Matthew Carter
(email address)

Rhetoric and Me
Technical Writing is writing that is used from both the working world as well as the academic one. One of the core beliefs of this type of writing is to think about and plan before writing. While using this kind of writing it is easier to be understood because you consider more of the things that are involved in this writing process. For example while writing off the cuff you may understand how you relate to the situation from a narrow perspective but you donÕt realize how after you are done with the document how the document continues to affect. Social ramifications are better understood because a social perspective is looked at instead of an individual or a textual perspective. While it is not possible to understand what is going on in the life one a person what is possible is that it can be understood what is going on the social setting. Such as why certain documents do what they do as opposed to what they are supposed to do.   Rhetoric is convincing someone to do something but ethics are involved. Without ethics Rhetoric is nothing more than a means to which someone can get whatever they want without realizing how it will affect others.

Applying Theories to Real Life


At work we are all told that we are supposed to use certain methods so we donÕt get hurt. These things would include using your power zone (which is from the knees to the chest), bending your knees when you lift and getting help when a box gets over 70 pounds. The reasoning behind not lifting something over 70 is that someone may get hurt because it could be too much lifting for them.   In my situation I canÕt use my left knee too much because I had surgery on it a few years ago and it still doesnÕt feel right. So I almost always use my back to pick up the boxes. I have found in my circumstance that it is easier for me to lift it by myself than it is to get help even as the package reaches the 150 pound mark. I am not trying to be Mr. Toughguy but something would happen and the other person wouldnÕt pick it up right and they would hurt themselves. I used to get taken into the office for this but then one day they saw what would happen so they let me do my thing and all they say is, "Be careful."

Finding a spot on the Team

Understanding the Team through memo

Joining a Team where nobody knows your name
This was our first assignment and writing it helped me more than what others had to say. In the assignment we were supposed to tell what made us a good team member. I had never thought of myself like that and since I am a little shy I wasn't quiet sure how to respond to that. Well the people in the class seemed to have some of the same struggles that I had and that kind of bridged the gap between us. We wrote about what made us a good teammate and the term teammate is one where in this class was given a broader vision than one I regularly thought of. A football team has teammates. At work I hear the whole we are a team thing but I don't really believe too much of it. But working with the people in the class I felt like we were part of a team. Maybe Benninghoff's Bruisers.

Looking back on the getting to know you memo

A New Frontier
The Team Intro Memo helped me put my foot forward and made it a little easier for me to connect with the group. I think the actual writing of the memo was a better connection for me than actually reading others. It made me mentally aware what I brought to the table and how I could be an asset. I never thought of school in this light.

First Step
This assignment while it had an intent of getting to know the other people in the group it also had a little but of rhetoric in it. We had to sell each other as good teammates and the document itself while not completely Technical Writing in the generic sense was still Technical Writing.

Finding Rhetoric through Politics and Family

Political Conversation with the Selectively Deaf

Talking Rhetoric with someone who doesn't see his own rhetoric
I was just relaxing on the sofa watching sports when my brother shows up. Like usual he takes control of the channel changer and I have no choice but to watch the presidential debate. He is the kind of guy who has to be in control of the situation even if you know how to handle it better than he does. He never admits that he is wrong just may drop some hints like changing the subject. Once while we were putting things together for my grandparent's 60th anniversary he says, "Why don't you guys put your pride to the side and let me be in charge?" Around him I am quieter and more distant than I am around other people. I trust him about as far as I can throw him. "This is the first one and it is of no real consequence," I try to tell him. "Matt, you don't understand. America is shaped through political rhetoric. If you say the right thing then people will vote for you. Saying what will make the public happy or scaring them is the only way to make Democracy work," Andy tries to tell me. "You have no idea what rhetoric is do you?" I ask knowing he is going to tell me some lame ass comment. "Sure I do its when you use the emotions of the people. Kind of like when you are losing an argument because you don't have the facts to back something up all you have to do to win is to use rhetoric. If you reach the emotional side of people then you have them latched on tight and they can't let go even if they wanted to," he explained to me while I shook my head in disgust. "Andy, Andy, Andy. That is not what Rhetoric is. You use rhetoric to show the emotional side of the facts. Just throwing out facts without showing how it affects something is like buying a car without an engine. They are connected. "For instance you hear about people who don't have enough to eat and how they are starving. Apparently, there are millions of people who don't get enough to eat. You may feel sorry for them but you don't really understand it as well as you should unless some rhetoric is involved. You have to persuade people to want to help these people so they don't starve. So you go on television and you show a child starving and show the audience the ribs," I explained to him hoping he would get the point. "But Matt, George Bush is using it right now to get elected. He is using the war in Iraq and his war on terrorism to play to what the people want to hear. Isn't that what rhetoric is?" He told me quite snidely. "Well look of course people are going to sometimes misuse rhetoric to suit what they want. People misuse everything does that mean everything should have a bad connotation to it?" I finally shut him up. He walks slowly up to the fridge and asks, "What do you have to eat?"

