Considering Types

In this post I will describe what types of argumentative styles work the best for me to use in my public argument. I will be talking about the five specific types listed in the Writing Public Lives textbook.

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 Public Domain License.  

For my project I think the casual argument or the position argument would be the most effective way for me to argue my controversy. 

Casual Argument 

With the causal argument I can take a single, specific side and argue in favor or against just this one side. Because my topic has two main sides it would be easy for me to pick one to write about, and it would be easy for my audience to understand what I am arguing for. 

Because the goal of my argument is to educate the audience and hopefully get them to care about the issue, my pointing out the cause, but not a specific solution the reader's can reflect on the issue and hopefully find a solution themselves. 

Position Argument: 

Like I said above my issue has only two main sides when focusing on only the environmental effects. Because the number of view points is so limited I can easily find clear evidence to support my particular position. 

I would be able to target my stance towards my particular audience. Because I am writing for college students I would make my argument appeal towards the college students so that they are more likely to believe the information I provide.

Reflection: 
Alyssa's Rhetorical Action Plan  and Considering Types.  AND Brandon's Rhetorical Action Plan and Considering Types.

After reading the above posts from my classmates I feel more confident in the genre and argument style I chose. Like Brandon I will be including a decent bit of technical information in my argument, this is the evidence for my claim, and in order to prove the dense, factual information I think a QRG or a blog would be the most effective. It allows for me to provide good, detailed information while still making it easy for the reader to digest. Similar to Alyssa I want my argument to not change the opinions of my readers, but get them to consider the other sides of the controversy. Therefore, like her I think the casual argument will be the most effective argument type. 

My Rhetorical Action Plan

In the following blog post I will address how I will manage the rhetoric of my text. I will look at the three components, audience, genre, and responses/action by answering the questions from Writing Public Lives. 

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Audience: 

• Knowledge: I am assuming that my audience is made up of non-environmental studies major students. Therefore the knowledge they have on the subject I expect to be little to none especially in the technical specifics. The information they would have about fracking I expect they got from big news stories, and because of the nature of the stories that make the news I anticipate the information they have made them on the slightly more anti-fracking side. 

• Values: I think my audience believes in what they've been told. Natural gas is a cleaner-burn energy source than something like coal, but they have not been told of all of the negatives that fracking can causes unintentionally. Also, I think most college kids are environmentally conscious, but to varying degrees.

• Standards of Argument: The best statistics I can provide for my audience would be very current numbers that show long-term trends. I am writing for millennials, and we are very invested more in what affects us than in the past or future. Also, the long-term statistics show what will happen to us now and in the future, which is more relevant for this generation.

• Visual Elements: I think visual elements like charts, to show a large group of data quickly, and relevant emotion-causing pictures will be the most helpful.   

• Purpose: The purpose of my argument is to educate my audience on a topic they might be familiar with, but not experts. I am not trying to use my argument to motivate my audience to act a certain way, just to understand the different sides of the fracking issue. 

Genre: 
Examples of the blog genre that would appeal to college students. Boing Boing and TreeHugger. Another possible genre I could write in would be a QRG. A few examples of QRGs are this one about the world series  (go Royals) and this one about time management.

• Function: The function of the blog genre would be to give relevant information quickly, while keeping it interesting to hold the reader's attention. Similarly, the QRG would present the information to the audience in a straight forward and easy way, but would provide more information than a blog post.

• Setting: The setting of my genre is online. Its made to be easily accessible and easy to digest. I could see it being used on popular social media sites. 

• Rhetorical Appeals: I think because the most useful rhetorical appeal for me would be to use ethos. The biggest challenge I have to face is to make my audience care about a subject that they may have no current interest in. 

• Visual Elements: I think  I will utilize visual images. Like I stated above, I think the most useful visual aids would be ones that can provide a lot of information quickly and ones that will generate a lot of emotion.  

• Style: The most effective style for me will be an informal style that excludes a lot of technical jargon and doesn't turn the audience off by feeling overly pretentious. 

Responses/Action: 

I am not really looking for my audience to take any big actions after they read my argument, but I would like them to be better educated than they were prior to reading my text and to be more conscious of the environment. 

Positive Reactions:

1. After reading my argument my audience could share it to help me reach a larger group of My people. 
2. My audience could get involved with my post, because it will be in a public place, and they could comment. 
3. The audience could take what they learned from my argument and make their own blog posts or social media comment. 

Negative Reactions:

1. Comments are a double-edged sword, so my audience could get involved and leave negative comments on whatever platform I use to publish my article. 
2. My audience could complete ignore all of the content I provided. 
3. After reading my text the audience could write their own blog post/QRG with the intent to completely discredit mine. 

Analyzing Purpose

In this post I will include information that I brainstormed for information that I could include in my public argument.

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Goal: 
The goal of my writing would be to educate my readers. Everyone uses electricity and energy whether or not its developed through coal plants or solar panels or natural gas plants. Because I am targeting college students, I want to inform them of where there energy is coming from and at what costs.

Plausible Reactions/Actions and Non-plausible Reactions/Actions:
A very implausible reaction that my argument could cause would be for the readers to go and stop an active fracking site. A slightly more plausible, but unlikely reaction would be for the readers to form a protest at their various campuses.

A more likely scenario would be for my argument to educate my audience so when they go to vote, as college students are usually of legal age to vote, would vote on the issues of fracking. Or if the argument really inspires them, they could petition their congressmen demanding change--but that's starting to get very unlikely.

Likely Consequences: 
Because my audience is college students, I would write my argument in some form of social medial where they would have easy access to it. Because of the nature of social media, the most likely response to my text would either be to read it and close the window or share it if they felt really strongly about what I wrote.

