Expansion: Ethos
Expanding upon background information and answering various questions within your article helps readers to 1) understand the issue you are writing about, and 2) care about it. Now, that they understand and care, what can you do to 3) persuade them to actually agree with you and/or take action? This is where the three rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos are going to be helpful. Let's start with ethos!
Read through your article with the following questions in mind, paying close attention to your tone/voice as the narrator and your use of sources. You can also invite another reader to do this for you: a peer, a family member/friend, a tutor, etc.:
Read through your article with the following questions in mind, paying close attention to your tone/voice as the narrator and your use of sources. You can also invite another reader to do this for you: a peer, a family member/friend, a tutor, etc.:
|
HOW TO TRACK YOUR PROGRESS?
Open up your Google Doc/ Article Copy, highlight parts of your draft, and make "comments" (click on the plus sign to the right) where you think you might need to improve/add content. Come back to this activity often, as needed, over the next few weeks.
Open up your Google Doc/ Article Copy, highlight parts of your draft, and make "comments" (click on the plus sign to the right) where you think you might need to improve/add content. Come back to this activity often, as needed, over the next few weeks.
Global Perspectives
Experts are great. In addition, and depending upon your topic, many readers are impressed by, and benefit from, journalists who take the time to seek out global perspectives. This is another way to reveal your diligence! Consider if your topic might be something faced in other nations. Perhaps there's something another country is up to that will illuminate some part of your argument... what has country "X" done to combat the issue? What obstacles have they faced? What mistakes have they made? What successes have they encountered? Can we/should we look to them as we consider our own circumstances? Why/why not? In general, global perspectives are a great source of inspiration for most problem-solving, even if we find failed ideas instead of promising ones... since this gets our gears turning more and, once again, shows that we've taken the time (as trustworthy journalists) to seek out knowledge on our subject.
|
Corroborating and Complicating
While ethos will be found in the tone of your voice and the tapestry of your sources, you can also look at the amount of information/evidence you incorporate to strengthen your ethos with readers! Per each point/claim you make, how many sources do you use to back them up? If it's one, aim for three. Think of how strong triangles are! ;) Also, consider the value of the three sources you choose. All of these attributes of your academic writing reveal the depth of your critical thinking, and the depth of your critical thinking will impact the readers' impressions of you, and whether or not they think you're someone they want to be persuaded by.
Expand with sources by...
- CORROBORATING: You can use multiple sources to say the same thing; as in, they said this thing, and they ALSO said the same thing, so isn't that more convincing?
- COMPLICATING: You can also use multiple, DIVERSE sources (and you should) to look at a thing from various angles before you move along. This means that you deepen what is already on the page.
Keep in mind that while "Expansion" is a separate submission/assignment than your Source Evaluations, the work you're doing for both should be directly related. If you don't have the right sources to back you up with writing your argument, there's really nothing worth expanding upon... in academic writing, the quality of your ideas should stem from the quality of the sources you've gathered and how you weave those sources together to create a mosaic of ideas, a conversation, a "game" worth watching, etc. Thus, don't embark on these expansion tasks without keeping your researching tasks in the mix, too!
|