As we have analyzed the outcomes of writing this quarter, one of the first steps in entering into an academic conversation, whether it be via reading or writing, is through referring to rhetorical knowledge. Rhetorical knowledge is an awareness of how readers, writers, and the nuances within text itself interact in response to differing expectations and contexts. In specific reference to this writing course, we often discussed, and were encouraged in our writing, to explore the differences between our own rhetorical situation, that being who are we responding to and who is the recipient of our responses, and varying author’s rhetorical situations as well. For example, David Foster Wallace’s use of language and tone in his essay “Up, Simba” is not synonymous to how Greg Dimitradis writes his essay “The Political Paranoid in Contemporary Politics”. This is because Wallace’s writing is featured in the popular magazine Rolling Stone in which he is attempting to excite the apathetic young people of America into engaging in politics, whereas Dimitriadis’ work appears in a scholarly journal, so his writing style exudes the formality that Wallace’s lacks.
I demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of rhetorical knowledge in my Short Paper 1.2 “Inspiring the Cynics of America’s Tomorrow” by noting how John McCain and David Foster Wallace are channeling different types of youth voters through their similar approaches as outsiders. This is seen in “McCain has the reputation of engaging young Americans in his campaign in ways that the other candidates were not; however, those voters had preexisting interest in politics in a way that the readers of Wallace’s article do not share”. I included this idea to contrast the preconception that McCain and Wallace had the same target audience, and to introduce the opinion that their strategies were the same but their audiences had vastly different interest in politics. Addressing multiple perspectives is something that my original drafts tend to lack, but through the revision process and peer review, I have found that by adding another viewpoint, my argument was enhanced and became more clear to readers.
You can see what I mean by taking a closer look at Short Paper 1.2, “Inspiring the Cynics of America’s Tomorrow”
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