Sharing my article is the best case scenario, its still a pretty low impact consequence. Therefore, from my text the best I can hope for is to educate more of my generation on this topic, and hopefully raise the awareness of the environment.

Audience: 
Like I wrote above the audience for my piece is college students, especially those not involved in environmental studies and engineering fields. I think with this field I can really achieve my goal of trying to educate the readers with a basic, fundamental idea of what fracking is and how it is affecting the environment.

Analyzing Context

In the following post I will answer questions regarding the big picture of my controversy.

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1. What are the key perspectives or schools of thought on the debate that you are studying?
1. With fracking the major schools of thought are that fracking is bad for the environment and that fracking is good for the environment because the natural gas collected is a cleaner burn energy than regular fossil fuels. 
2. What are the major points of contention or major disagreements among these perspectives?
1. The major points of disagreement between the two perspectives are what causes a bigger and worse impact on the environment. The pro-fracking side believes that the burning of fossil fuels causes the worst consequences for the environment where the side against fracking believes that the worst consequences stem from the fracking process. 
3. What are the possible points of agreement, or the possible common ground between these perspectives?
1. One possible point of agreement between the arguments is that both groups genuinely want a solution that will help the environment, the two sides just disagree on what would cause the best outcome for the environment. 
4. What are the ideological differences, if any, between the perspectives? 
1. The ideological differences could be what side of the political spectrum they associate with. The anti-fracking sides tends to be more liberal, whereas the side that supports fracking is by default more conservative. 
5. What specific actions do their perspectives or texts ask their audience to take?
1. The texts from both perspectives prompt their audiences to be more aware of the actions than to take action to fix the problem. 
6. What perspectives are useful in supporting you own arguments about the issue? Why did you choose these?
1. Perspectives that would be useful to help me support my argument are the perspectives that I know my audience will have. Because I will be targeting my text towards college students I have to make them care about my argument, by making the argument relevant to what they view. 
7. What perspectives do you think will be the greatest threat to your argument? Why so?
1. I think the biggest obstacle I will have to face is readers who have the perspective where they don't care about the fracking issue at all.  

Reflection: 

After reading Dylan and Savannah's blog posts where they analyzed the content of their controversies I realized that the topic of the argument plays a huge role in the context of the debate. 

For example, Savannah is also writing about a scientific topic and I found that like me her argument was very clear cut, with two distinct sides to the discussion. The articles about her topic were also like mine where they didn't explicitly prompt the reader to take action, they more wanted to inform the reader than rally a protest. 

However, Dylan's topic was different from mine as it was outside of the scientific field. His argument looked at the different types of film, which could be argued to be more subjective. Because of the nature of his subject personal stories appear to be very helpful to use as evidence whereas scientific fact is easier for me to use and make a convincing argument. 

Audience and Genre

In the following post I will talk about the specific audiences who would be interested in my argumentative piece about fracking.

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6/4/2011 via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0 License.  

1. Audience--Schlumberger 
Schlumberger is a large company involved in the fracking process. They basically cover all of the fracking process minus the sale of the extracted natural gas. Because they are the ones to collect the gas they would want to hear about the effects so they can improve their processes, if possible, to maximize their profits and avoid getting sued and bad press.

• A popular blog may gather this company's attention if my blog post were to gather enough momentum in social media. One possible blog could be Yale Environment 360  or  Mother Jones: Blue Marble. Both of these blogs have been ranked in the top 10 environmental blogs. 
• An example of a blog post I would write here would be this or this. Because I would be writing for a blog, I would want to write my argument in a blog format, like the examples above.

2. Audience--American Council on Renewable Energy

The American Council on Renewable Energy is a non-profit organization that works about trying to organize people involved in renewable energy. An organization like this one would be good to reach to propose that natural gas is still a viable source of renewable energy, just with some modifications.

• A possible publication source for me would be on YouTube. I think because the organization is looking more for companies and established people in the field, my best bet to be noticed would be to go "viral" and gather lots of attention. Therefore, YouTube would be the perfect platform to have a video gain lots of views. A couple of YouTube channels that could be a good place to publish would be GreenPeaceUSA  and FriendsoftheEarth. 
• A couple of examples of videos that I could make would be video 1 and video 2.

Reflection on Project 2

In this post I will reflect on what occurred as I revised my Project 2 paper from draft to draft. In order to reflect on my revision process I will be answering questions from Writing Public Lives.

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2/ 21/2015 via Pixabay. CCO Public Domain/ FAQ License. 

