Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Threatening Bodies Resisting Containment: Enemy Combatants, War Protestors And Same-Sex Couples, Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The U.S.-launched "War on Terror" has been a major driving force in political discourses during the last few years, including presidential discourse. Since September 11, 2001, presidential rhetoric has systematically entangled international efforts, such as "the War on Terror" and the War in Iraq, with domestic issues, such as same-sex marriages and civil unions. In so doing, international and domestic threats have been effectively merged into one, and in the process, specific bodies have been constructed as "terrorist" agents in need of strict containment (for example, enemy combatant bodies, war protestor bodies, and the bodies of same-sex couples). This paper …

Constructing Muammar Al-Gaddafi, Kristin Kushlan

Honors Theses

Rhetoricians such as Robert Ivie and George Lakoffhave examined the use of language of opposition to create and control various enemies during the War on Terror, but they have also ignored or overlooked numerous cases. This paper will examine one such case, that of Muammar al-Gaddafi, whose reciprocal violence eventually succumbed to the oppressor's global economic power. This case study will explore how the U.S. government rhetorically constructed Gaddafi in order to control both his identity within American society (as either an enemy or an ally), as well as the counter-violence that Gaddafi supposedly enacted against Western systems of power. …

Postmodern Feminism, Hypertext, And The Rhetoric Of Cooking Websites, Heather Eaton Mcgrane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the ways cookbooks and their rhetorical dimensions have been re-imagined using hypertext and Web technology. Using the tenets of postmodern feminist rhetoric and Web design theory, the study considers how commercial cooking hypertexts construct users' identities. Although hypertext is a potentially empowering technology, democratizing rhetoric and knowledge making practices, commercial hypertext often circumscribes agency formation and prohibits participation. Participatory, constructive hypertexts are difficult to design and costly to maintain. Of the three sites studied, Epicurious.com, BettyCrocker.com, and FoodNetwork.com, only Epicurious.com encourages meaningful communication between users and between users and designers. In many ways, Epicurious.com conceives of its …

Vengeance And The Crusades, Susanna A. Throop

History Faculty Publications

This article demonstrates that the popularity of the idea of crusading as vengeance was not limited to the laity, and, instead of fading away after 1099, the ideology grew more widespread as the twelfth century progressed. The primary aim here is to present the evidence alongside preliminary analysis, reserving further, more detailed interpretation for future publications.

Preliminary Report To The Purdue Writing Lab: Assessing Usability Of The "New" Online Writing Lab (Owl) Design And Contents, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report is submitted June 16, 2006 to the Purdue University Writing Lab, specifically to Linda Bergmann, Director; Tammy Conard-Salvo, Associate Director; and Karl Stolley, Lead Web Designer. Intended to inform the ongoing redesign of the Online Writing Lab (OWL), it is written to maintain the highest level of usability and user-centered design of a unique, globally-utilized information resource. This document is a preliminary report limited to initial findings from a five-step usability testing protocol conducted February 25 through March 3, 2006. This testing plan was submitted to Purdue’s Institutional Review Board’s Committee on the Use of Human Subjects (IRB) …

Understanding Powerpoint Through Rhetoric, Andrea K. Murphy

English Theses & Dissertations

PowerPoint has been described by critics and proponents alike as ubiquitous. This tool, created primarily for the business world, is now found everywhere from elementary school classes to the highest levels of government. Critics of PowerPoint, like Edward Tufte, charge the software with such crimes as the corruption of data and changing the way that people think. Meanwhile, PowerPoint proponents such as Cliff Atkinson and Richard E. Mayer assert PowerPoint's value as an excellent tool that, if designed properly, can take advantage of the promise of research into multimedia theory.

