Today’s plan:
- Attendance
- Reviewing Last Class (Did you set up Google Drive?)
- Structuring an Argumentative Essay
- Elements of an Argument: Logos, Ethos, and Pathos
- Types of Arguments
- Kairos (Situating an Argument)
- Homework
Structuring An Argumentative Essay
Argumentative essays can be broken down into two simple elements. First, they must make a claim. Second, they must supply evidence.
The more specific a claim, then the better it is written:
- C Level Writing: I am studying video games to learn what drives their popularity.
- B Level Writing: I argue that video games are more popular than television.
- A Level Writing: I argue that the interaction inherent to video games make them more engaging than television, which is merely passive.
A strong claim offers specifics.
Furthermore, a strong introduction offers not only a clear claim, but it also offers a “road map” for the rest of the paper: This paper has three primary stages. First, I examine Marie Ryan and Espen Aarseth’s notions of interactivity, noting how each shares X. Next, I turn to examine Y and Z’s arguments regarding the rather passive nature of television, noting how even shows like ABC’s Lost, which developed an active fanbase an online community, remained a relatively passive activity. Finally, I turn to examine the engaging interactive story elements of Telltale’s popular The Walking Dead series, noting how they perform Ryan’s notion of X and Aarseth’s notion of Y.
In addition to stating a claim and supplying evidence, good arguments anticipate the objections of contentious readers or opponents.
Elements of an Argument
According to Aristotle, persuasive arguments are composed of 3 primary attributes: logos, ethos, and pathos.
- >Logos: I have a PowerPoint. Also, inartistic vs artistic proofs (not just numbers/science, but also arguments. If… Then…).
- Ethos: Credibility / Community. Building respect for sources.
- Pathos: Creating emotional resonance / addressing the audience’s predisposition.
Stasis Theory (Understanding What You Are Arguing About)
The Romans followed the lead of the Greeks and considered kairos in their speeches. But the Romans also develop more intricate and complex political and legal systems, and part of that advancement involved developing clear ideas for the purpose of speeches and the nature of arguments. Stasis theory, invented by the Greeks and advanced by the Romans, was a four-part heuristic (method of invention) for establishing the purpose of an argument.
Richard Lanham, in his Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, explicates Cicero: “Cicero argued that the whole matter [stasis, issue, schematizing what an argument was about] was contained in three questions: does it exist? (Sitne?); what is it (Quid sit?); what kind of thing is it? (Quale sit?). For Lanham, this is the root of the modern “journalist’s litany, Who? What? When? Why? Where?” (93). Lanham credits Hermagoras with articulating four different types of theses related to stasis:
- Conjectural, dispute over a fact, WAS the deed done? Does a thing EXIST?
- Definitional, dispute over a definition, what KIND of deed was done? What KIND of thing is it?
- Qualitative, dispute over the value, quality, or nature of an act, was it a LEGAL deed? Is it a GOOD thing?
- Translative, dispute over moving the issue from one court of jurisdiction to another, are we trying the case in the right court.
- Procedural, dispute over what must be done NEXT? What do we DO with the thing?
- informing a reader what problem you are responding to
- informing a reader why you are responding to that problem (why is the problem important)
- informing a reader why *you* specifically are responding to the problem (establishing some sense of ethos
To Lanham’s list I might add one more:
At one point in time the translative might have assumed the procedural, but now I would argue it makes more sense to distinguish them.
Kairos
The textbook definition of kairos is “right place, right time.” But time here means something different than we tend to think of it (as chronos, the quantitative measurement of time’s passing). Rather, kairos means something closer to opportunity, an opening in time. Rhetoricians debated whether a speaker could *create* such an opportunity, or whether she merely *recognized* one. Regardless, the point is that a great speaker recognizes the specifics of a moment and place (a context), and shapes them so that a listener or reader knows why she is speaking at that moment, why she is called to speak, the exigency (situation) that demands her response. So, establishing kairos in part requires
These aims can generate a list of standard questions and guides, what we call topoi, for positioning yourself, your problem, and your audience. For instance, is this a problem that gets talked about a lot but rarely acted upon? Then here we go again. Is this a problem that you, a smart functioning human, didn’t know was a problem until recently? Then let me tell you something. Is this a problem that you thought was minor/easy to fix, but have learned it might not be? Then this might get complicated. Etc.
In Aristotle’s (in)famous treaty On Rhetoric, he declares that one of the primary obligations of a rhetor in the opening of her speech is to “prepare the judge” for what they are about to hear. While I have some pretty staunch disagreements with Aristotle, I want to highlight this advice. Millenia later, Martin Heidegger declares that this advice, on the part of Aristotle, is the birth of psychoanalysis and phenomenology: philosophical approaches that begin by recognizing that human consciousness, perception, and reason is always, already influenced by our “mood.” The task of an introduction is to set a mood: to anticipate an audience’s feelings toward a topic and shift them to a position whereby they might be more willing to entertain a new perspective. So kairosisn’t merely about the timing of an argument, it is also about shaping the context for an argument.
Homework
Homework: read chapter 17, “Academic Arguments”; chapter 6, “Rhetorical Analysis,” and Geaghan-Breiner, “Where the Wild Things Should Be: Healing Nature Deficit Disorder through the Schoolyard” (396-405). Complete Canvas Quiz (this will be up no later than noon on Monday).
