Response to Aaron's Rhetoric Blog

I completely agree with Aaron when he says that Logos is the main form of rhetoric when it comes to engineering. Engineering deals with facts and things that can be proven. This is a form of logos. However, I don't believe that this is the only form. I feel that another more subtle type of rhetoric used in engineering is Ethos. While this seems strange at first, I think that ethos can play a huge role when you get into the "real world" One example being that you are going to think more highly of a paper written by someone with a PhD than one written by someone taking classes for their Bachelors. Or someone in a company who has worked there for a long time will have a larger impact than someone who just started.

Response to Robert's Chapter 3 Blog

Robert discussed some of the guidelines laid out in chapter 3. The final one that he discussed, " Ask Others To Help You Understand Your Readers And Their Context," seemed like one of the most important. The better that you know your readers, the better you can get your point across to them and, as the book put it, get them to take the action that you want to see. I have also found that working with others makes the task much easier. Not only do many hands lighten the load, as the expression states, but many minds can simplify the solution. I have run into a variety of scenarios where I am trying to solve a problem in the most complicated fashion, and then someone will come by and point out something that I missed or tell me something that I didn't know and it will make the solution much more simpler, easier, and overall better.

Chapter 3

I have always been pretty good about debating/persuading people in general, but I really thought that the different perspectives on writing, especially persuasive, was very interesting. Using your writing as a way to bring about action was a new idea on writing that I had not thought of before. Being an engineer/logically thinking person, I would usually support my ideas with factual evidence and don't expect any change to result from it. But the book proposed an idea changing the way that things are now into what the writer wants them to be just based on writing. This seems like it would be a fairly challenging skill to master. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations of ways to practice/improve this skill about writing to achieve a certain outcome.

Writing about...writing

When it comes to writing, my main thoughts, opinions, and ideas about it depend on the topic that I am writing about. If it is something that I am interested in, then odds are I will devote more time to it and, in the long run, enjoy it more. I figure that I only have so much time in each day to do what I want (school, sports, exercise, etc), and if the thing that I am writing about is something that I enjoy, I will be more likely to devote more time to it. The more time that you spend working on a piece of writing, the more likely it will turn out to be a good piece of writing.
I realize that most, if not all, professions do in fact do a lot of writing and that it will be a very important skill to have for the future. But people talk and write in two completely different ways. I prefer to have a communication with someone rather than pass papers back and forth. To me, I enjoy a relationship with a person a lot more than with a piece of paper.

Chapters 1, 20, 22

While reading the first assigned chapters many things came to mind. Here are a few of them:

In chapter 1, the idea of a dynamic interaction between the writer and the reader was introduced. How can this be? The writer can't interact with the reader as they are reading their work. The words on the paper can't change depending on how the reader is feeling.

In chapter 22 it discusses a basic outline for writing a proposal. It seemed fairly similar to the scientific method with a few alterations. Introduction could be related to hypothesis, the problem could be related to the problem at hand, etc. I was wondering if there was any correlation between the two.

I also noticed a central theme about writing "Reader-centered" pieces of work. Is there ever a time when this will not be necessary? I can't really think of an example, it was just a thought that I had.