My freshman year I read a book for one of my business classes called Creative Confidence. It is essentially a book instructing how to have confidence in your creativity and how to use it. It is written by Tom and David Kelley, a pair of brothers. The narration switches from brother to brother throughout the book. They have a similar manner of speaking and tone, but they have different views of the same stories or examples they share, so it is almost as if you receive a fresh opinion or viewpoint about something each time the voice changes. One thing remains constant throughout the book between the two of them. They are talking directly to the reader. It is almost as if you are in a deep conversation with the both of them and each one chimes in whenever they feel like they have something to add. It’s a comforting way to read, as it truly feels as though you are receiving life advice from two brothers sitting right next to you. This manner of speaking is emphasized by how they try to convey their teachings. Both brothers put an abundant amount of effort into telling you their own life stories and work that they have done as creative minds. They go through their lives and share every mistake, challenge, triumph and success of note in order to further drive home the idea of freeing yourself to be more creative. Even when they branch away from personal stories they still find a way to make their examples and rules entertaining and seemingly easily attainable for anyone who reads the book. They understand that everyday people who want to become more creative or just have confidence in their creative vision are reading this book, so they simplify how they suggest the reader accomplishes this. With basic instructions and vivid and entertaining examples it is difficult not to want to attempt to take on one of their many little instructions on building confidence. Breaking all of this down, reading this book feels like talking to two friends. Again, it is comforting. They speak in a personal and reassuring manner in order to draw an emotional appeal (pathos) out of the reader. This makes the reader feel better about things and motivates them to try out some of the activities, or follow some of the recommended thought processes in order to break free from the shackles of lacking confidence.
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Page 9 of chapter 1 of Montgomery’s written piece has a section that embodies the idea of rhetoric within scientific discourse. The passage is as follows, “Scientific writing is also engaged in rhetoric-it aims not just to tell but to persuade. It wants to convince us that the result not only has meaning but is meaningful. Such is no less important than the story; indeed, it needs to be the point of the story, as we’ll see.” Rhetoric, to Montgomery, seems to be the ability for an author to give a writing or presentation more of a sense of purpose. The big idea is stated early on as being that being able to speak and write with conviction and meaningful discourse gives the work a more convincing tone. This ties in well to science because the main goal of rhetoric within any field is persuasion. Scientific writing or speaking is usually the presentation of ideas or findings in order to show what was accomplished and found. This should always be accompanied by a form of persuasion in order to convince others that the work is valid and should be recognized on a larger scale. I feel similarly to Montgomery in that science tends to be shared in an analytical and almost mundane manner. People try so hard to present their facts and findings that they lose sight of the fundamentals of writing and speaking. This, in my opinion, loses the audience and causes a lack of attention. Without the needed attention during the presentation or reading the person will not fully be persuaded by the presented information. Now I’m not saying that people need to make drastic changes to their writing, but if people would try to appeal more than just one area of thought during their writing then they may have a better chance of persuasion. We can always return to the idea of ethos, logos and pathos. One must pay attention to all the rhetorical appeals and more in order to make a grander statement within their work and be more convincing to their specific audience. I am of course guilty of falling into these mistakes as well, but we all have to reconsider our writing and take a step back to say “Would I read this paper and truly consider the meaningfulness of its argument?” We should always consider the numbers and the data behind the research, but when presenting the information more should be done to make a persuasive argument that makes the audience walk away with a strong decision in their mind of how they feel about the data or information you presented.
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AuthorMy name is August Colburn and I am a junior management major. I transferred here last year from Ithaca College where I was originally a physics major. |