1. 
   What was specifically revised from draft to draft?
1. I think the biggest thing I revised from my first draft to the final was my introduction and conclusion. With my first introduction I had the wrong focus, and the conclusion was nonexistent. 
2. Point to global changes: how did you reconsider your thesis or organization?
1. With my thesis I had to reconsider how specific to make it. The first couple drafts of thesis-es I made were much to broad and did not mention the pieces of the rhetorical situation.  
3. What led you to these changes? Reconsideration of author or purpose?
1. Once I figured out what the purpose was that really dictated what I changed. For example, once I separated what the purpose of the entire essay was I changed my entire introduction paragraph.  
4. How do these changes affect your credibility as an author?
1. I think these changes made my credibility better. Once I changed my thesis to be more specific I think it drastically improved how on topic I stayed in my essay which makes me seem like a more credible author. 
5. How will these changes better address the audience or venue?
1. The new introduction addresses the audience by actually recognizing the rhetorical situation of my essay. Meaning--I actually mentioned the right audience. 
6. Point to logical changes: how did you reconsider sentence structure or style?
1. The biggest change in style that I made came after I identified my audience. Once I identified future chemical engineers as my audience it allowed me to connect with my audience more, since we have some common ground and it let me write my intro and conclusion a little more informative than just stuffing it full of background information. 
7. How will these changes assist your audience in understanding your purpose?
1. My new introduction actually introduces the topic of the essay instead of the subject of the article. I think once I explicitly stated why I was writing what I was writing and the importance of the analysis, it made it a lot clearer for the audience. 
8. Did you have to reconsider the convention of the particular genre in which you were writing?
1. Yes. Since we have been writing so much this year in different genres like the QRG and blog posts, the first draft I completely forgot citations and that paragraphs could be longer than like five sentences. 
9. Finally, how does the process of reflection help you reconsider your identity as a writer?
1. I think as I write I do a lot of reflecting, therefore for me sitting down at the end doesn't help me as much. But, I think through all of my reflection I decided that with my writing style I prefer to have a strong outline and heavy revision. These strategies made the writing easier for me. 

Reflection 

After reading Mehruba and Brandon's reflection on project 2 I found some similarities between myself and my classmates. Mehruba and I both completely revised our intro and conclusion paragraphs between the drafts. I've always thought these are the hardest paragraphs to write, and it was nice to see that some of my classmates also changed the direction they wanted their intros to go. 

With Brandon, we shared some ideas about how having a specific audience makes it a little easier to give context than with a broad audience. However, I was a little jealous to read that when it came to writing the essay he remembered all the genre components. I definitely felt a little out of practice when it came to citations and long paragraphs. 

Extended Annotate Bibliography

In this post I will present my annotated bibliography for my Project 3 research piece. I will include my sources which helped my answer some of the questions I posed in my "Questions about Controversy" post.

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2/23/2012 via Flickr. CC-BY-NC 2.0 License. 

1. Marshall, Peter. How Fracking Affects a Community in Pennsylvania, 2011. BBC News. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-15919248. (accessed 10/23/15).

This article from the BBC News website gives the first hand experience from Peter Marshall as he ventured to Bradford County to talk to the locals. He asked them about their experiences since the fracking companies moved into the area. The locals talked about the health problems they've had since the industry came to town. While this source did not give a timeline from how soon the locals experienced health complications, it provides a list of health problems that did arise in the county.

2. Borenstein, Seth. Contaminated Water Caused by Leaky Wells, Not Fracking Process, Study Says, 2014. Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/15/contaminated-water-fracking_n_5822652.html. (accessed 10/23/15).

In this post, like the title suggests, the source of water contamination is explained to be a result of the wells not the fracking process. Having a source that identifies where the health concerns are coming form is crucial for writing an essay about the effects of fracking. This source will help me answer my question regarding where in the fracking process the major issue is originating.

3. McFarlane, Greg. Why Schlumberger Is a Name You Should Know, 2014. Investopedia. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/080814/why-schlumberger-name-you-should-know.asp. (accessed 10/23/15).

This post addresses how a company like Schlumberger has become as big as it is in the natural gas industry. It talks about what part of the gas collection process Schlumberger is involved with and how the company has maintained its success. This article helps me to identify who some of the big companies involved with fracking are, which was one of the questions I posed in a previous blog post.

4. Popular Mechanics. Is Fracking Safe? The 10 Most Controversial Claims About Natural Gas Drilling, 2015. Popular Mechanics. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/g161/top-10-myths-about-natural-gas-drilling-6386593/. (accessed 10/23/15).

Again the name of the article is very self-explanatory, but the article addresses some of the big misconceptions about hydraulic fracking. In particular misconception number four talks about how unrealistic it is for the fracking fluid to contaminate the underground water. In combination with the article in resource two, helps to contextualize where the major issue with fracking is.

Narrowing My Focus

In the following blog post I will present a few of my favorite questions I created in the previous post and explain why I like these questions. I will also describe how these questions are going to help me create my own public argument.

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Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Internation License. 

1. How are the opponents spreading the news of the negative effects of fracking?

I think this question is incredibly important for me to answer before I being working on my public argument because it tells me where to write my piece. If I want to add to the current debate I need to publish my piece in a place that is relevant to the existing discussion. Therefore, once I address where other parties are taking the discussion I can write my argumentative piece in that location so it will be seen.

2. When did the first community experience health issues from fracking?

For my public argument one possible avenue I can write about is the types of health issues that resulted from fracking in different communities. Whether these health issues originated from contaminated water or reduced air quality levels I think I could add a new perspective in the field this way.

Project 2 Final Draft

Here is the final version on my rhetorical analysis for Project 2. While not all of my readers who will open this document are newbies in the field of Chemical Engineering, I hope you all get to play ChemE for a little, and enjoy this guide to analyzing articles in the Chemical Engineering field.

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CC-BY-SA-3.0-MIGRATED License. 

Here is the link to my rhetorical analysis.

Questions About Controversy

In the following post I will being developing questions that I can use while I develop a public argument of my own. These questions will help me to create a new perspective on my controversy that I can use to add to the current argument. 

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3/22/2015 via Pixabay. CCO Public Domain/ FAQ License. 

WHO?

Who are the big fracking companies? Who are the specific environmental groups that are fighting against fracking? Who are the communities that are being affected by the fracking?

WHAT?

What is the bigger fight the process as a whole or the way its currently being carried out? What does the data show about fracking lowering carbon dioxide emissions? How much methane is escaping during the fracking process?

WHEN?

When did the first community experience health issues from fracking? When do the negative effects from fracking appear after the drills have been dug and used? When was the first big push against fracking?

