Genre Conventions
Identifies a significant public issue and evaluates its impact. The significant issue must be rhetorical and provide necessary background information for an uninformed audience.
What is Problem Analysis?
"There are 200 million clinical cases of malaria in Africa every year, resulting in half a million deaths. [The malaria vaccines] we have made to date are simply not good enough. Why? We have been working at it for 100+ years. When we started, technology was limited...Today we are awash with technology...These tools have given us a clearer view of just how complex the parasite really is. However, in spite of this, our approach to vaccine design has remained pretty rudimentary."
What is "The Key to a Better Malaria Vaccine"?
You do this when you process sources. Like writing, it involves a lot of decisions and processes to make it whole.
What is cooking?
Considers the Direct Opposite of Your Working Thesis. This sort of simple change of qualifier also exposes weak theses, because, generally speaking, the opposite position of a proposition that everyone accepts as true is the one that everyone easily accepts as fake.
What is Step 2?
Often when crafting an argument we take into account our own beliefs, trusted sources, and values, but we should be considering the [blank's] instead.
Who is the audience?
Is an appeal to the audience's logic through the use of data and statistics.
What is logos?
In the U.S. only 15% of the total textile and garment waste that is generated each year ends up being donated or recycled in some way, which means that the other 85% of garment and textile waste ends up in land fills every year...This means that almost 13 million tons of textile was ends up in landfill every year in just the United States alone."
What is 3 "Creative Ways to Fix Fashion's Waste Problem?"
This is how you get to your sources. How you get to the relevant information for your writing.
What is walking?
Imagines Hostile Audiences. Whenever you are trying to develop a clearer understanding of the antithesis of your working thesis, you need to think about the kinds of audiences who would disagree with you?
What is Step 5?
Many disagreements involve different beliefs that can't simply be reconciled through logic. When these beliefs involve outside information, the issue often comes down to these.
What are the sources and authorities people trust?
Considers alternative viewpoints and counterarguments.
What is antithetical writing?
"Every month, seven million people choose between medicine and energy. This exposes a much larger systemic issue. Families with high energy burdens are disproportionately people of color, who spend more per square foot than their white counter parts...37 million people per year who are unable to afford energy for their most basic needs."
What is "How Can We Make Energy More Affordable for Low-Income Families"?
Refers to the conversation that sources are having about your topic. Gives the impression that sources are not separate, inert, or neutral things waiting to be snatched up.
What is talking?
Examines Alternatives to your working thesis. Often, the best antithetical arguments aren't about "the opposite" so much as they are about alternatives. Alternatives do not necessarily negate your working thesis. The goal is to weigh the positions against each other.
What is Step 5?
For disagreements that can't be definitely settled with statistics or evidence, making a convincing argument may depend on engaging this.
What are the audience's values?
Is an appeal to the credibility of the author as an authority on a topic.
What is ethos?
"Sound was very much a part of my life, really on my mind every day. As a deaf person living in a world of sound, it's as if I was living in a foreign country blindly following its rules, customs, behaviors, and norms without ever questioning them. So how is it that I understand sound? Well I watch how people behave and respond to sound.
What is "The Enchanting Music of Sign Language"?
This is how sources become a part of who you are. When you do this, you think about things, experiment, read, write, talk to others. What you learn stays with you.
What is eating?
Has a working thesis and makes sure you have begun the research process. Must be done before you can develop a good antithetical argument.
What is Step 2?
These can help you make your own arguments and reasoning more convincing.
What are counterarguments and rebuttals?
Is an issue that is changeable through human action.
What is a rhetorical issue?
"During the past quarter century this power has not only increased to one of disturbing magnitude but it has changed in character. The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials."
What is "The Obligation to Endure"?
DAILY DOUBLE
It's directions for finding the source. To help your readers find your sources, it's customary to give them the name of the author; the title of the book or article or website; and other information such as a date, location of publication, and publisher. There are various conventions to doing this.
What is source documentation?
What is citing your sources?
Asks "why" about possible antithetical arguments. Creating antitheses by simply changing the working thesis to its opposite typically demands more explanation. The best place to develop more details with your antithesis is to ask "why."
What is Step 3?
When crafting an argument you have to consider these three things about your audience in order to be convincing.
What are beliefs, trusted sources, and values?