Presentations

Oops is right, it looks like someone didn't practice their public speaking techniques.

These are professionals, they should be able to hold a good rhetoric composure. I mean if they can't do it, can we? As I'm writing this I'm worried about a speech I have to give tomorrow. I know the material, however, knowing that I need to use my rhetoric to cast the audiences attention is important. Not to mention, I also have to get the professor to engage in my rhetorical audience. 

So, I thought about how to do this and I came up with 3 ideas.

1) Make sure to have visuals so that the audience can see what I am discussing. 

2) Allow for the audience to engage in my presentation, by asking them questions.

3) Lastly, make sure I'm speaking with clarity and know what I am discussing, unlike Rick Perry.

Along with my presentation, I have to hand out a sheet with bullet pointed information. From our class discussion last week, I now am aware that bolded, italicized, underlined, size 14, vs size 15 font matters. While preparing the worksheet, I stuck to a font that was easy to read and did not seem juvenile. Also, I made sure the font was big enough to be read but not too big that it distracted the reader. Also, when choosing the font color, I didn't go with anything colorful because I knew it would also take away from the seriousness of the information presented. Lastly, I made sure to bold, italicize and underline only when the information needed to be emphasized. 

Wish me luck on my presentation! Maybe you'll take some tips from here and use it in your future presentations!

Connections

In my anthropology class, I learn about the origins our human communication. We discuss many different events were gestural communication is present. The other day, someone brought up the Joe Paterno memorial service. To start, someone mentioned music. We talked about the different emotions that were triggered by every different song. Then, I brought up the visual montages. People mentioned that some of the images were very repetitive on different montages. And lastly, someone mentioned the speeches from various players, his family, and as well as the speech given by Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike. 

The girl sitting next to me starting elaborating on how all these things relate to logos, pathos, and ethos. Then, this sparked me to bring up the idea how the Joe Paterno memorial service is something that can perfectly fit into the mapping out of a situation. What would branch out would be that the memorial was a great opportunity for exigence. All the people who didn't get a chance to say something were given the opportunity at the service. Also, there was a common place because everyone at the service felt that Coach Paterno was a role model. Finally, from all of this, there was a large rhetorical audience. There were so many people that watched and attended the service that were influenced by the verbal and visual discourse the service provided. 

I think this mapping out can be done with a lot of situations, but what I find the most interesting is how everything like kairos, pathos, logos, ethos, visuals, soundtrack, and verbal presentations can influence the rhetorical audience immensely. If you think about it, the multi-media project coming up is not only to address a social problem, but how well we can use all of these, put it together, and influence the rhetorical audience watching. Im hoping this will come in handy for the multi-media presentation coming up! 

Music

Music, to me, is the ultimate form of Pathos.

During spring break, I had my car so I could drive anywhere I wanted. I didn't have anywhere to go since none of my friends were on spring break, so I just took a nice cruise down good old Tewksbury. If you know my town, you know there are a lot of trees and farms, and if you don't know my town, well, now you know. To set the mood of the 65 degree weather in March, I put on some music, rolled town my windows, and enjoyed the ride.

My iPod was on shuffle and the first song that came on was:
Yellow Bird and Coal Mines by the Scene Aesthetic. I only have two songs from this band so I was about to change the song, however, I kept listening and the song instantly drew on my emotions of a break up I went through sophomore year. The lyrics and the guitar strumming in the background surrounded all my senses and took me back to that time for three minutes.

Then, a change of pace, Welcome to Jamrock by Damien Marley came on. I was immediately drawn to memories of my bus rides to school my senior year in high school, these aren't my favorite memories, since most people drove senior year. However, the song is very relaxing and as I was driving, I was reminded of those bus rides, but I was very relaxed.

Finally, the last song to come on was The Air that I Breathe by All That Remains. This song is very fast pace and full of anger. All of sudden my happy relaxed mood suddenly turned into me bobbing my head back and forth, holding up my air guitar(I may or may not be a good driver) and I was becoming angrier by every verse and I didn't even know why!

Since I am now familiar with logos, pathos, and ethos, the emotions I felt and probably have always felt with these songs was now brought to my attention. I think music is very powerful and it can be a very powerful form of pathos.