WHERE?

Where in the fracking process is the major complaint originating? Where are the effects from fracking being felt the most? Where are the possible solutions coming from?

HOW?

How are the opponents spreading news of the negative effects of fracking? How are the fracking companies defending themselves? How is the general public involved in the debate (what social media platform are they using)?

Punctuation, Part 2

In the following post I will reflect on three more punctuation topics as discussed in the textbook, Rules for Writers. As grammar is not a strong suit of mine, I will then discuss how I used the punctuation topics to self-edit my draft of Project 2.

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Quotation Marks 
For me, quotation marks around quotes was something I learned a long time ago, therefore it was always second nature to include them. However, what to use with quotation marks was never really emphasized. For example, I did not know that a formal introduction to a quote was pared with a colon, or that colon and semicolons went outside of the quotation marks.

Also, with MLA in-text citations, I was never sure if the period was included after the citation when the quote had a question mark or exclamation mark-it is.

One example from my text is:
Ingraffea explained his qualification in the oil and gas industry in his interview by saying, “I spent 20, 25 years working with the oil and gas industry...helping them to figure out how best to get oil and gas out of rock.” 3
          To introduce the quote I used a phrase similar to "he said" like in Rules for Writers" so I used a           comma after my introductory phrase. Also, I included a period in the quotation marks and                   followed the quotation marks with my citation.

End Punctuation 
End punctuation, like its name suggests, is the type of punctuation found at the end of the sentence. I was happy to finally have it clarified that if an abbreviation is found at the end of a sentence there is only one period at the end. Also, multiple question marks can be used in a list even with incomplete sentences.

Other Punctuation Marks 
One thing that I found surprising was in quotations when a full sentence is removed from the quote this is signified with more than an ellipse, it is shown with a period before the ellipse so four periods in a row.

Another punctuation rule that was new to me was using dashes to separate nouns or noun phrase that that include commas. The dashes can show the importance of the appositive, so the phrase is not confused with the other commas.

One example from my text: 
And now the reason I bring it up in the context of politics is that the right, the political right uses this as a central case study for liberals getting science wrong...And
While revising I searched my quotes to see if I omitted a full sentence. Because I did not remove a full sentence, just fragments, I used regular ellipses instead of ellipses preceded by a period.

Copy for Paragraph Analysis 2

In this post I will analyze how well I have put my paragraphs together. I am looking specifically at the fluidity of the paragraphs between each other and within the individual paragraphs. Also, I am inspecting how on topic my paragraphs were and how I developed the topic. Here is a link to my copy for paragraph analysis.

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Focus on a Main Point
I think my paragraphs did a good job of identifying a single main point. For the most part I think my paragraphs also did a good job of sticking to the main idea. However, I did find in some of my paragraphs the reasoning I used to develop the main point was what pulled the paragraph off topic. Therefore, I think it would be beneficial for me to rewrite my paragraphs and making my developing information more concise.

Develops the Main Point 
I think I touched on this above, but my paragraphs did a good job of developing the main point, but they took a very roundabout way to get to the point. When I make my paragraphs more concise I think it will help how my main point is developed in addition to making my paragraphs more focused.

Organizes Itself Internally
While the structure of the paragraph follows no real plan, I think the organization of the paragraphs makes sense in terms of how the information is presented. In particular, the paragraph regarding the credibility of the author was a long description of his background in order to conclude that as a result of his background the stance he took made him more credible. With this paragraph I used both the description organization and the cause and effect structure.

Links Ideas Coherently 
I think within the paragraphs there is enough transitions between the sentences to where the paragraph does flow. In addition to the transitions, I think the sentences were worded to where adjacent sentences connected.

Provides Smooth Transitions 
This is definitely the area where I struggled the most. I felt like the jumps between my paragraphs are kinda awkward and don't flow as smoothly into one another as they could. Therefore, to fix this transition problem I will try to work in some information from the preceding paragraph into the introduction of the next paragraph, and I believe this will help me move smoothly between ideas.

Revised Conclusion

In this post I will include a link to my essay with the conclusion paragraph I have revised. Because I did not write a conclusion paragraph for my original draft, I have only included one link and this paragraph is definitely an improvement from my original conclusion paragraph. In my conclusion paragraph I tried to apply the "So What" approach. I think this conclusion paragraph is still very rough, but it still heads in the direction where I think the conclusion should end up.

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CC BY-SA 2.0 License. 

Revised Conclusion:

The text written by Chris Mooney, “Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger,” has been evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the article’s argument. The argument presented is targeted towards political environmentalists and for its specific audience the text provides a very compelling argument. While the text utilizes some rhetoric strategies it still present an article that remains relatively unbiased. Because of the lack of bias this article has become a source that can influence someone like an engineer without having to worry about a conflict of ethics.

Revised Introduction

In this post I have linked an essay with my original introduction and I have also linked an version of my essay with my revised introduction. I think the new introduction did a much better job of identifying the rhetorical situation of my text. Also, I was able to rewrite my introduction to make it seem like topic of the essay was to analyze the article, not to debate the article. Also, I am quite happy that my new introduction was able to identify why the rhetorical analysis was important to new students that share my discipline.

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10/16/2013 via Pixabay. CCO Public Domain/FAQ. 

