Katie

My name is Katherine, but you can call me Katie. I'm a senior Communication Major at the University of Colorado at Boulder. My home state is New Jersey, but I love to travel. I live for beach days, new experiences, and endless seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

[katienixon13]

This sentence is completely, entirely, annoying.

Tool 5: Watch those adverbs

Adverbs can be annoying. By not having adverbs, you can make your point more clear.

I wrote this essay last semester about London screenwriters:

Before:

What one finds humorous depends entirely on which cultural community one belongs to. This aspect of humanity makes comedic films an extremely tricky field to try and adapt to all audiences

After:

What one finds humorous is dependent on which cultural community one belongs to. This aspect of humanity requires a strategic game plan for screenwriters to try and appeal comedy for all audiences.

The first edited sentence, changing "depends entirely" to "dependent" makes the sentence more straight to the point.

The second edited sentence, I eliminated "extremely" and "tricky," which are both adverbs that should not be paired together. I added a little bit more to the sentence to get my point across, which I think makes the entire paragraph make more sense. 

[katienixon13]

Everyone should be able to wear pink socks

 I decided to switch it up and try to rhetorically analyze a new article.

 Here is the article: Back off, Masculinity Patrol

 The article is examining the new positive trend of gender revolution for boys. American girls have more flexibility when it comes to exploring their gender at young ages. It is socially acceptable for little girls to play with trucks and act like tomboys, whereas if little boys want to wear dresses and paint their nails pink- everyone starts to jump to conclusions about their sexuality.

  E.J Gaff believes that there is starting to be a new trend of accepting feminine male gender presentations at young ages. More and more, parents are starting to let their young sons explore their gender- whichever way their sons want to.

  Gaff presents ethos, credibility; by drawing in an acclaimed newspaper that has already written about letting “pink boys” explore their gender at young ages. She quotes the New York Times throughout her article, which presents the reader with the notion that if she and the New York Times are talking about this subject, this must be a pretty big deal. Gaff is also a credible source. She is a social justice and human rights writer, particularly writing about discrimination against women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

  Gaff shows logos, forcefulness of a well thought out position, by asking rhetorical questions within the article. When she writes, “If you think there's nothing wrong with the possibility that your boy might be gay, if you believe that being a man includes being an involved father and an active partner in taking care of the house and family, why worry about whether a boy is a little feminine?” (Gaff, 2012), the ending thought, “why worry about whether a boy is a little feminine,” really drives home the argument of the article.  She asks a logical question, that really makes the audience critically examine their own thoughts and values.

  Pathos is demonstrated when she compares the easiness of little girls to bend their genders and the difficulty little boys face if they wish to engage in feminine behavior at young ages. She states, “Their behavior is overseen by a masculinity patrol. Veer even slightly into the feminine-pink socks! Barbie dolls!- and boys are punished with ridicule,”(Gaff, 2012). This sentence provokes an emotion of empathy for young boys who want to engage in feminine behaviors. Why ridicule or bully someone for wanting to be happy? 

[katienixon13]

More avatars

Gender Conformer:

Chibi Maker, Typical Girly Girl

Gender Rebel: 

Chibi Maker, Girl who loves sports and isn't afraid to look/act less feminine

Gender Bender: 

South Park, Girl who loves dresses and to play dress up on halloween, but also loves her hair to be short. She is a mechanic and loves to fix things.

[katienixon13]

I didn't know videoblogs were a thing...I like it

This is the video blog I decided to do my informal rhetorical analysis on.

The video blog is in response to the article, “I’m a lesbian marrying a man,” that got a lot of attention from the gay community. 

Arielle demonstrates ethos because she is a well known video blogger as well as has vlogged about controversial topics before. She has a following, which makes her credible.

The logos and pathos in the message are apparent by how she chooses to prove her point. By asking, “how can you tell someone what they are…aren’t you the only person that knows what you are?” She is not only asking a logical question which provokes a critical idea, but she also is asking a question that holds a lot of emotional power.

She is aware of kairos because this was in response to the backlash of the comments from the “I’m a lesbian marrying a man” article.  

[katienixon13]

Words on words on words

I chose to use tool 2 as an example since I never really thought about how much the order of words impact the meaning of a sentence

The example below is from an essay I wrote sophomore year:

"I gradually began to despise everything about basketball and my hatred took over my ability to continue, and I realized something about myself. I cannot fake an emotion to make others happy, the phrase “fake it till you make it” will never apply to me."

This is my edited version:  

"I grew to despise everything about basketball. My hatred took over my ability to continue, and I realized I cannot fake an emotion to make others happy. The phrase, “fake it till you make it” will never apply to me."

In the original copy, the sentence “I gradually began” was drawing no emphasis to the power of what I wanted the words to embody. By taking out the “gradually began” and replacing the word with “grew,” it made the word “despise” stand out more and call attention to the situation I wanted the reader to see.

By making “my hatred took…” a new sentence,  I was able to put emphasis on the word hatred, and also make the less important sentence disappear.

All the words in bold are the words that I thought had the most power. From Writing Tools, I realized that by putting the strong words in the beginning and end of the sentences really does change the way a person reads a sentence (in a good way!)

[katienixon13]

Intro/ Bio

Sorry guys, I had this in my "about me section" but did not realize that it needed to be posted.

So here's my intro/bio...

My name is Katherine, but you can call me Katie. I'm a senior Communication Major at the University of Colorado at Boulder. My home state is New Jersey, but I love to travel. I live for beach days, new experiences, and endless seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

[katienixon13]

My attempt at creating my own avatar using Chibi Maker!

[katienixon13]

Aristotle and Facebook…An Odd Connection

Firstly and honestly, I was a little skeptical about how a comic book would teach me about Rhetoric. I am currently taking Rhetorical Foundations of Communication this semester, so one can only imagine the amount lengthy and heavy Plato and Aristotle readings I have already encountered. 

After completing the reading, I am pleasantly surprised and wish that this book was a course requirement for my other class. Instead of falling asleep after ten pages like many of my other Plato readings, I was completely engaged with the visuals but also the writers fast paced and punchy written communication style.

               A few things I found important and noteworthy:

In the first beginning pages, Losh and Alexander state that, “all writing is influenced by what you know about an audiences expectations,” (Losh, Alexander, Cannon, 7). I do not usually consider this consciously when I am writing a paper or responding to an email, but now as I read this quote I realize that every written communication I have encountered, I am always subconsciously reminding myself to whom I am writing to. When writing an essay, I know to write formally for my professors, but even when I am writing out a text, I am always considering who I am texting. For example, I am not going to have the same texting communication with my best friend as I would with my father.

When explaining rhetoric, I completely agreed with Losh and Alexander’s definition of rhetoric, which is,” [rhetoric is] a way of thinking about how we talk…that takes into consideration the entire situation in which that talk takes place,”(Losh, Alexander, Cannon, 38). Rhetoric makes sense of different view points and facilitates new ideas. Rhetoric reminds us of how important all types of communication are for trying to get one’s point across.

In the drawing conclusions section, I chose to consider kairos in regards to my facebook profile. I never thought about my facebook profile having anything to do with rhetoric (hence the title of this blog) but it actually plays a pretty big rhetorical role. My facebook profile is comparable to an advertisement of myself, and I am persuading others to by my friend and view my profile by the things I wish to post on my timeline.  Kairos is about the appropriate timing of speaking, and I believe that the kinds of postings that are just for the immediate are timeline statuses. The types of posts that are intended to be seen for years to come are the pictures one chooses to publish on his or her profile. Pictures do last forever, so once something is published, it is there for all to see.