Schedule for Final Speeches (Speech#2)

Monday

Vrabel, Annalise

Hummel, Matt

Guo, Miranssa

Cahill, Laney

Polous, Kayla , 

Delaney, Casey , 

Tallman, Autumn , 

Whelan-Linares, Sami, 

Tafreshi, Media , 

Lutz, Alex 

Wednesday

West, Jordyn , 
Trokel, Gabe , 
Mitchell, Ashley , 
Murphy, Parker , 
Harden, Emma , 
McDermott, Ellie , 
Capobianco, Bella , 
Wendell, Allie , 
Coclanes, Christian 
Garcia, Stephanie

Speech #2 Rehearsals

Monday	Wednesday
Jordyn	Allie
Alex	Matt
Autumn	Laney
Miranssa	Media
Ellie	Kayla
Parker	Stephanie
Bella	Sami
Christian	Annalise
Casey	Gabe
Ashley	Emma

Group Discussion of Outlines

• Discuss the outlines one at a time. Spend at least 5 minutes on each of the outlines. 
• In the beginning the writer does not say anything about his/her proposal. Other members in the group go through the slides and see whether they get a clear sense of how the speech would go. Provide suggestions regarding the overall proposal and the organization of ideas. 
• Then pay special attention to the specifics of the proposal and offer suggestions for improvement. 
• Does the writer need to provide more vivid description of the problem? 
• Does the proposal need to provide more details on the steps to be taken to implement the solution? 
• Should the writer provide more reasons? discuss alternative solutions? present cost-benefit analysis, bring in some precedents? 
• Are there enough evidences to persuade the audience about the seriousness of the problem and the justification for the solution? 
• Has the writer considered priorities and values of the audience in selecting and developing reasons and evidences? 
• Now discuss how should the writer develop a PPT out of the outline. Specifically focus on what kinds of visual evidences they might need to use/find.

Revise and develop your outline further after the group discussion and update the outline posted on your blog. 

Short Speech

• 2-3 minutes.
• Prepare for around 5 minutes.
• You can present all three parts of your proposal argument or just focus on one aspect. 
• Group members should assume that they are the target audience. Also try to play the role of a devil's advocate/skeptic and ask several questions. 
• The main goal of the group members is to examine whether the proposal sounds strong and realistic. 

Analysis of Sample Proposals

Individually:
1. Make a list of two strengths and two weaknesses of each of the samples.
2. Rank these proposals in terms of how well they make their argument. Assume that you were actually evaluating these proposals for real change.
3. Post it to your individual blog.

In Group:
1. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses.
2. Make a list of four successful strategies and four weaknesses (from all the proposals)
3. Rank these proposals.
4. Post it--ranking, strengths and weaknesses--here as a comment. 

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on "Net Neutrality"

Questions to think about:
1. Is this a proposal argument?
2. Is this an informed argument?
3. Does it describe the problem well? What rhetorical tools does he use to describe the problem?
4. Does it offer a specific solution?
5. Does it justify the solution well?
6. Does it follow the typical order of organization used in proposal argument?
7. If his target audience were FCC members and he was actually submitting a proposal to them, what do you think he would do differently?

After we watch the video, spend around five minutes to reflect on these questions. Then we will discuss it. 

Proposal Argument Topics

Make a list of at least five topics and post them as a comment here. 

Second Speech Assignment

Make a list of questions (at least two) and post them here as a comment.

Peer Review of IMRaD Paper

(Post your paper to your blog or create a post for your peers to provide feedbacks.)

1.      Read the whole paper quickly and see if you get a clear picture of the problem, findings, and implications. Does the paper flow well? Identify major areas/sections that did not flow well or were not clear to you. Mark them and suggest ways to improve clarity and flow in the paper.

2.      Format and Language Use:

a.       Is language used formal, concise, and clear? Does the writer use first and second person pronouns?

b.      Are there any pattern errors? Identify them and suggest ways to improve.

c.       Does the paper fulfill length requirement? Does it have “Appendix” and “References”?

d.      Does the paper follow APA style (in-text citations, references, headers, page numbers, headings and sub-headings)?