Original Introduction:

The oil industry is a booming profit market. Collecting oil can be traced back to 347 A.D. when the first oil well were dug in China. The mModern day oil wells began in 1848 in Asia by F.N Semyenov.⁵ The demand for oil has increased since then and with it increased CO₂ emissions. In order to decrease these harmful emissions, people have been searching for an alternative substance to use, and they decided upon natural gas. The most popular way to extract natural gas isn hydraulic fracking in shale. However, this process has been the topic of many debates. The rising use of fracking has lead to increased concern about the effect that the natural gas collection method has on the environment. The first big concern about fracking was critics claiming that fracking was contaminating the water supply. Recently the focus has shifted to the  In the text, “Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger,” Chris Mooney uses an interview with Anthony Ingraffea, a professor at Cornell University, and surprising statistics to convince his audience of political environmentalists that the scientific data is supporting fracking as harmful to the environment. Even with the bias of the author, Mooney is still able to provide a convincing argument on the negative effects of fracking.

Revised Introduction:

Just as important as what is said is how it is said. Engineering is one of many disciplines where the information seems black and white. However, like in design perspective is everything and even the most concrete information can be depicted as gray. One area where Chemical Engineers need to be aware of this deceiving information is in persuasive articles in the field. Authors try to tempt the readers to one side by presenting information that is favorable to their opinion. Being aware of the trickery authors can use, Chemical Engineers can evaluate the credibility of a source. Because non-engineers do not always have the same technical knowledge, a lot of faith is put into the engineer so it is important that engineers are able to distinguish a good source from a bad. Also, if an engineer discovers a problem and wants to implement a change, he or she needs to convince others that the problem is worth fixing. Then, the engineer would need to construct an argument. By dissecting other arguments the engineer can strengthen their own argument and make it appealing. The following evaluation on the argument by Chris Mooney on hydraulic fracking, will show how an argument can be evaluated for its effectiveness. In the text, “Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger,” Chris Mooney uses an interview with Anthony Ingraffea, a professor at Cornell University, and surprising statistics to convince political environmentalists that the scientific data favors the argument that fracking is harmful to the environment.

Reflection on Project 2 Draft

In this post I will

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The two drafts that I peer-edited were written by Ayra and Mehruba, and here the respective links for their drafts.

Do you have an identifiable thesis? Does it point to the specific rhetorical strategies you analyze in your essay? 
Yes, I think my thesis is easy to find and understand. I think I successfully mentioning the specific strategies (bias of the author, surprising stats, and credible sources)  I would be analyzing in my rhetorical analysis.

How is your essay organized? Does each paragraph have a specific point which is supported with evidence from the text?
I organized my essay by rhetorical strategy. My first body paragraph focuses on the credibility of the author, the second on the audience, and why a credible source would make the argument more appealing, This is followed with the third which talks about the surprising statistics and the last paragraph will be the conclusion, which has yet to be written.

Did you identify and analyze the five elements of the rhetorical situation?
I think I identified the five elements of the rhetorical situation. The first is the text which is the piece written by Chris Mooney called "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger". The second is the author, and I spent some time talking about Chris Mooney and his background. Thirdly, is the audience and I analyzed who the audience was based on where the text was published. The forth element was the purpose and the fifth was the setting. I think I covered both of these when I talked about the content of the text.

Did you explain how and why certain strategies were employed?
Yes. I talked about how the strategies were implemented, and gave examples on how the strategies were used in the text by quoting from the piece.

Are you thoughtfully using evidence in each paragraph? Is the relevance of the quotes being mentioned?
Yes. I tried to include at least a quote per paragraph to act as evidence for my points. I spent the remainder of the paragraphs explaining how the quote was relevant to the point I was trying to make.

Did you leave your reader wanting more? Has the "so what" question been answered?
I think I answered the "so what" question in my introduction when I pointed out why it would be important for an engineer to be able to evaluate the quality of a source.

Punctuation, Part 1

In the following blog post I will reflect on punctuation topics that I have selected from the Rules for Writers to focus on. I will write about what I learned from reading these topics.

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The Unnecessary Comma

From reading about the common misuses of commas I realize I have been incorrectly using commas for a while in my writing. Some of the areas where I thought a comma was necessary but really is not is after although and to set off an indirect quote.

I had been taught in English classes before to use a comma with phrases that helped to specify a noun, but I now realize that there are different types of parenthetical phrases. 

The Semicolon

I find the semicolon is the most common type of punctuation to be used incorrectly rivaled only by the comma. I know that I never really learned how to use the semicolons and after seeing some of the examples in the book, I know there are some uses I will be implementing. I was pleasantly surprised to see that semicolons can be used in a series when the items of the series contain commas. 

The Apostrophe

Unlike the semicolon and the comma, the uses for the apostrophe follow more of a common sense rule. Most of the uses for the apostrophe were things that I already knew like when a noun is possessive an apostrophe is used to show it. I did learn though that the possessive form of who is whose, not who's.

Reflection:
In peer-reviewing the blogs of my classmates I learned a couple of different things. First, when used correctly semicolons can make the piece flow together more. Because the sentences are connected the text feels more cohesive. For example, from Ayra's blog she wrote: "Bennett’s use of ethos lends her credibility; this makes it easier for Bennett to get the audience to agree with the cultural values she discusses in the article making it so the audience will agree with her view on animal experimentation."

Secondly, I saw examples of commas being used to set a descriptive phrase apart from the rest of the text, like in Mehruba's draft. In her draft she writes, "...Charles Darwin, "the Father of Evolution ..." The "Father of Evolution" is not information needed for the sentence to make sense and it has been correctly offset by commas.

For the apostrophes, there wasn't too much to learn because the rules for use are very simple. That being said, I did see many examples of apostrophes being used correctly.

Draft of Rhetorical Analysis

In this post I have linked my first draft of my Rhetorical Analysis.

