Visual Rhetoric and Technical Definitions

"Most of the readers are from the United States who do not have any experience in [the] agricultural market or transgenic work" --Video Case Study 

The rhetoric of "organic" products is rampant in the States. Everywhere we look, we see green signs with "Greenwise" (in green) written on them (Publix) or big green USDA stickers. Coffee shops advertise their "organic" and "fair trade" coffee. The rhetoric of "organic" and "natural" has even infiltrated massive corporations like McDonalds! 

On one level, this is a great thing. In the recent film, Food Inc., a major supplier of Wal-Mart argues that organic foods can be mass distributed through large corporations, hopefully resulting in a healthier public:

Agritechno

This push for organic, natural, and green is the rhetorical context that our putative "American investors" have. So, say I am an American Investor, who realizes that the rage in the market is a push for natural and organic products. As the video case study says, Agritechno  uses transgenic (genetically modified) foods and crops--not 'organic'. The point of the definitions are to try and persuade investors that there are many benefits to genetically modified crops rather than the potential threats and dangers.

In other words, the LAST image I want to see is this one:

A few of you used this image. This image is very unsettling to someone who is already on the fence about 'genetically modified' anything as well as aware of the push in my country toward organic foods. A couple things:

• When you find this image on google images, it is prudent to go to the source of that image. My source was called "treehugger.com," which was using the image to illustrate that transgenic crops were "banned around the world." Thus, the image is illustrating a negative attitude toward transgenic crops. 

What does this image implicitly argue?

Let us start with the hand in a stark white scientist glove. There is nothing "natural" looking about this hand. It is sterile, disinterested, and perhaps even a bit sinister. Particularly because it is holding a syringe of bright blue liquid, contrasting heavily with the yellow and green of the corn. There is nothing 'natural' looking about this deep blue. It looks as if (as I commented in some of your papers) the corn is receiving botox or some sort of superdrug, rather than other genetic material from other species of plants. The corn itself, and, though some of you may think this is a stretch, has its husk peeled back--it is naked and at the mercy of the cold, white hand and the foreign blue substance. There is a sort of vulnerability to the corn and, if looked at closely, it almost seems to have human qualities. The husks jut out like splayed arms. 

So, in conclusion: This is not the kind of image that will help you address the needs of your American, organic loving audience. 

Blog 1 Comments--Of Law, Google Searches, and Pre-nupital Agreements

Well, I just read all of the blog 1s and have been impressed with some of the things people have said. In particular, I think the blog posts gave you guys an idea of how much writing/documents play into whatever job you are planning on going to.

In general, I think I would have liked to see some more specific attention to documents with citations from pieces of them. I think that the kind of analysis we do in class should transfer to blog writing. We will talk more about how to properly cite and use information in your own writing later in the class, but I think that it is crucial to point to specific evidence to prove your argument or point. Also, analyzing documents can really reveal the bias/ethics of a particular document.

For instance, Kelsey wrote about how Casey Anthony's google searches were accessed, one of which was "how to make chloroform." As many know already, traces of chloroform were found on the body. You have to wonder why our legal system allows us to bypass such evidence as irrelevant, or, perhaps 'circumstantial'. On the other hand, we allow witness's testimony, which has proven to sometimes be a product of mis-memory, to primarily impact our decisions. This is just one example of how we still find 'testimony' more convincing than digital documentation and record.

On the other hand, the sheer amount of things we look up on google--sometimes just for shits and giggles--may one day incriminate us! Google and various internet search engines has expanded our ability to satisfy any curiosity. I frequently look up recipes online and then adapt them based on what I currently have on my kitchen. I don't have to buy cookbooks or anything. What happens to the connection between the evidence (the record of having searched for chloroform) when we consider how much we look up on the internet as mere curiosity--even things that could look suspicious in a case.

