Week 2 Thank You For Arguing

Today I found myself in a conversation with my friend Nick. Nick was complaining how he had hurt his elbow and that it was really bothering him. I asked about his symptoms and then said I would ask my sister if she knew what was wrong with him. He prompted, "is your sister a physician or something?", sounding uncertain as to question if she had education in the field. I responded and explained that my sister was a doctor which immediately changed his mood and he then encouraged me to ask her for help. After walking away form the conversation I immediately realized that I had used ethos to win my argument and persuade Nick to agree with me. The stays of my sister being a doctor made him instantly think she knew everything and she knows what is wrong with him. Jay Heinrichs has a way to draw in his readers and keep him there by writing to relate to all age groups and leave the audience thinking about your every word and thought. I am intrigued to learn more and have never thought of rhetoric in such a way before. I find myself being persuaded every second every day and using his tools to get my way. One part of the reading so far that really stuck out to me was changing your tone, appearance, and manners based off of the occasion and your audience. I always thought just be yourself and they will surely like you. While staying true to yourself, you can still persuade and act in such a way to relate and grab the attention of your audience.

In Jay Heinrichs Thank You For Arguing he goes very into detail about how we should argue and different techniques that we should use if we want to get our way. For example if we talk in a certain tense while we are speaking or as simple as using the word “would” instead of “will” could make you win or lose the argument. I have never thought about arguing in this sort of depth that he does in this book. I like in the first chapter how he points out that persuasion is everywhere in our lives and no matter how hard we try to not be persuaded it still is everywhere we look. I have never thought of it that way but with the few examples he gives it really does go to show how much we are persuaded by different objects in everyday life. Also through out my life people have always said do what makes you happy and don’t let others influence who you want to be, but when it comes to trying to persuade people you need to change and be more what they want you to be even though it may not be what you want. I like the example he gives about the lady with the bumper sticker because it goes to show you can do whatever you want to do but sometimes when you do as you please it may come with consequences. 

Prompt: Week 2

For this week's response, please write about something you learned from Thank You For Arguing. Has it changed your perspective in some way? Was there anything that surprised you? Do you look at things differently after this week's class discussions?

Welcome to Rhetoric!

Welcome to our class discussion blog!

This is a space for you to respond to the readings we've done each week, and engage with your peers outside of the classroom environment. You should post at least once per week, so by the end of the semester you should have posted at least 16 times. Don't worry too much about grammar or spelling here. This counts towards your participation grade, so I will be looking at the quality of your ideas, and your engagement with the text, rather than your writing style.

Each week, you should write 250 or so words about anything you found interesting/weird/wrong/right/cool/boring about the reading. However, you must always explain WHY you found the reading interesting/weird/cool/wrong etc.

You can write about anything you've read so far, and I encourage you to make connections with things we've read previously. For example, if you notice something in Chapter 2 that makes a section in Chapter 1 make sense, feel free to tell us! Or if you notice a similarity between one book and another, go for it!

You are free to agree or disagree with your peers, but you should always try to add something new to the discussion. If someone has already said what you wanted to say, try adding to their comment--show us a different quote that also supports that argument, and why you think it supports the comment.

Aside from that, feel free to write anything you like, but be respectful towards your peers. Writing anything offensive towards a group of people, no matter whom, won't be tolerated.