Production Report (8b)

By clicking here, you can see the second piece of content I produced for my rhetorical analysis - the two major rhetorical strategies in the first genre example.




 Below is the part of my outline from which that lovely audio is adapted! And below that are a few pieces of reflection on the production of this content piece.

 

Genre #1: The Research Paper

• Main idea: Analyze the rhetoric in a research paper
• The most comfortable and common genre in science
• Purpose is to explain the research that was conducted and the effect it has on our knowledge of biology
• Audience ranges from amateur students to tenure professors in the field - because of this papers are often complex but still understandable by the majority of the audience (insert Dr. Mosher comment on how communication doesn’t mean anything if her audience doesn’t understand)
• Example #1: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1420-9101.2002.00410.x/pdf
• Rhetorical concept: Logic (Organization of ideas)
• Major Piece of Evidence: The structure of the paper (Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion)
• The evidence proves: This is an author’s way of taking difficult concepts or complex research and formatting it in a logical and clear way. This appeals to a reader’s expectation of logic within scientific writing.
• It’s important because: A quick scan allows the reader to get an understanding of what’s ahead in the paper, inclining him/her to read the paper in its entirety. The ideas flow clearly and chronologically; first the motivation for the research and the question to be answered, then a description of the research that was conducted, then the results, then what the results mean. This is a very appealing format for the audience. Those who are familiar with the genre are able to easily find the section(s) of interest, and those who aren’t can follow along fairly easily.
• Rhetorical concept: Credibility (referring to credible sources)
• Major piece of evidence: the numerous in-text citations in the introduction.
• The evidence proves: The author establishes credibility by indicating all the other people that support what he/she is saying, or saying the same things.
• It’s important because: The audience may not have a lot of background info on the topic, and it’s important that they are able to trust the paper as a credible source. The audience is more inclined to buy into your research and learn more about it when they are able to trust you as a scientist. If a scientist has bad cred, they can kiss their career goodbye. So establishing credibility with every audience is absolutely always necessary.

1. To create this content, I constructed a script using conversational language. Podcasts are more easily swallowed when they feel conversational. I didn't take the outline and chronologically transform each point into audio, but I tried to bring up the major piece of evidence, state what the rhetorical concept was, and then sort of explain what the evidence proves in conjunction with the reasons why it's important. Other than having to reword a few things, It felt like the content flowed pretty naturally, so I went with that. Again, I've marked in the transcript where I want to include sound effects and things of the like that also fit the podcast genre.
2. Again, the biggest bumps in the road came from the still somewhat unfamiliar Audacity software. I had one really good take that got lost because my mic didn't pick me up at all. That was frustrating, but you move on from these things. Nothing really came to me as far as creative breakthroughs. But I think my raw content has a lot of potential!