Even as we reconcile these diverse views within a larger …

Silent Outsiders: Searching For Queer Identity In Composition Readers, Travis Duncan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study searches twenty composition readers' table of contents for the degree of inclusivity of queer people and issues. Four means of erasure are labeled as possible erasing of queer identity: presuming heteronormativity, overt homophobia, perpetuating tokenism, and pathologizing queer identity. The presence of other differences are compared to the number of times that queer identity is referenced in the table of contents. The final portion of the analysis examines the two most inclusive composition readers to understand more clearly how the readers present queer individuals and issues. In a sense, I want to explore the question of how often …

'Olah: The Rhetoric Of Burnt Offerings, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

The ‘olah offering receives pride of place in most lists of sacrifices in the Hebrew Bible, including the ritual rules of Leviticus. Its prominence in these texts suggests that the writers expected its mention to have an effect on their audience. This rhetorical effect must be evaluated and understood before the references to the `olah can be used to reconstruct ancient religious practices reliably. A comparative analysis of the rhetoric about the `olah suggests that its priority burnished the image of priests as devoted selflessly to divine worship and drew attention away from their economic interests in the sacrificial system …

Argument, Political Friendship And Rhetorical Knowledge: A Review Of Garver's "For The Sake Of Argument", Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

Gene Garver's recent book, "For the Sake of Argument: Practical Reasoning, Character and the Ethics of Belief" (U. Chicago Press, 2004), responds to the dilemma at the core of contemporary legal theory. Garver incisively describes why legal reasoning is viewed either as impotent or dangerous. Reason appears impotent in the legal context to the extent that we maintain its rigor by limiting its scope to dialectical demonstration; it appears dangerous to the extent that we free reason from having to provide definitive answers. Garver looks to Aristotle for a solution. To deal with the inadequacies of the accounts of practical …

Purdue Online Writing Lab (Owl) Research Report, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report outlines the history of the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) and details the OWL Usability Project through the summer of 2006. The paper also discusses test methodologies, describes test methods, provides participant demographics, and presents findings and recommendations of the tests. The purpose of this report is to provide researchers, administrators, and pedagogues interested in usability and Writing Labs access to information on the Purdue OWL Usability Project. We hope our findings—and this open source approach to our research—will contribute positively to the corpus on usability and Writing Lab studies.

The Rhetoric Of Pedagogy And The Pedagogy Of Rhetoric, Jennifer G. Moore

Honors Theses

"There is a serious crisis in education. Students often do not want to learn and teachers do not want to teach. More than ever before in the recent history of this nation, educators are compelled to confront the biases that have shaped teaching practices in our society and to create new ways of knowing, different for the sharing of knowledge (hooks 12)."

Drawing from the work of such writers as bell books, Paolo Friere, and Gilles Deleuze, this thesis explores limitations and constraints of traditional pedagogy, then brings this critique to bear upon the traditional pedagogy of rhetoric. Drawing from …

Negotiating "Post" Era Writing Pedagogies, Hannah Sloan Holbrook

Theses Digitization Project

This study examines how post-process theories are being defined, negotiated, and enacted in composition classrooms. While recognizing that most composition instruction remains shaped by modern and process oriented theories, this research asks how post-process considerations might be currently informing teaching practices in some classrooms.

In Praise Of Carbon: Genre And The 1996 Nobel Lectures In Chemistry By Christian Fredrick Casper, Christian Fredrick Casper

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Using genre theory along with the hierarchy of scientific statement types of Latour and Woolgar (1979) and the scientific stases and scientific topoi of Prelli (1989), this thesis analyzes the three Nobel lectures in chemistry from 1996 to discern the characteristics of ceremonial discourse in science and its relation to scientific ethos. Throughout, the Nobel lectures are analyzed in reference to the original research reports published in the scientific literature. The unique social context of the Nobel lectures results in a distinct genre with textual characteristics that include statements with little moderation or hedging, arguments for the long-term significance of …

Technical Risk Information: Decision Tool Or Rhetorical Ammunition? Undisputed Facts In The Yucca Mountain Debate, David M. Hassenzahl, Denise Tillery, Paulette Laidler

