Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing, this book seems to be first of its kind in composition and rhetoric which is a writing textbook presented in the form of a comic book. The book bids a contradictory message, while it is composed in the form of a comic book, it tries to teach mostly print-based writing. Understanding Rhetoric suggests an interest in textual, visual, and artistic aspects of composing. It lists four authors: two are teachers and scholars in rhetoric and writing (Losh is the director of the Culture, Art, and Technology program at the University of California, San Diego, and Alexander is director of the Center of Excellence in Writing and Communication at the University of California, Irvine); Kevin and Zander Cannon (not related to each other) are established artists and cartoonists. The illustrations and overall approach as a comic book are visually interesting and informative. In terms of structure, the book presents seven chapters, or “Issues” each chapter is color-coded and includes a three-part structure, first section in which the teachers present an issue and “illustrate” it with examples; a second section, titled “Reframe with Luis and Cindy,” in which two imaginary freshman students work through an assignment; and finally, a two-page “assignments” section that proposes a sampling of possible class projects inspired by the chapter’s content.

The main idea is Rhetoric analysis where terms are, Ethos which is the credibility of the speaker, Pathos which is the use of emotion in debate, Logos which is appeal to reason and Kairos which is timing. In the second section, titled “Reframe with Luis and Cindy, when Luis was writing an email for the class that he would miss, he wrote in an insulted manner where he doesn’t mention why he needs to be gone and instead he was implying that her class time might not be important in insulted manner. But later Cindy tells Luis about the rhetorical writing and analyzes all the proper writing for the email he sent which was much better way of writing.

Week 2 response

        The article “Tapping Signals Replacement for Keyboards” written by John Kosowatz , Senior Editor, ASME.org  uses visual elements to help reader understand more about the how the TAP wearable device works and the benefits of using it.  The first picture on the article shows that “ a man is using the TAP to navigate Hololens AR headset. Image: TAP Systems” . It demonstrates reader about the function of the TAP. TAP allows a user to tap letters, numbers and words into a device without a keyboard. It gives the reader a better understanding of the advantages of TAP and why it is more convenient than normal keyboard. One of the primary advantage visual elements offers is simplicity. For example, when you get lost by reading a long article, you can find it easier and faster by looking at picture to get the information the author wanted to express. Visual elements are relatively more eye-pleasing. When presenting an amazing shot, it makes people relaxed. A funny picture makes people laugh and will help people memorize the information better.

The second picture in the article shows readers the actual product, it is a “wearable keyboard, mouse and game controller that connects to most Bluetooth enabled devices. Image: TAP Systems”. It helps the reader remember the product.

when people cannot understand foreign language, a picture will remove the language barrier. This is the reason that many article use visual elements in addition to words to send message. Visual charts and graphics can be posted online, put beside the website  on anywhere audible. Such flexible communication form can bridge geographic distance and cross cultural differences.

Visual elements prevails in the efficiency of communication. For example, a bar chart helps the reader find out the first and last item at a glance. A line chart on stock with an uprising arrow tells readers immediately that the stock trend is increasing and favorable.

This article is trying to inform the reader of this area in Africa that has not been interfered by humans. The use pictures to show the different species that they have found and help the reader to better get an idea of the type of animals that the scientist encountered in the forest. It can also be said that the intent of the article was to encourage the young to protect special places like these ones that are not harmed by humans. The visual images also give the reader an understanding of how steep the mountain is and how remote it is. This will help the reader to better understand why no one has ever gone to even go up there. They also show potential animals that can be new species that the scientist has discovered and help the reader have a visual of the animals that live in the area. The images convey to the primary message, this place has been out of touch with the rest of the world and we should make efforts to protect these places against people. This images shows what life that lives in this area and through the appeal to emotion, seeing all these nice animals living in the forest, we shouldn’t bother them and leave them alone. Also, the image of the how the mountain was formed is a good visual way to help the reader better understand what erosion can do on a great scale. It clearly is also described in the captions with the images as to how over time what erosion has done to that area and has change the geography of the area.

