Dominic Melpignano

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Janet Boyd – “Murder! Rhetorically Speaking” SRR 2/15/2017

Summary: Boyd start with inviting us as readers to join her in various writing exercises to become better at writing rhetorically. She takes a few examples one such being an investigator for a crime scene. She stresses the importance of word use and that different word styles establish tone, such as pathos-appeal to the reader’s emotion, ethos-appeal of credibility, or logos-appeal to logic or fact. She stresses the fact to be like a detective when writing so that you can find the best words for the emotion that you want the reader to have when reading your work.

Response:

I think that this approach is very handy, it adds perspective and possible depth to writing. She approaches writing like a detective would on a crime scene, shes not writing to write shes writing to put a point across in her words and what her emotions are. Personally I don’t agree with this approach because its different than mine. I respect that it is a good way to write, but this style of approach towards writing doesn’t fit into mine.

Reflect:

I’m not sure how this will help my writing as my writing has more of a fluid feel to it and I like to just put my thoughts down without thinking, I let my emotions write. I feel like Boyd does the opposite, she trys to figure out her emotions and thoughts and then puts them down. I feel like it has more of a dry feel to it, yet brings emotion out.

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