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

This paper examines how both opponents and proponents of the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca mountain Nevada claim that uncontroversial information supports their conflicting positions. Four pieces of information in particular are claimed by both sides: the distance of the proposed site from Las Vegas, the volume of waste that has been produced, the threat of terrorism since 9/11/01, and the occurrence of an earthquake in early 2002. Possible explanations for the difference include naive positivism, social constructionism, persistent beliefs and implicit warrants. The latter two models better explain observed knowledge/preference states. If so, more or better information …

Cultural Commentary: The Art Of Persuasion, Barbara Apstein

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Illuminating A Space For Women And Rhetoric, Lindsey M. Fox

Honors Theses

My overarching concerns are for the place and power of women in rhetoric and democracy. This concern developed during my study of classical rhetoric, when I noticed an obvious absence of women in rhetoric. For example, John Poulakos and Takis Poulakos state that any "ordinary person" could play a role on the political stage in Athens (34). This reference to "ordinary people" is proof that women were made invisible because, as George A. Kennedy explains, in classical Athens, democracy was only for "an assembly of all adult male citizens" (16). Male citizens, then, were actually rather extra-ordinary. Because democracy …

Rhetorical And Narrative Structures In John Hersey's Hiroshima: How They Breathe Life Into The Tale Of A Doomed City, James Richard Smart

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this thesis will explore rhetorical and narrative devices author John Hersey used to create Hiroshima, one of the foremost non-fictional works of the twentieth century.

Wisdom To Know The Difference: The Rhetoric Of Pat Nixon, Linda B. Hobgood

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Henriette Wyeth Hurd painted the official portrait of Patricia Nixon. The woman depicted is serene, almost sad. She appears fragile, yet brave. Above all, the face that gazes from the canvas understands--the wisdom in her eyes reflects that sense of tribulation bequeathed by experience. Both the painting and the subject reflect "calm at the center." It is an insightful portrayal of the American first lady known to the world as "Pat."

A Certain Comfort: Betty Ford As First Lady, Nichola D. Gutgold, Linda B. Hobgood

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Her White House stay was short-lived, but the lessons of Betty Ford's experience remain vividly instructive. By accident of a national political crisis which catapulted her to the rank of the first lady in 1974, Mrs. Ford's tenure lasted a brief two years until her husband, Gerald R. Ford lost his bid for reelection. During that time, she developed a relationship of candor with the press and public. She spoke her mind on social and moral issues that were at the forefront of public debate. The positions she took were not always popular with the majority of Americans, many of …

Implicature And Argumentation, Jon Nelsen Preacher

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis explores the role, if any, that implicature plays as a strategy in informal debate. Transcripts of spontaneous debates from television and radio public affairs talk shows were analyzed with a focus on the use of implicature as a strategic rhetorical tool employed to gain advantage in an argument.

The Knowledge And Skills Of Freshman Writers, Aram Paul Sarkisian

Theses Digitization Project

This research identifies what proficient writers know and do by the end of their freshman year in college and raises the kind of questions that improve the articulation of English instruction.

It's All In The Rhetoric: Using Affective Design To Change Users' Perceptions Of Online Help, Robert C. Stultz

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the role of affective design in online help systems. The thesis begins with a discussion of the current research related to online help systems and the rhetorical nature of technical communication. The thesis then provides a heuristic evaluation of two versions of procedural discourse for Microsoft Word 2000. Based on an analysis of the heuristic evaluation, five recommendations are given for improving the affective design of online help systems. The thesis concludes with a proposed usability test and consideration of a related area of study.