        
-Tanvir Youhana

In The New York Times article “ How to land on Mars” written by Jonathan Corum,the main idea is about the process of a spacecraft lands on theMars.  It will take six months of traveling in order for a spacecraft to arrive to Mars. After its arrival, there are many steps that the spacecraft needs take in order to avoid the failure of landing. First of all, scientist have to make sure that the timing and the location that they are going to aim is correct, so they can avoid the dust storms on Mars. Then after the spacecraft is ready, it will travel within Mars’ atmosphere at a speed of 12,300 miles/hour.  However, the spacecraft must land with a degree of 12 in order to successfully land on Mars, because if the spacecraft is too steep, it will burn and if it is too shallow, it will just pass through the atmosphere and return the space. While the spacecraft is passing through the atmosphere, the parachute inside the craft will pop out and slows down the landing. Lastly, the legs of the spacecraft will also pop out to make sure that the spacecraft lands. Since the distance between Earth and Mars is really far, it takes 8 minutes and 7 seconds for the communication signal to sent to Earth, so the scientist do not know whether the spacecraft fail or not until they have waited for a long time.  

The diagrams on this article really help me to understand the entire article. I feel like without the diagram, I will not understand what the article is trying to say because I have never see a spacecraft before and I never learn about how a spacecraft will function and the usage of visuals give me an image of what’s going on.  In addition, introducing those images will also prevent me from getting tired of the reading. Also, just by reading those images, you also get figure out the intent of the autor without reading the entire article which is to show the audience about the process of landing on the Mars. Overall, visuals are really helpful in boosting the understand of reader and providing the reader a very brief summary. I would compare the relationship with texts and visuals with a song.  Texts are just like the lyrics of a song, while visuals is like a rhythm. Without any of these, a song will not be complete.

The title of my article is NASA’s 2020 Rover Will Search Mars for Signs of Life. The purpose of this article is to inform the audience about the possibility that life could have existed on Mars. The scientist at NASA believes there may have been life on Mars because of evidence of water. Water is one of the necessities that all living things need and so if a planet has water, there is a chance that there is life there. In order to find more evidence, NASA has planned to create a rover that will reach Mars in the year 2020 and will search Mars for evidence of life.

The author of the article used many visual elements in the article in order to describe the environment of the planet Mars. The article begins with a picture of what the rover was potentially going to look like on Mars. This picture is provided for readers so they have an idea of what the rover would look like and what it would be doing on Mars. The planet is described as red and throughout the article, Mars is referred to as the red planet. The article also provided a video of the surface of the planet Mars which allowed readers to actually see what Mars looked like. This video was helpful because it encourages readers to imagine how life could have been on Mars. Another example is when the article described a lake that was on Mars. The purpose of this was so readers could understand how life could have been on Mars. The article described a lake with a river system. Two rivers fed water into the lake and an outlet valley allowed water out. The way this lake is described on Mars helps readers visualize an ecosystem that could have been the home of various life forms.

With my appreciation for sports alongside the world of STEM, the article, “Grab and Go: How Sticky Gloves Have Changed Football” by The New York Times discussing how sticky gloves changed the NFL was a no brainer. This article explained how the advancing in technology and engineering not only gave us a better product regarding the game, but it also shows the futuristic approach the scientist and engineers possessed to bring about the generational change. Prior to modern day gloves, football players were essentially wearing mittens to catch footballs. Understanding that the exterior of the football was always pigskin, the did not make matters easy attempting to catch. Developed in the 1990’s, utilizing grippy polymer which is about 20% stickier than human hands made those impossible one handed catches viewed by folks of the pass, seamlessly a thing of ease.

The images shown with the articles showed multiple examples of spectacular one-handed catches made by various ages of athletes. This in a major help convey the validation of the sticky gloves truly being the force to make difficult passes easier. It also had an image from a M.I.T. laboratory that correlates to the scientific and statistical truth of experimentation to bring more validation. Having all these visual supporting evidence, with statistical proof of their argument, the overall intent of the article was clearly acknowledged. Which in fact was to show how one minor change in the material of an even smaller aspect of being a football player changed the game forever.