Darthpedrius. "fracking" 9/13/2011 via Flickr. Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0 Generic License. 

In my essay I feel like the level of analysis I did decreased the farther into the essay I got. I am quite proud of the evidence I was able to find for the first "qualifier" but I am not entirely convinced that the information I gave is entirely relevant to the topic. Also, I struggled a lot with the introduction and conclusion so any and all suggestions for those would be greatly appreciated.

Here is the link to my Rhetorical Analysis of "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger".

Project 2 Outline

In this post I will give an outline to my Project 2 Assignment.

ClkerFreeVectorImages. "Boat Outline White Sport Marine Nautical Sea"
10/5/2015 via Pixabay. CCO Public Domain/ FAQ License. 

First, I decided to create my outline in a Google doc, because the spacing with bullet points on blogger has a tendency to get kind of funky for me, so I apologize for the inconvenience.

In my outline I think I started out really strong by giving lots of details, and quotes that I can use in my essay. I made the outline so detailed so the essay would be easier to write. After that, the outline gets a lot less specific and detailed and I think this is from laziness on my part and my rising confidence, hopefully, with analyzing the rhetorical analysis.

Here is the link to my outline.

Reflection:
After looking at Morgan and Carter's outline, I learned that my approach to writing outlines is very different from other people in the class. I prefer to spend a lot of time on the outline and write down full sentences that will end up in my draft, whereas Morgan and Carter used their outline more like a general structure for what type of information they will include in their draft. I don't think one technique is necessarily more effective than another, I think it just depends on the people using the outline.

Draft Thesis Statements

In this post I will list a couple of possible thesis statements for my Rhetorical Analysis. I think if I am able to get my thesis statements to include enough information and specific enough the rest of the project should be relatively easy to develop. Once the thesis is done, I have a very general outline of what information to talk about and in what order to include it.

OpenClipartVectors. "Draft Business Document File Filing Office" 10/5/2015 via Pixabay.
CCO Public Domain/ FAQ License. 

1. In the text, "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger," Chris Mooney uses an interview with Anthony Ingraffea and reoccurring keywords like  "earthquake" to convince his audience of political environmentalists that the science is supporting fracking as harmful to the environment. Even with the bias of the author the, article still manages to provide a convincing argument on the negative effects of fracking.

• I feel like my "qualifiers" are not very strong, and too specific to write a 3-4 page essay. I think I was able to identify all the pieces of the rhetoric situation and strategies that I will need for my essay, but I could be more specific. 

2. Chris Mooney uses his text, "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger" to convince his audience of right-winged environmentalists that the science is supporting a typically left winged claim. Mooney effectively uses logical claims to show the scientific evidence of his case.

• I think this thesis might be too broad for the this genre. From the examples, it seems like the theses are very specific and sum up the essay in a couple of sentences and I think mine leaves too much unsaid.

Reflection:

After reading Ayra and Mehruba's thesis sentences I realized that we took a slightly different approach to writing them. Both Ayra and Mehruba used thesis statements that were more broad and did not specifically mention what types of strategies they were using. I suggested to both of them that they name what types of strategies they will be analyzing in their rhetorical analysis. 

Practicing Summary and Paraphrase

I will use the following blog post as a test of how effectively I can paraphrase or summarize a quotation from the text. I will be taking a quote from my selected text and paraphrasing the information, changing the information into my own words, and summarizing the content, giving just the main points.

Sheridan, Hiro. "golidlocks" 5/25/2007 via Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic License. 

Original Source (Here is a link to the text) 

"...explains Cornell University engineering professor Anthony Ingraffea...the scientific argument against fracking and unconventional gas drilling is more extensive. It involves not simply groundwater contamination, but also at least two other major problems: earthquake generation and the accidental emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas." 

 My Paraphrase of Original Source. 

Anthony Ingraffea, a member of the engineering faculty at Cornell University, states in an interview that the environmental issues caused by fracturing rocks to collect natural gas is more substantial than previously believed. Scientific data shows that seismic activity has been triggered by humans and levels of the hydrocarbon methane have increased in the atmosphere. 

My Summary of the Original Source. 

Anthony Ingraffea explains that scientific data supports hydraulic fracking of shale as a cause of earthquakes and methane in the atmosphere. 

Analyzing My Audience

In this blog post I will analyze the intended audience for Project 2. With my evaluation of the audience I will have started the investigation into the first of the three categories of the rhetoric situation.

OpenClipartVectors. "Vote Crowd Conference Group Convention Audience"
10/5/2014 via Pixabay. CCO Public Domain/ FAQ License.  

 Who am I writing for?

The audience I am targeting with my Rhetorical Analysis of an Opinionated Public Speech Act are new students in the Chemical Engineering field. This project is to help these students gain an idea of what to expect from a piece of public speech from the Chemical Engineering world. Ideally, these students would have no beliefs or assumptions of what to expect from this field in terms of writing and my analysis will help them understand what to expect in the future. 

What position might they take on this issue? 

The position that is most likely for my audience to take is the side of science. Typically engineers of all disciplines are more scientifically minded and stats and facts are more appealing to them. To respond to the position I will focus a lot of analysis on the credible of the author and his source to establish the credibility of the information they are giving. 

What will they want to know?

I think the audience will want to know if the facts being presented are valid and trustworthy. My audience will want to know to know what kind of evidence is present to back up the argument being made, and if they can trust the evidence that is given in the text. 

How might they react to my argument?

The reaction I anticipate from my argument is a positive reaction. The source being used for majority of the text is a scientist who has practiced in the oil and gas industry which makes him more credible and the information being provided is coming from a reputable source.

