When you don’t research a topic thoroughly, the Goddess of Writing will smite you. If you have taken Rhetoric and Writing with Professor Brea Barthel, you know what I’m talking about. For those who haven’t taken the class, immediately swap with Writing for Engineers.
Here is an anecdote explaining why rhetoric is important, aside from the manipulation of others:
This summer I received a forwarded e-mail, originally from Associate Dean of Students Travis Apgar. The e-mail read, “This is just a friendly reminder that recruitment/rush rules, and common courtesy, prohibit all greeks from wearing letters on campus during the summer.”
I just shook my head in amazement. A policy stating fraternity members cannot choose what they wear? I’ll wear whatever I damn well please, thank you. Responses such as, “I’ll wear letters anyway,” from other guys only served to legitimize my false sense of an oncoming battle.
He promptly wrote a correction after becoming aware of the new interfraternity policy stating that letters could be worn during the summer. This is a fine example where proper research pays off before incensing a whole lot of testosterone-driven college guys to think they are fighting a war. Apgar just enforced the policies as he was aware of them—policies previously created by the representing body for fraternities. In return, he received anger for doing his job.
In response to that first e-mail, I wrote a vitriolic page in Microsucks Word for publication in The Poly. Here is an excerpt: “Maybe I am petty to mock a policy with so little significance, as soldiers die in Iraq every day, but the insignificance of the policy is what makes me angry. Doesn’t the administration have anything better to do than enforce clothing policies? This isn’t high school. True, greeks may value their letters as more than pieces of clothing, but in this context, that’s all they are. What should I do when I have no more clean clothes and the only shirts left are Acacia shirts? Perhaps I should go to campus and violate indecency laws.”
What would have happened if I had published my angry rant? Surely, the wrath of Apgar would have pummeled me from my comfortable room in front of the pleasing CRT radiation to a situation that requires social extroversion.
My actions bring me to another aspect of evaluating writing. Audience, purpose, and context:
If the previous excerpt were published, Dr. Jackson, Dean of Students Mark Smith, and Apgar might have read the article. What’s the purpose? Make them angry enough to force the entire campus to eat Commons food? The claims of value—the judgments I made about the first e-mail—might be fine in the context of a personal journal, but probably not appropriate for administration. The excerpt also doesn’t contain a claim of policy—an action that needs to be taken. What good does writing an editorial in a newspaper do if I don’t state what should be done? Next time, I will just stand in the corner at a party looking at girls. Both activities accomplish the same thing.
To show I have learned from my near faux pas, I will end with a claim of fact: I took Professor Barthel’s Writing and Rhetoric Class; a claim of value: Professor Barthel teaches one of the best H&SS courses at RPI; and a claim of policy: take her class so that you can learn to analyze your writing for effectiveness.