Rethinking The Great Divide : A Rhetorical Study Of Orality, Literacy And The Human Experience, Danielle L. Joyce

Honors Theses

Our technologizing of the world has not only drastically been changing the way we live, work, and play but also the rhetoric that we employ within it to communicate with one another. "Cyberspace" and "virtual reality" have become commonplace descriptors of social forms where people do not have to live, meet, or work face-to-face in order to develop or maintain significant social relationships (Gackenbach, 227). We no longer only meet "in person" for important discussions or send hand written letters to loved-ones for reception weeks later. Instead, today, we talk into cameras attached to telephones to close multi-million dollar business …

Writing An Important Body Of Scholarship: A Proposal For An Embodied Rhetoric Of Professional Practice, Jane Hindman

Publications and Research

Identifies a set of professional discursive practices of rhetoric teachers that reveal gendered power relations. Proposes an "embodied rhetoric" characterized and authorized in part by specific sorts of personal author- and context-saturated gestures. Concludes that an embodied rhetoric regenders academic discourse, assures agency and power to feminist theory and praxis, and facilitates efforts to effect change in teachers and students' lives.

Figuring Rhetoric: From Antistrophe To Apostrophe Through Catastrophe, Jane Sutton, Mari Lee Mifsud

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This essay explores rhetoric tropologically through various strophes: antistrophe, catastrophe, and apostrophe. Our purpose is to delineate problems and possibilities that these tropes pose for rhetoric in an effort to create new rhetorics. We seek to display the antistrophic and catastrophic figurations of rhetoric and then use visual lenses of photography and cinema to disrupt the figurations. Following the disruption, we seek to heighten sensibilities to other figurations, in particular an apostrophic figuration. We cast apostrophe as a figure for change because it marks a deeply felt turn toward difference and otherness. Turned as such, rhetoric becomes erotic.

Wedge And Bridge: A Note On The Rhetoric Of Distinction And Identification, Henry W. Johnstone, Mari Lee Mifsud

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Henry Johnstone (1970 p. 124, 1990) has advanced the slogan "Rhetoric is a wedge" to suggest the ways in which rhetoric calls attention to hitherto unnoticed consequences or assumptions, or even to features of the physical world that have escaped an audience's attention. Here, however, we intend to supplement the notion of rhetoric as "wedge" by suggesting the ways in which it is, and also must be, a "bridge."

Revision And Immortality In Philosophical Argumentation: Reconsidering The Rhetorical Wedge, Mari Lee Mifsud

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This essay explores Johnstone's idea that "rhetoric is a wedge." In particular, it explores the place of this idea in Johnstone's philosophy of argument, the need to confront this idea with argument, and ways of confronting it with ad rem and ad hominem arguments.

Writing Center Practices In Tennessee Community Colleges, James E. Crawford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to develop a profile of writing centers in twelve community colleges governed by the Tennessee Board of Regents. This profile included how they were established, how they are funded and staffed, what services are provided and to whom, how training is provided for staff, and how technology is incorporated. More important than the profile itself, however, was an analysis of successful and unsuccessful practices, especially those related to governance, structure, and training of staff, as revealed through the perceptions and experiences of writing center directors. Because electronic technology has transformed the craft of writing, …

Collapsing The Philosophy/Rhetoric Disjunct: Nietzsche, Plato And The Perspectival Turn, Ned Vankevich

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Often overlooked within the standard views of academe lie hidden a number of tacit assumptions. Until the time of Nietzsche, the status of rhetoric as a discourse formation in Western intellectual history was often colored by the unflattering view generated by Plato in a number of his dialogues. In this thesis I present a case that revisits Plato and Nietzsche with an eye toward understanding the reasons why these two highly influential figures in contemporary philosophy adopt the views they advocate. In doing so, I attempt to illumine the reason Plato forms a fundamental split between philosophy and rhetoric and …

Teaching Collaborative Writing For Real-World Application To The Field Of Technical Writing, Cory Vaillancourt Holder

Theses Digitization Project

The needs of business and industry dictate that students be taught skills transferable to the workplace. Teaching collaborative writing for real-world application to the field of technical writing is one way to help prepare students for future employment in scientific and technical industries where the communication of technical information is part of conducting daily business.