anti-Immigration Websites: Recurring Scapegoating Rhetorical Moves, Aldo Quiroz Lewis

Theses Digitization Project

There are numerous websites emphasizing the idea that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants from Latin American countries, are to blame for the decline of the United States. What allows these sites to be so persuasive is that they created a united U.S. front by erasing the differences between different groups, thereby construcing a united "American" identity. At the same time, in opposition to this identity, the sites created an 'illegal' that groups Hispanics. This author argues that attempts to discuss immigration have more to do with enacting a scapegoat that may be blamed for America's ills.

Transmission Overhaul: Negotiating The Shift In Information And Knowledge Construction Among Generation M, Thomas Timothy Hite

Theses Digitization Project

This research draws upon recent research in the area of digital semiotics and offers a framework of remediation in the attempt to encourage the acceptance of digital composition as a valid space of rhetorical production.

Attending To Local And Diverse Communities: Toward A Theological Learning Community For A Missional Era, Patricia Taylor Ellison, Patrick R. Keifert

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Visual Rhetoric And The Promotion Of Scientific Ideas: The Strange Case Of The Prion, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In the field that investigates infectious brain diseases such as mad cow disease, the verbal and visual packaging of scientific visuals associated with identifying the agent, prion, its processes, and structure served the community ritual of establishing belief in a highly unorthodox phenomenon. Visual promotion fed into cultural expectations of single agents and simple processes, even though the actual agency and disease process have proven highly complex and perhaps unknowable.

Jane Addams: Spirit In Action By Louise W. Knight, Mari Boor Tonn

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

The common temptation to perceive greatness as imprinted at birth, however, is skillfully disabused in Louise Knight’s meticulous, insightful,and often poignant biography, Jane Addams: Spirit in Action, which traces the complicated odyssey of a well-heeled idealist—initially conflicted by her material privilege, disappointed by gender-codes confining her ambitions, and haunted by familial ghosts and duties—into the pantheon of U.S. political idols. Of particular interest to rhetorical scholars, Knight weaves into Addams’s arresting tale her early baptism into public speaking, writings that shaped her expression in public forums, rhetorical strategies she employed, and platform failures as well as successes. A prolific speaker, …

Ua3/1/3 President's Office-Cherry - Scrapbooks, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings, articles and publications of interest to WKU President Henry Cherry. These include education religion, state and national politics, prohibition and Western Kentucky University.

Remediating Composition : Landmark Pedagogies Meet New Media Practices, Jennifer Marlow

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT

Response In Real Time : Bringing Context To A Semester's Responses To Student Writing, Scott James O'Callaghan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Within the field of Composition, research into responding to student writing has most frequently studied individual responses outside the material contexts in which those responses were produced. Advice given to teachers of writing on how best to respond to large amounts of writing--perennially a feature within the reality of the work writing teachers do--has tended to be similarly acontextual. However, further research into response must take into account writing teachers' material conditions and situatedness.

Using Ezra's Time As A Methodological Pivot For Understanding The Rhetoric And Functions Of The Pentateuch, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

The Persian period saw the transformation of pentateuchal materials into a scripture, the Torah. The story of Ezra exemplifies that transformation by its description of his manipulation of the physical scroll, his oral reading of it before the people of Jerusalem, and his arrangement for its professional translation/interpretation by Levites. These rituals have characterized the function of the Torah (and other scriptures) from that time forward. The Persian period, however, also marks a major change in the nature of our evidence for the form, contents and meaning of pentateuchal materials. The only historical evidence from before the time of Ezra …

The Rhetoric Of Sacrifice, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Era[C]Ing Diversity: A Critical Rhetorical Approach To Race And The New Citizen, Theresa Donovan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Era[c]ing Diversity is guided by a broad question of inquiry regarding the formation and reformation of subjectivity through the filling out of "blank" forms such as the application for naturalization. This dissertation examines how the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service uses and distributes race, and how subjects participate in the social reproduction of the dominant ideology to create a society where individuals think: I am White; He/she is Black, or Asian, or Native American etc. Era[c]ing Diversity examines how the N-400 constructs the new citizen and the ways that permanent legal residents of Mexican origin disrupt or reify this construct. …

The Border Mural In The Electronic Age: Xican@ Literacy As Rhetorical Agency, José Angel Maldonado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Border Mural in the Electronic Age is a project that responds to blanket statements, not only about a people's literacy (or illiteracy), but to the ways in which we define and measure literacy in the electronic age. In this study, literacy is located on the US-México border, and this specific location serves as the social, political, and economic grounds on which to study the types of literacies used by the local population. A cultural ecology approach is necessary when studying niche literacies, and in today's world, traditional literacies coexist among emergent forms of literacy most likely attributed to technological …

Hybrid Interactive Rhetorical Engagements In Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (Mmorpgs): Examining The Role Of Rhetors And Audiences In Generative Rhetorical Discourses, Yowei Kang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The dissertation explores the emerging rhetorical practices in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) in general and World of Warcraft (WoW) game in particular. The study applies Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theories and concepts to examine the persuasive processes employed by both game designers and players at various stages of their gameplay experiences. The author argues that the analysis of these interactive rhetorical discourses during gameplay helps rhetorical scholars to understand the emerging rhetorical practices where the rhetors and the audiences collaborate to co-generate their hybrid intensive rhetorical engagement (H.I.R.E.).

On the basis of the gaming sessions captured by the researcher …

Making Memory: Techne, Technology, And The Refashioning Of Contemporary Memory, Kimberly Lacey

Wayne State University Dissertations

My dissertation answers two questions: Does the tension between interactive technologies and rhetoric re-shape the nature and relevance of the canon of memory? Do interactive technologies affect the ways we remember and persuade? I argue that my interpretation of techne suggests possibilities for the creation and production of new types of memory in combination with digital media. To interrogate this connection, I suggest three interpretations of the Greek concept, techne: as a process that is inherently productive; as a force that renegotiates contemporary sources of social power; and as a skill that balances expert knowledge with instrumentality. I explore …