3.      Organization/IMRaD Genre: Does the report follow IMRaD format/genre?

a.       Now read one section at a time and see if all the sections satisfy the requirements mentioned in the assignment prompt. Provide suggestions to improve each of the sections in the paper.

b.      Abstract: Does it mention major information from all the sections?

c.       Introduction: Does it clearly identify why the topic is important? Does it discuss related research and identify gap? Does it state research questions/hypothesis?

d.      Methods: Does it use clear headings? Does it clearly discuss participants, procedures, and data analysis? Do you think the writer needs to provide more details?

e.       Results:

                                                              i.      Does it present the main findings by using effective tables/figures? Does it describe the tables/figures well, explaining the major trends first and then providing specific data to back that up? Are tables/figures numbered? Does the writer use title/caption for them?

                                                            ii.      Is this section organized well? Does it answer major aspects of research question(s)?

f.        Discussion: Does it connect the findings with the introduction? Does it summarize what the most important findings are in the study? Does it acknowledge any problems with the study methods? Does it clearly explain implications? Does it suggest potential directions for further research?

4.      Quality of the survey and analysis/experiment:

a.       Does the survey/experiment provide sufficient data for a good report? Is the data analyzed well in the text?

b.      Do the introduction and discussion sections clearly indicate how the experiment/study contributes to our understanding of the topic?

Review:

5.      After reading and analyzing your peer’s paper, write a review on the paper including 3-5 most important areas for improvement. Try to be as specific as possible. Post it to your peer's blog. 

6.      Go to your own blog and post your reflection on how the comments you wrote on your peer’s paper would apply to your own paper.

Analysis of Sample Abstracts

Read these abstracts and analyze them in terms of major rhetorical moves they have used. Rank them and provide reasons for the ranking. Post your ranking and reasons here as a comment. 

1.     As scholars and legislators debate the efficacy of capital punishment, research has played a significant role in supporting arguments on both sides of the issue. Studies on the death penalty in North Carolina, United States, have ranged from examining the effects of race and sex on capital case outcomes to polling the general public on their personal support for the death penalty. Experts have been asked about their professional opinions and murder victims’ family members have added their personal experiences to the mix. There is, however, one group whose opinion has not been examined: the criminal justice practitioner. Using survey data gathered from criminal justice agencies across North Carolina, United States, the current study examines support for capital punishment among criminal justice practitioners in the state. Results show that while the law enforcement officers surveyed are overwhelming in favor of the continued use of capital punishment, they concurrently agree that innocent people have both been previously executed and are currently on death row today.

2.     The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of PowerPoint as an information communication tool would enhance recall of information presented in a non-classroom field setting. We examined the effect of PowerPoint on the recall of information presented in religious sermons. Three test conditions were examined: (1) PowerPoint slides containing words only, (2) slides containing visual images only, and (3) slides containing both words and visual images, along with a control condition in which information was presented without the use of the PowerPoint slides. In addition, we tested the type of information recall: information about the slides, information about the slide content, and general recall of information from the sermon. While there were limited differences in recall based on the treatment conditions and the type of information being recalled, overall the use of the PowerPoint slides did not appear to have a significant effect on subjects’ ability to recall information. We conclude that greater effort must be made to understand the effects of PowerPoint presentations on human memory and cognition.

3.     Although much has been written about ancient rhetorical theories of example, few scholars have examined the subtypes of example contained in these ancient rhetorical theories. As a corrective to this scholarly blind spot, this article explores the lesser-known conceptual history of “comparison,” which Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian all theorize as a subtype of example. Taken together, their rhetorical theories suggest that arguments by comparison are hypothetical, contentious, indirect, interrogative, and frequently deceptive. Moreover, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian all theorize comparison by calling attention to the persuasive artistry of Socrates, notably his use of arguments by comparison to provoke interlocutors without challenging them directly. Understanding and explaining these rhetorical theories of comparison is the primary task of this article. 

