Rhetoric
Name and define the three rhetorical appeals
What are Ethos (authority/credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (statistics/numbers)
Leo's GW Deli makes a tasty food item, which also serves as a good analogy for effective quotation practices in academic writing
What is "sandwich" or "quotation sandwich"
These two writing genres will be written by every student in class to help them obtain a job or an internship
Describe 3 broad rhetorical choices Starbucks makes on their Instagram account.
What are a polished, formal aesthetic; prominent coffee imagery; lots of green; use of celebrities; holiday and seasonal images; animals/pets; (Prof Richter's judgement)
True or false: Citation styles like MLA and APA have officially sanctioned ways to cite AI in academic writing
True!
This Greek philosopher is likely to have invented the term "rhetoric" to refer to effective communication and persuasion in the polis (the Greek public assembly)
Who is Plato (will also accept Socrates)
This is Prof Richter's favorite part of argumentative writing to read
What is "counterargument"
What are "parentheses with the author's last name and the page number inside" (Prof Richter's judgement)
The social media platform X made this change in November 2025 that both clarified and undermined the trust that many Americans have in their social media feeds.
X made the location of a post's initiation public (ie. makes the device's IP address' "ping" public)
What is the world's largest platform for distributing podcasts?
What is "YouTube"
Beginning as a hashtag on Twitter in the early 2010's, this social movement evolved into a campaign that prominently used linguistic, visual, and audio rhetorical elements to advocate for changes to policing practices in the United States.
What is "the Movement for Black Lives" (or "Black Lives Matter")
These two goals are what determine if a thesis statement is successful or not
What are "communicating an argument" and "giving the reader a heads up/preview/"coming soon" about supporting evidence or subtopics (Prof Richter's judgement)
Name 3 ways to tell if a source is scholarly or an academic journal article
What are works cited pages, dense technical language, volumes or numbers listed, author affiliations listed, no advertisements, methods and discussion sections
This "funny" genre of videos is credited with helping YouTube grow in popularity (and you cited one as part of a citation scavenger hunt)
What are funny cat videos.
This is a video or sound clip that has been distorted by AI to create something that is fake or fictitious but that looks to most people like it's real
What is a "deepfake"
When considering the rhetoric and credibility of an information source, what does the "C.R.A.P. Test" acronym stand for?
What are "currency," "reliability"/"relevancy," "authorship"/"authority," and "purpose"
A counterargument must do these two things to be successful in academic writing
What are "state an opposing viewpoint" and "refute that viewpoint by stating why it's wrong, what it's missing, or what evidence it isn't factoring in"
This database, which is available to you for free as a GW student, is Prof Richter's favorite.
What is "Academic Search Complete"
Describe 3 broad rhetorical choices Dunkin makes on their Instagram account.
This organization conducts frequent polling about how Americans use social media platforms and empirically researches how social media impacts their lives (hint: our 2nd day of class)
What is the PEW Research Center
These three elements comprise the "rhetorical situation"
This "annoyance" mentioned in Kyle Stedman's article "Annoying Ways People Use Source" uses an animal in its name and refers to a writer not properly introducing a quotation to their reader
What is "armadillo roadkill"
This research librarian helped teach us Zotero and how to use GW databases
Who is "Misty Trunnell"
Before changing its name and taking off in popularity, TikTok began its life in the US with a different name for its app. What was this first name that appeared to US users?
What is "Musical.ly"
This social media platform with an older user base is known for facilitating gossipy rumors in local communities. For instance, it featured rampant discussion of UFOs/secret government activities/conspiracies when lights were spotted in the sky in December of 2024.
What is Nextdoor.