Political Rhetoric: A Reflection

How I saw the assignment in reflection
This assignment helped me see how rhetoric works in everyday life. For example I can see now that my brother likes to see things as exactly cut and dry and that what he says is always right. Although he may see Rhetoric as something evil. Something that only people bent on ruling the world use, the more truthful side to it is that everyone uses it from time to time. The main problem with Rhetoric is that it can be used for bad as well as good. That is where ethics should come into the fold.

Technically Speaking
I saw this assignment as strangely enough a way to help my fiction writing. I love to deal with situations that are psychological, somewhat realistic and yet fantastic all at the same time. This assignment showed me that I can do something besides the fantastic. [ on to project | return to top ]

The Context & Genre Analysis Project: The Rhetorical Aspect of Poetry

A Fiction Writer Stuck in a Poet's World

The Rhetorical Aspect of Poetry
[return to top]  In this study I looked at several rhetorical factors and what the impact that these factors had in my Poetry class. The different thoughts that went into how they viewed poetry in general are seen in this look back at poetry. As well as how they saw my work and how I interpreted how they saw my work. More importantly how I have become a better writer because of what went on in that class.

Finding my way through the Rhetoric of the Poet
I am looking at the way Rhetoric works for a poet as opposed to the Rhetoric for a fiction writer. I was the lone fiction writer in the class that was predominantly poets. Everyone in the class had at the very least a writing major and the overwhelming majority was majoring in Imaginative Writing. This study dealt with my class that I had a semester ago.


Looking at the Background of Poetry

In my poetry class there was about twenty students. Of the twenty I would say about fourteen of them were going to get their degrees in Imaginative Writing and specialized in poetry. Another five were writing majors and took the class as a sort of fun class. As for me I took the class as a fiction writer trying to say more with fewer words. Poetry is such a tight way to use words I figured that I could use the class to make my fiction stronger.

In the class we had fifteen poems to write and each of had to sign up for two poems to read in class. There was to be enough copies of the poem so that everyone in the class could see what the poem was about. In the reading we had to read in front of the class and while we were reading, the rest of the class had to write their thoughts on the paper. When finished the class told the writer exactly what they thought of the poem. Things such as how the poem flowed, any changes they felt needed to be made and questions they had about the poem. The reader had to stay quiet until the comments were done. This was to ensure that the people making the comments werenÕt skewed to thinking like the writer. After the writer answers questions and his/her questions are answered then the papers are passed back to the writer with comments on how to improve the poem.   The teacher made specific rules but most of which she expected us to break them. For example she had a rule in which we were only supposed to wear purple on the day of the readings because it is supposed to be the color associated with thinking clearly. The point of her many rules were to specifically question why these rules are in place and what the point was.

Inside the World of Poetry

In my poetry class we had to write several different kinds of poems and with two of them we had to read them in front of the class. For example there was the encyclopedia poem where we made up encyclopedia entries. The goal of this exercise was to show that even encyclopedia entries could be creative. Another poem we did was a poem in which we described the characteristics of an animal without directly saying the animal by name.

For each of the poems except for the ones we read in class we had to turn into the teacher the class before the people assigned to read that day. Each of us had to pick two days in which we were to read our poems. There could only be so many people reading that day because of time restraints.

The way the readings were set up was that the person would read their poem to the class. All the while the students and teacher would write something on their copy of the poem. Things they thought would improve the poem would be on the paper. When the reading was over the reader of the poem would sit quietly as the whole class talked about the poem and asked questions about certain things in the poem. After everything was asked and all the comments were said then the writer of the poem will answer the questions and make comments. When done speaking all the papers are passed back to the reader.

How this is supposed to work is that from the different perspectives you are supposed to get a good feel about how different people think about your poem and how you might improve on the poem to give it a better effect. The class was based on the notion of that constructive criticism can be made to make the work better.