We could pretty much watch any law film and discuss how documents have frequently decided the fate of a defendant. Perhaps I am dating myself a bit, but if any of you have seen Liar, Liar the case is resolved when the protagonist finds that his client lied about her age on her pre-nuptial agreement, which voided the marriage, which made the issue of whether she blatantly cheated on her husband irrelevant (they have a tape--see videos below)! However, just because he got his client off the hook, doesn't mean that it was right. The protagonist realizes he's made a mistake when he realizes his client wants custody of her children just to milk her (former) husband dry and that she really does not care about family.







Pre-nuptial agreements are a very important document for legal issues in marriage. Another popular film that focuses around a pre-nup is the underappreciated re-marriage comedy by the genius Cohen Bros, Intolerable Cruelty:

Letters

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/05/irate-cash4gold-lett.html

Office Space Memo

Prezi

What is Technical Communication? on Prezi

What is Technical Communication

What is Technical Communication?

I would like to suggest today that technical communication is about revealing the complex and abstract reasoning behind rhetorical choices made in forming every-day documents/forms of writing in order to both better understand and produce these documents. While I believe it is possible to describe many documents as “technical” communication, these documents are technical because of their focus on usability rather than abstract reflection or contemplation (essays, philosophy, literature, art, etc.). I believe that these every day communications should be discussed more ‘philosophically and abstractly’ because we tend to forget that each piece of writing and communication has been designed to make us act in a certain way. Technical communication can, at the very least, make these every day encounters chances for reflection and learning as well as give us more agency in the production and circulation of these documents.

The way I have structured this presentation is around the idea of “concrete choices.” While analyzing a poem usually involves finding the abstract meaning of the text on the page—even though we may describe the figurative language—we rarely consider the poem as a document in the world, produced by an individual, laid out in a particular way, published by a company, distributed in various collections and editions, etc. These seemingly minute choices make a document usable and unified.

The most common definition of ‘concrete’ is opposed to the abstract: “Combined with, or in embodied in matter, actual practice, or a particular example; existing in a material form or as an actual reality” (OED). However, initially the word meant “united or connected by growth” (OED). The other meaning of the word, as you can see in my presentation, refers to the substance we refer to as “concrete,” which was probably named after another definition: “made up or compounded of various elements” (OED). According to concretenetwork.com, concrete is composed of three things: water, cement, and ‘aggregates’ (rocks and sand). However, while many people buy bags of concrete without any concern for what type, concretenetwork.com reveals that there are many different mixtures of concrete for different applications. Before purchasing, you should ask several questions: “What slump do you need? What strength? Do you need entrained air? What happens if the day is particularly cold or hot? What size of aggregate is best? Should you ask for fly ash in the mix?” (concretenetwork.com). We often don’t think about the many choices that go into creating concrete—it’s too integrated into our day-to-day routine. However, if we look at the people who know concrete, we can see that it can involve subtle choices that will make or break a project.

Similarly, there are three basic elements/components to composing documents: text, visuals, and design/layout (how these relate to together). The visuals are like the water that create the medium and the ‘flow’ of the document, the text is like the rocks and sand (giving it its grit), and the design and layout is the type and amount of cement that holds all of this together. Concrete can be messy, chunky, and unorganized—and it needs to be mixed well in a truck, but concrete creates the foundation for our everyday existence. Concrete forms a smooth sidewalk, that we barely acknowledge as existing under our feet, but needs to be usable, functional, and aesthetic for the city to run smoothly. Technical documents are these structures—sidewalks and floors—that allow our lives to run smoothly. If we were to notice the sidewalk—its components, its cracks, the way it is separated into squares, we could compare, contrast, and evaluate sidewalks abstractly based on their use, function, and aesthetics, just as we could evaluate a literary text or a philosophical idea. 

Technical documents, even the ones that seem boring or natural, can become complex and rewarding when we pay attention to the concrete behind the smooth surface. The technical documents that we compose and receive, such as tax forms, receipts, bills, contracts, may be locked away out of sight in our desk drawers or file cabinets, but they are the documents that structure the ‘concrete’ connections to other people and institutions as we go about our way.