Because the information being given is reputable and the argument being made is backed up with facts I think the audience will likely agree with the case made by the Chris Mooney, the author. 

How am I trying to relate or connect with my audience? Are their specific ways through which I can relate to the audience?

I am trying to connect with my audience by keeping my analysis as factual and logical as possible. I will organize my analysis in a clear progression to keep it easy to understand and I will provide lots of evidence and examples from the text to back up the argument I am making.

Reflection 
After reading Kelly and Alyssa's post I realize that even though the three of us have different majors: engineering, physiology, and nursing, because we all have scientific majors there is a lot of overlap between what parts of the audience we have to be conscious to.

Both Kelly ad Alyssa have majors where the readers have a high likely-hood of being familiar with the topics of their texts--icing and circumcision. Because the audience may have some previous knowledge on the topic, they need to make sure that the analysis they do can still be understood by all of their audience.

In my topic I feel like the audience may have heard of fracking before, but chances are they are not experts or even incredibly familiar with the specifics and technicalities of hydraulic fracking in shale. I think this makes my job easier because I do not have to compensate quite as much in my essay for the prior knowledge of the audience. 

Cluster of "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger".

In this post I will combine all of the evaluations I have conducted thus far on the text, "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger". I will organize my evaluations through a cluster map to illustrate how each of the elements I analyzed fit together and relate to the text.

Hashimoto, Jayni. "Cluster 2" 10/5/15 via Screenshot. 

In my cluster map I surrounded the text title with the different types of evaluation we conducted. From these evaluations I broke the cluster into smaller sections to show the specific elements that were analyzed. I tried to use the branches to show how the details connected to the overall evaluation and the text as a whole.

Here is my cluster map.

Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger".

In this post I will analyze how Chris Mooney uses rhetorical strategies in"Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger to make his argument in the controversy over hydraulic shale fracking.

Indolences "Green equilateral triangle point up" 4/4/2007 via Commons.Wikipedia.
Public Domain License.

Appeals to Credibility or Character. 

• Some of the strategies that appeared in the text that were mentioned in the Student's Guide to First Year Writing includes personal stories, references to credible sources, acknowledgment of the counterarguments, and appeals to values and beliefs shared with the audience. 

• The author used these strategies to make his side more believable. For example, the author included lots of information about his interviewee to help solidify the information he provided. The scientist that was interviewed used to work for oil and gas companies, giving him a deeper understanding of the fracking process. 

•  I think these strategies successfully increases the credibility of the author. Chris Mooney is a published author that writes about politics in science. I think because his argument is supported by an external source that has experience in the fracking world, his opinion is more believable than if Mooney just stated his opinion. 

• Similar to how Mooney's credibility was increased, I think the effectiveness of the article increased with the strategies implemented. Mooney is very upfront of his public appearance, he does not try to hide that he is typically a political writer. However, he uses this to the advantage of his argument when he disagrees with his party. 
• And now the reason I bring it up in the context of politics is that the right, the political right uses this as a central case study for liberals getting science wrong. They say fracking isn't that risky. The left over exaggerates the risk because they hate corporations yada-yada. And I've been kinda sympathetic to the argument and took that stance in Scientific American in 2011 and also in my book...But since that time the science has evolved and developed in particular the research has gotten clearer on two subjects that you've got to call pretty concerning..

• Because this piece is an opinion piece I think its nearly impossible to eliminate all bias. However, like in the previous bullet, I think Mooney address his bias, namely his political affiliation, but uses his bias to aid his argument.

 Appeals to Emotions. 

• The piece seems to value more logic and scientific fact than emotional appeal, but some of the emotional strategies that are present in the text are the repetition of key words,  and the level of formality. 

• I think they emotional response that Mooney is trying to elicit is an informed annoyance. I do not think he is trying to get people very angry as he gives no attainable goal. It seems like the response he is looking for would include people getting informed and going to their Congressmen to seek change. 

• I think the text does a good job of informing people and creating enough anger to drive people to want to do something, but not angry enough to vandalize fracking sites. 

• Because Mooney is not striving to create an angry audience he is more credible because he focuses the information towards informing the audience of the facts. 

Appeals to Logic.

• I think this article focused mainly on its logos appeals and the strategies that are present in the text include: an interview and expert opinions, clear transitions, arrangement of text for emphasis, and effective organization of information and how it was presented. 

• Because the article focuses on the scientific argument against hydraulic fracking in shale, Mooney is trying to keep the article as logical as possible so the concrete facts do not get lost and overshadowed by emotional or excessive jargon. 

• In my opinion Mooney achieved keeping his article logical. The text presents an argument that I found easy to follow and I didn't find excessive bias present. 

• I think because this piece was targeted towards an audience that valued the scientific evidence the strategies to keeps the text unbiased and logical are incredibly effective. 

Reflection 

After reading Nick and Jessica's post I realized that the types of strategies the author uses really depends on what kind of argument the author is trying to make.

Nick, like me, had an article that relied heavily on scientific fact and evidence. In fact, his author also used an interview with an expert scientist as evidence for his argument. Because of the scientific focus the articles relied more on a logical approach than an emotional one. 

In Jessica's post her author used more of the emotional strategies to add validity to her argument. Her text used more visual aids that were implemented to draw an emotional response from the reader, whereas the images in my text were used more to explain the scientific ideas. 

Analyzing Message in "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger".

In this blog post I will answer questions about the message and purpose of the text as suggested by A Student's Guide to First Year Writing. 

Cupccakes, Raspberri. "Gummy Bear Layer Cake" 4/21/2015 via Flickr.
Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License. 