Trouble in Poetryland

The problem was that many times there were people who were in dispute with other people. This escalated into some people saying what they thought was wrong with my work being highly critical but with good explanations and after their explanation was made the people who thought my work wasn't as bad as what the other side had thought it to be. They would explain it through saying something like, "Well the reason why he put it up like that is because he wanted you to figure out for yourselves what this was about. I think he did a very cool thing with this. Now some of that may be true but it got to a point where it seemed that it was no longer about my work it was about feuding between the two sides. The feuding began because a couple people came off as being arrogant know-it-alls. Many believed that this group of people thought their opinions were better than everyone else's. I call this group the "uppers".

The uppers thought that the people criticizing them were just trying to be difficult. The uppers didnÕt know why the people I will call the "normies". The uppers thought that they were just doing what they were supposed to in editing the work. The normies believed that the uppers were just trying to be ultra critical because they believed the uppers thought of themselves as a sort of upper class in the world of poetry.

Purple Poetry

While there were rules in the class many of the rules she just had up there so that we could break them. There wasnÕt a real reason why many of the rules were in place except to question. For example she wanted the class to wear nothing but purple because it was supposed to have the effect of bringing up greater thoughts easier than any other color. While some people did wear purple from time to time there wasn't a great sea of purple for each reading. Many thought that it was just one of those things that we didn't have to do but think what the purpose was.

The class was as Free as the Poetry
While we had to be there for certain times to review and critique others works, for the most part the class was kind of a free-spirit class. We were pointed in a certain direction and left to do whatever we could do in the field of writing poetry. Each poem had its basic parameters but even that many times could be broken.

How the Poet was in Me
The situation of being the only fiction writer actually helped in the poetry class because I was given new information that I hadnÕt even realized. Things such as flow and speed of the poem never went into my head as a thought to improve my writing.

Another situation was the uppers and the normies. While at times this did get annoying. I did feel that it was in my best interest to see and realize both sides. The normies were just trying to get their point across that there isnÕt just correct style to write poetry. On the other hand the uppers just wanted to show a more formulaic side of poetry. I guess they are the Yin yang of the poetry class.  

How the Poet was in Me


My genre was a specific poem, a poem in which we are supposed to describe an animal without actually saying the animal. I wanted it to be more like my fiction writing; frightening, deep and made you wonder what it was about. To them it was too reminiscent o f Hell and slavery. What they wanted on the other hand was something funnier and more lighthearted. I usually didn't write things like that. It wasn't my style.

Not only that but it seemed as if my clues for saying what it was about werenÕt what they wanted either. M any of them wondered what the point of it was and a few found it rather amusing. Most believed that it had the feeling of a "B" movie to it. Up to that point I had been mainly a horror writer, both in fiction and in poetry.

There were only two maybe three people in class who wrote scary poems all semester so when I wrote it I was already not writing something that many people could relate to. I had to deal with people who did all they could to write beautiful dainty poetry. While I write about my work comparable to Hell. This of course came as a shell shock to the class.



How the writer became a better poet. Or is it how the poet became a better writer?

With their critique it made me rethink what my style is. Although I continue to write scary things I still write on occasion things that don't deal with death and dying all the time. I think I got a new perspective on what is good about my writing and how I can mold it to fit a different situation besides nonstop fright all the time.

People who didn't understand where I was coming from may have helped out my horror fiction as well. They wanted something seemed more realistic than what I had written down in the first place.

To wrap this puppy up

I was the only fiction writer in the class but it seemed to have helped me be more concise and my poetry as well as my fiction to flow smoother and not seem as rushed as it once did. Also I am able to expand my thought process into realms I never thought possible.


Reflecting on the Context & When a weakness is a strength

Rhetorical Problems actually help
This assignment touched home for me. I realized that while I absolutely loved the class, there were some rhetorical problems with it. Problems such as being the only fiction writer in the class. But sometimes a weakness is actually a strength. In this situation I felt that the best thing to happen was that I got the perspectives from people who weren't a part of fiction and probably never wrote a piece of fiction in their lives. They are different from normal people because they do write but they don't write fiction so they are kind of an inbetween. So at least they had some idea what I was dealing with.


This felt more like a Technical Report
This was the first assignment that I felt that I was in a true business setting. Which to me is a very scary proposition. I realized what is asked for in a technical report and how sometimes it seems taht something is of utmost importance when infact it is something entirely different. Things are always more complicated than they appear. [ on to project | return to top ]