17 July 2007

Are You Convincing?

Back when I used to teach Freshman Composition, I had all sorts of tricks up my sleeves to teach my reluctant students the value of writing well. We might not need advanced math in our daily lives, and, sadly, we might not need a comprehensive knowledge of 19th century British poets. However, one thing just about any Joe or Josephine can benefit from is communication skill, and as the Internet eats everyone’s brain, communication via writing will take on increased significance. (Hopefully in the future we’ll still be using complete sentences, and our official documents won’t look like text messages!)

Now, to my topic. Part of writing well is writing clearly, and another part is writing convincingly. There are other parts, of course, but let me tell you about the hands-on method I used to demonstrate the rhetorical skills involved in being convincing.

During our section on argumentative rhetoric, I had my students take out a plain sheet of paper. “Think of an issue,” I said. “A smallish issue--something that won’t cause anyone in our class to spontaneously combust if you’re chosen to read your essay out loud. Write me a one page essay that explains your position on this issue.”

As soon as they finished part one, I had them take out a second sheet of paper. “Now,” I said, “write me another page as if your viewpoint were reversed on the issue -- and make it so good I can’t tell which side you’re on. If you can fool me, you get extra credit on the next pop quiz.”

Guess which essay was often better constructed and more convincing? If you guessed the second one, you’d be correct. My students tended to be quite passionate in their original mini-essays. Passion makes for a certain type of language. Reason and clear-headedness make for another type of language. While there is much to be said for inspiration and scribbling things down in the heat of a moment, a little distance can allow us to approach words with a clinical precision, to consider reader preferences and varying interpretations. I do this during the editing process especially, when deciding how much of my abundant worldbuilding I get to keep -- just enough to be convincing but not so much that readers go, “Yeah, yeah, get on with it already!”

When composing our fiction or our thoughts about, say, recent upheaval in RWA at the National level, how much would it help our prose shine if we could see other sides of an issue so clearly we could write an essay about it? Would this degree of understanding enable us to be more convincing? I think so. Whether we want to write a scene depicting our villainess’s evil deed or the hero when he’s been a butthole, I do believe this strategy might come in handy. Why does the villainess feel justified in her actions? Why does the hero? How can you convince the readers your characters are passionate, believable and just plain realistic?

Jody W.
http://www.jodywallace.com/ * http://www.elliemarvel.com/

4 comments:

Lynne Simpson said...

I would've LOVED classes like that when I was in college. I actually enjoy arguing against my own opinions. :-)

One technique of meme farmers and master sock puppeteers is to use fake accounts to agree with a position they want to demolish -- but to lure people along until they ultimately take things just a little too far. I haven't seen a seriously good info war like that in quite a while, maybe not since Usenet was the favored "message board" of the 'net.

Rhonda Helms said...

Yes, Yes, YES!! Fabulous...this post is right up my alley. I'm all about using rhetoric effectively (my thesis, in fact, was on incorporating classical rhetoric into first-year composition courses).

Thank you for posting about this--the only way to make change, to effectively be heard is to use rhetoric popularly...and that means taking the time to figure out which style of argument is suitable for your case--or even how to blend those styles!

I've seen lots and lots of ranting, but hardly anyone has stepped up and said, "I see a problem, and I'm going to do this and this and this to fix it."

Jody W. and Meankitty said...

Yeah, I can see that if someone wasn't pushing for extra credit, when faking the opposite side they might not be inclined to be quite as convincing :). I certainly had a few students who didn't...try very hard. The one whose issue was "Prayer Should Be Allowed In School" did not get extra credit, and not because I agreed or disagreed with his issue, either :)

The one who argued that the lunchroom food was actually made of roadkill was more interesting but also did not get extra credit. Not that he needed it!

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

Funny. Whenever I start arguing the other side of something, I annoy people. :)