{"id":333,"date":"2021-06-30T23:20:57","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T23:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/?p=333"},"modified":"2021-06-30T23:20:57","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T23:20:57","slug":"discussion-questions-week-of-6-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/2021\/06\/30\/discussion-questions-week-of-6-28\/","title":{"rendered":"Discussion Questions Week of 6\/28"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Response to #1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his TEDxMidwest talk, \u201cWhy work doesn\u2019t happen at work\u201d (October 2010), Jason Fried, entrepreneur and founder of Basecamp, argues that it\u2019s time for companies to change their thinking and practices about office work. He asserts that the typical office is an unproductive environment full of interruptions and activities that waste time, and he makes a case that employees will be more productive working in environments of their own choice. Fried\u2019s rhetorical approach is interesting because it relies entirely on anecdotes to support his claims. He does not cite statistics or external sources. Fried knows that office workers are the audience for this talk, and he engages them by telling stories they can relate to. For example, most office workers can relate to Fried\u2019s anecdotes about meetings that were a complete waste of time or a boss who has a habit of interrupting them. He really strikes a chord when he compares interrupted work with interrupted sleep. In delivering his talk, he does not speak from the position of an authority on office work but from the position of a peer, as someone who has developed insights from experiencing office work directly himself. He wears worn jeans and hardly ever makes eye contact with the audience as he shuffles back and forth on the stage. His tone is conversational. All of this helps him convey the message that \u201cI\u2019m one of you,\u201d and create the pathos that helps his audience emotionally connect with his ideas. Fried also knows that radical organizational change is hard to achieve quickly, so he offers some simple and practical ideas that his audience can try wherever they work. For these reasons, I think Fried\u2019s rhetorical approach is effective in getting his audience to believe his argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Response to #2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret Heffernan begins her TEDSummit talk \u201cThe human skills we need in an unpredictable world\u201d (July 2019) with a story about a grocery chain that tried to use technology to improve its operations. It\u2019s a story of good intentions with poor results and helps her illustrate the main theme that runs throughout her speech, and that\u2019s: the expensive and inefficient human way of solving problems often delivers better results. Her objective tone and poise establish trust with her listeners, which is important because she wants them to understand that her subject is serious with implications for everything from climate change to financial crises to epidemics. To appeal to her audience and build up support for her claims, she uses a pattern of stories followed by ideas. These stories are her evidence, and she draws them from many different areas of life, such as the grocery store, home health care, and sports. These stories create pathos and emotional connection because her audience can relate to these scenarios and outcomes. In her story about home nursing care, Heffernan also incorporates data to support her argument, noting that after an experiment \u201cpatients got better in half the time and costs fell by 30 percent.\u201d This tactic helps creates logos and appeals to listener\u2019s sense of logic and reason. Heffernan is a polished speaker, and she is also very skilled at using rhetorical strategies to strengthen her argument and persuade her listeners to share her point of view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Response to #1 In his TEDxMidwest talk, \u201cWhy work doesn\u2019t happen at work\u201d (October 2010), Jason Fried, entrepreneur and founder of Basecamp, argues that it\u2019s time for companies to change their thinking and practices about office work. He asserts that the typical office is an unproductive environment full of interruptions and activities that waste time, … Continue reading “Discussion Questions Week of 6\/28”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[24,12,47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334,"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksoakes.expressions.syr.edu\/wrt205summer2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}