Blog #4: You get an opinion! Everyone gets an opinion!

So this week's reading are so incredibly different that last week's readings. If academic writing is dry and incredibly boring due to dense sentence structure, four-syllable vocabulary, and abstract exemplification, this weeks reading may or may not be a breath of fresh air. I mean, who doesn't like emotionally-laden, one-sided opinions?
 
Oh. People who disagree with those highly stylized, emotionally-laden, one-sided opinions.
 

In an effort to appeal to as many people as possible, I have attempted to include many topics and many perspectives. Hopefully I haven't offended anyone.
 
But I may have.
 
 
 
 
 
That's the thing with editorials or opinion pieces. They have opinions. The goal is respond to something that people care about NOW (the rhetorical situation) and provide a clear argument that is designed to be as persuasive as possible, at least for a very specific primary audience.

 
As such, they employ rhetorical strategies. Comparisons. Metaphors. Statistics and carefully cherry-picked data. Loaded language. Hyperbole. Understatement. Irony. Division and classification. Exemplification. Identification. Metadiscourse.  (Does anyone remember the WPA?)
 
And they are loaded with ethos and pathos and logos.  
But mostly pathos. Most of the time.
 
Read three of them. Or more. And then read three of the JSTOR Daily articles. 

Btw, JSTOR Daily is a website devoted to providing snippets of academic research to people who are interested in snippets but don't want to read academic research.  You just never know what will show up on JSTOR Daily. 

In your blog analyze these genres in some way based on what we have discussed in class or some other criteria. What are these op-eds like? What are some common characteristics? Where do you see ethos? (How does the author make herself seem believable?) Where and how do you see logos and pathos? How is this genre different from other genres you have been exposed to in academia?

What kinds of ideologies, norms, or values does the op-ed genre reinforce or minimize? What impact does this genre have on those who read this? Or those who write them?

How is the JSTOR Daily different? What characteristics does this have? What ideologies, norms, or values does this genre reinforce or minimize?

Oh, heads up. Your first major project this semester is to write an op-ed, so you should be thinking about what you have an opinion on and what argument you want to make. Or if you don't want to create a highly stylized, emotionally-laden, one-sided argument, you could take some of those fabulous things you are learning in your other classes and craft a JSTOR Daily article.

 
 Oh yeah. I've been rambling. Take these ideas and go in some kind of direction.