Today’s plan:
- Questions
- Corder (more questions)
Questions
Coding and Job Selection
Hmm. My gut response is that it doesn’t matter. However, in discussing your methodology, you do need to have some kind of rationale for why you did what you did. Of course, you could argue that you are interested in a range of jobs and thus have a more random selection.
Paper Specifics and Formatting
What does business formatting mean?
Are we supposed to choose between formatting a feasibility report or formal report? Is it the same thing? I’m lost, sorry. Or we use both? These are just two different formats we can use, right?
This is a very productive question. As I indicated last class, I want you to be *a little* confused. Here’s my goal for the assignment: I want you to figure out what a professional research report is, what parts it contains, and realize that there is no one Ideal report. Every source you consult will tell you something different. HOWEVER, there are rules, expectations, genre conventions. I’ve already gone over a few (headings, subheadings, running head/page numbers, spacing, paragraph format/alignment). But–to clarify-the challenge of this assignment, and the challenge of being a professional writer-is learning to figure this stuff out. And it also speaks to a rhetorical approach to life: to act and exist without certainty.
Can you upload an example?
Unfortunately no. The goal of the assignment is, so to speak, for you to operate without a master; the learning outcome is tied to you negotiating the unknown. If I supply an example, then I do that work for you. I’m trying to develop thinkers, writers, producers. Not robots.
How long is the paper supposed to be? How many charts do we need or how many is too much?
As I mentioned in class, this is a question I specifically avoided. Let me flush out a few ideas. First, make sure you don’t let your charts and graphs speak for themselves. Explain what they say. Yes, this is repetitive. But redundancy is often a part of professional writing, because different readers will read different parts of the document. Second the paper needs to articulate what insights you have found. It has to explain to me why these insights are important, and, perhaps, why I (the reader) should care. I think the most difficult part of this assignment is that I haven’t given you an audience for the paper. The audience is sort of me–but I don’t think it is clear who I am in relation to you. So, what if I were to ask you to invent an audience for the piece? Who might need to receive this research? Who might have requested it?
Logistics
Is the entire paper due Tuesday?
Yes. Against all good precepts (revision, etc) we are going to one-shot this.
What are we handing in on Tuesday? To clarify-we upload this to Canvas on Tuesday?
First, consult the project description from last class. Second, let’s decide between printing a paper copy or supplying a google doc.
WHY?
Because I think we can be(come) better together
If you did not submit your charts after last week’s computer lab, by all means you can turn them in late. What gets done gets rewarded.
Jim Corder, “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love”
My standard questions:
- Group One: [sections 1-3]: What does Corder mean by the idea that we make narratives? Why do said narratives complicate traditional notions of argument and rhetoric?
- Group Two: [sections 4-6]: How can we describe Rogerian method? Why is Corder skeptical that such a method can be useful to rhetoric?
- Group Three: [section 6-7]: Looking at section 7, would your frame Corder as an optimist or pessimist? What do “we” have to learn (and who are the “we” of this section’s final paragraphs)?
- Group Four: [Section 8]:What do we make of section 8? Why is this story here? What does it exemplify or reinforce?
- Group Five: [Section 9]: What does it mean to be “perpetually opening and closing” (29)? How can such a position help us be better? How does it tie to the other advice offered in this section?
I have a thing for us to read.