Relevant 
I think the most relevant bullet points provided in the textbook include  the author trying to: express an idea or opinion and to inform the reader about a topic that is often misunderstood.

The entirety of the text informs the reader of the negative effect that shale fracking causes to the environment. By providing as much information and details as the text does, it is clear that the primary goal of the article is to inform the reader. Also, in the interview from the podcast, the scientist Chris Mooney talks to emphasizes the difference between shale fracking and the other uses of hydraulic fracking.

Irrelevant
Some of the reasons provided in the textbook I believe do not apply to the purpose of my text at all includes: responding to a particular occasion or event.

While the article does use specific examples like the earthquakes in the United States, British Columbia, and England these examples are used as evidence to support the point Mooney is trying to make.

Nuances and Layers 
I feel like there are not nuances and layers that Chris Mooney is trying to present. His argument seems more cut and dry, where he provides scientific fact as evidence. This use of scientific data correlates back to the purpose of the article which is too inform not necessarily to elicit a particular emotion.

Analyzing My Own Assumptions

In this blog post I will be evaluating my own assumptions on cultural implications. I will be focusing on how my personal values and beliefs are connected with the text's culture about fracking.

Bonnybbx. "Mystical Mirror Entwine Fantasy Darkness"
10/1/2014 via Pixabay. CCO Public Domain/ FAQ License. 

What cultural or social values, beliefs, etc., do we share with the society or culture in which the text was written? Why have they endured? 
One belief I share with the article is that ifan energy source is being chosen for its smaller carbon footprint, the other components still need to ensure that the energy source is more eco-friendly than the last system.

This value has endured because I have some fundamental beliefs about renewable energy being used to replace hydrocarbon based fuels wherever possible.

What cultural or social values, beliefs, etc., do we not share? Why not?
One belief that I do not share with the culture is that the fight on renewable energy is a political battle favored by one side of the political spectrum. I think that clean energy and the environment are serious issues that need to be addressed by everyone.

If the text is written in a culture distant or different for our own, what social values, beliefs, etc., connect to or reflect our own culture? What social values, beliefs, etc., can we not see in our own culture?
I think the text is written in a culture very similar to mine. The need for a sustainable energy source is common ground and this energy needs to not have negative effects on the environment.

However, for my personal culture I have never had to experience an earthquake or the after math of one. Therefore, I do not believe I share the same concerns about earthquakes with someone who has more of an understanding on the extreme nature of these natural disasters.

If the text is written in our culture but in a different historical time, how have the social values, beliefs, etc., developed or changed over time? 
Because this text was written recently I believe a lot of the values stated in the piece are similar to the beliefs and fears of today.

Reflection 
From reading Alyssa and Kelly's posts, I got a better understanding of how our personal bias or beliefs could impact how we evaluate the source and the author.

Kelly was more similar to me in that she definitely has some prior beliefs on the topic that she is writing about-athletes icing. I identified that my bias was going to negatively impact my evaluation on the source and its author, and I am curious to see if Kelly faces similar challenges and how she meets these obstacles.

However, Alyssa has a more neutral stance towards her controversy and I think that will help in keeping her evaluation focused on the information provided, not how close the information matches her beliefs. 

Analyzing My Text's Cultural Setting

The post below will be a collection of information I was able to find on where and when my text was published. I will also reflect on how the timing of the piece is significant to what the text's purpose is.

Longlivetheux. "DIKW Pyramid" 1/5/2015 via Wikipedia.
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Generic International License.  

The author of the text and interviewer in the podcast is Chris Mooney. He was born in Mesa, AZ in the late 1970's. The article was written in August 2015, and the podcast was published about a year ago. Both of these sources are very current and therefore because so much of the data presented is scientific, it is likely that the findings are still current and accurate.

What values, ideas, norms, beliefs, even laws of the culture play an important role in the text?
The text focuses on the environmental consequences of fracking. Much of the evidence used in the argument stems from a scientist from Cornell who worked with the oil and gas companies for years to extract hydrocarbons. In his interview he states that he is "vehemently against the use of shale to produce hydrocarbons." While his opinion is being treated as concrete and as an expert opinion, he is stating upfront his bias.

A lot of the information in the text and podcast is written about the eco-friendly nature of fracking. This belief in balancing the need for an energy source with minimal harm on the environment is the basis of the argument of fracking, and therefore is present in the text.

Does the text address these cultural values, beliefs, etc., directly or indirectly?
The belief in balancing the demand for energy with remaining green is directly addressed in the text as this is the point the text argues. However, the balance between the fracking companies remaining green and profitable is an issue that is mentioned only indirectly.

What is the relationship of the text to the values, beliefs, etc.? Does it seek to modify these aspects of the culture in a certain way?
The text is seeking to modify the belief that fracking is the answer to cleaner energy. It presents evidence of the negative effects that natural gas collected through fracking has on the environment.

Cultural Analysis of "Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger".

In this blog post I will analyzing the cultural components of my piece on fracking. I will evaluate the cultural implications of my podcast that will eventually be used in my Project 2 Paper.

Here is a link to the podcast "Scientific Inquiry". And here is a link to a transcription of the podcast.

B. Toban. "Fracking and water" 4/8/2012 via Flickr.
Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0 Generic License.  

Cultural Keywords
Some of the keywords used in the text and podcast that I think are cultural keywords are "earthquake," "contamination," and "fugitive methane". These keywords are used to further the author's argument against the use of fracking. The biggest reason the author presents for being anti-fracking is the scientific evidence that shows the correlation between the fracking and earthquakes or higher methane levels in the atmosphere.