Great discussions over the past few days. Here are a few sources we’ll get to tomorrow:

The Forest of Rhetoric will be our go-to site for information about rhetorical devices, techniques, and history. A wonderful rabbit hole.

Etymonline should be bookmarked on all of your devices; knowing the etymology of a word can make it more memorable, and a working familiarity with roots and such makes figuring out the meaning of words much more precise.

From the board today:

The following contribute to the tone of a work. Know them. We’ll discuss more tomorrow.

• Diction
• Imagery
• Detail
• Figurative language
• Syntax
• Metonymy
• Synechdoche
• Euphemism/dysphemism

If you lost your copy of David Foster Wallace’s speech to the graduates at Kenyon College, I found another transcript here. ((Please note that his language is occasionally not school appropriate; I edited the copies handed out in class, but (of course) these sources are not so edited. We’ll continue to discuss his language, as it is vital to understanding.))

Audio of the speech:

An interpretation:

We looked at a few outlines today from students gracious enough to let us learn from their process. A few things to keep in mind as you continue working:

• An outline is complex and organic; it does not come all at once, nor should it be written linearly (that is, top-to-bottom). If you get stuck, move to another point and come back after asking questions or reviewing your notes.
• Each point should contain two elements: the author’s words and the {means by which he or she makes them appealing}.
  • Initially, he demonstrates {decorum} to place himself on the level of his audience.
    • {Informal diction}
      • “bull–y” (Wallace 1)
      • “there are these two guys” (Wallace 2)
    • He {deconstructs} the genre to {demonstrate his awareness of their understanding of how “these things go”}
      • “standard requirement of . . . speeches” (Wallace 1)
      • “not the wise older fish” (Wallace 1)

In draft form this would read something like this:

By using informal diction such as “bull–y,” (Wallace 1) “there are these two guys,” (2) he speaks to his audience as “one of them” rather than a stodgy, learned academic doling out advice. He continues this with a deconstruction of the “standard requirement of . . . speeches” (1) and by assuring the students that he is “not the wise older fish” (1).

Keep up the hard work; we’ll do a run-through of your outlines in groups tomorrow and begin writing on Friday.

Tonight you are to begin writing your outline for a rhetorical analysis of David Foster Wallace’s commencement address to Kenyon College. The goal is not to churn out a perfect example of the form (b/c you’re taking the wrong course if you’re at that point) but to begin collecting your thoughts into a workable flow. Here’s a way to go about it if you’re stuck:

1. Look over your annotations of the speech. ((If you don’t have annotations, remember the small panic you’re feeling now during the next week-long discussion of a work. Now put that aside for now, take a deep breath, and read through the speech again, marking answers to the questions on our first post. Once you’ve annotated the entire speech, make an attempt at briefly summarizing his thesis. Now head to #2 above.))
2. If you notice a pattern (“jokes,” “stories,” “slang,” “syllogisms,” etc.), group them together. These will fall under the main points of your essay.
   2b. If you don’t notice any patterns, look for the three basic appeals: How does he help his audience trust him? How does he make his argument seem reasonable? How does he make his audience care? Group your answers to the last three questions together. These will make up the major points of your essay.
3. Take a step back. Whether you are organizing this by patterns or by appeals, you may have lots of evidence under one major point and little under the others. If so, consider bolstering the little ones by looking back over your annotations or dividing the larger one.
4. Write down what you believe his argument is. It doesn’t have to be worded perfectly, but it should be accurate.
5. Above each group of patterns or appeals write how the group supports the appeal of his argument. In this step you’re writing the gist of your topic sentences while preparing to show your audience how the disparate rhetorical elements of his argument tie together to make it convincing.
6. Stop. Or continue, but that is really all we need for discussion tomorrow. You can fiddle with the bullet symbols if you like. I enjoy hederas, myself.