Throughout the entire chapter, Bazerman employs every tool he outlined within the previous reading. Bazerman begins by outlining the situation and history surrounding the patents, and how Edison’s capitalization on the scoring of those patents fueled his eventual success. Bazerman’s analysis begins with the structure of the patents themselves, with a general format outlining all projects, which narrows down as the actual idea is described. This specific language ensures that the patent keeps its legitimacy as a speech act, and therefore everything it entails will be respected by the community the patent revolves around. Because Edison cornered the market before anyone else had the opportunity, his use of this speech act and genre of writing actually made him a fortune, which shows the power of knowing how to use these devices.
The most important thing to take from Bazerman’s analysis is that speech acts are all propositional in some way. Whether this proposition is a statement of a fact, which others must validate themselves, or a research paper on a never-before-studied topic, everything has a purpose behind it being spoken or written. Each paper is using the specifics of its genre, in terms of structure and language, which sets up the validity of the paper, as well as literary devices, such as logos or pathos, to justify their claims and convince their audience of their points. By being able to mimic the structure and language of well written papers, as well as twist the rhetorical ideas presented by the paper, one could further develop their own writing, at the cost of losing out on impressing the audience through a unique structure. As my initial question, “how does one take a piece written for one audience, and re-write it for another without losing the meaning of the text?” is focused on the structure, rhetorical strategies, and language used by the author for their audience. The texts I would collect for this question are scientific papers within the field of marine biology, but I would have to find them through magazine articles or online articles. If possible, I would prefer to find articles written by the professor I plan on interviewing, so that I may directly relate the responses from the interview to the pieces he has written. By directly communicating with a member of the marine biology community, and discussing his works, I am applying the information I learned within the course to the answering of the course outcomes.
2 Comments
Jacob Fies
2/11/2018 04:50:27 pm
I really like how your project is shaping up so far. The idea about finding articles written by the professors you want to interview is a fantastic idea! It will give you an insight into the paper that you otherwise would not have had. A view like that on the subject can be unique to have and add a lot of depth to the analysis.
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Brian Hendrickson
2/14/2018 11:37:40 am
I agree with Jacob. It's always great if you can get a firsthand account. I wonder, how might you consider the issue of genre in terms of the opportunities and challenges related to translating scientific research for a different audience?
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