Peer Review of Introduction and Methods

 Introduction:

1.     Does it clearly justify why the topic is important? Or, is the need/exigency clear?

a.     Does it require more concrete information on the topic?

b.     Does the writer use sources to provide information? (citations?)

2.     Does it discuss related research and identify gap?

a.     Does the review provide sufficient information about various perspectives/aspects of the topic?

b.     Is the review concisely presented?

c.     Is the gap clear? Is it directly related to the review?

3.     Does it state research questions/hypotheses?

4.     Is the language clear and concise and tone formal and scholarly?

Methods:

1.     Does it use clear headings?

2.     Does it clearly discuss participants?

3.     Does it clearly discuss procedures?

4.     Does it clarify how the data is analyzed?

Write down a review of the sections in 3 brief paragraphs, listing and explaining three major suggestions for improvement. Post it to your peer’s blog as a comment.

Survey questions

1. Unbiased.
2. Avoid vagueness/ambiguity
3. Order of questions (logical manner, increasing importance)
4. Simple language
5. Double-barreled
6. Title
7. Preamble/preface/intro
8. Number of questions

Research Methods

• Designing and Using Questionnaires

• Experimental Designs

Group Work

• Do some research on either designing a survey/questionnaire or conducting an experiment (I'll assign). 
• Find out what are the most important characteristics of the research design your group is focusing on. 
• List the steps in conducting research. 
• Mention things to avoid. 
• Provide a link to an example of the kind of research your group is working on. 
• Post all of these things as a comment here. 

Discussion of Two Readings ("Topic Sentence" and "Perception of Law Enforcement Officers")

a. Identify the four rhetorical moves that an intro of a research paper should make.
b. How well do these two fulfill the requirements?
c. How are these two introductions (esp. focus on the review part) different? 

Synthesis Analysis

Rank these paragraphs.

2.     Discuss the reasons for the way you rank them. While analyzing, look at how synthesis is done at both paragraph and sentence levels.

3. Post your ranking and reasons as a comment to this post. 

a.     Much of the literature agrees that capital punishment is not a crime deterrent. According to Judy Pennington in an interview with Helen Prejean, crime rates in New Orleans went up in the eight weeks following executions. Jimmy Dunne notes that crime rates often go up in the first two or three months following an execution. “Death and the American” argues that America’s crime rate as a whole has increased drastically since the re-instatement of the death penalty in the 1960s. This article notes that 700 crimes are committed for every 100,000 Americans. Helen Prejean cites Ellis in her book to note that in 1980, 500,000 people were behind bars and in 1990 that figure rose to 1.1 million.

b.     The literature on capital punishment suggests that it fails as a deterrent in two key ways. First, much of the literature suggests that capital punishment does not lower the crime rate. Helen Prejean, in Deadman Walking, clearly notes that capital punishment does little to lower the crime rate. Prejean argues that the “evidence that executions do not deter crime is conclusive […] the U.S. murder rate is no higher in states that do not have the death penalty than those who do” (110). Prejean’s point is reiterated from a historical perspective in “Death and the American.” Here, the author notes that despite the social and economic upheavals that occurred from the 1930s to the 1960s, the crime rate barely changed (2). However, after the reinstatement of the death penalty in the 1960s, the author notes that “crime rates soared” (2). Steven Hawkins points out that law enforcement officials also agree that the death penalty has failed to stop crime. He explains that a 1995 Peter D. Hart Research Associates survey found that police chiefs believe the death penalty to be “the least effective way of reducing crime” (1).

c.     One of the prominent issues that has surfaced is the idea of Emergency Contraceptives, especially when it comes to females that are the unfortunate victims of rape. Often times when women are admitted into the Emergency Room in a Catholic hospital they are left with a physician that is allowed to personally interpret whether they should be allowed to have a form of Emergency Contraceptive. The research study presented in Second Chance Denied states that, “Only 5% of the emergency rooms provide EC on request. An additional 23% of Catholic Emergency Rooms provide EC to rape victims only” and continues to say, “with good luck, a woman who had been raped might be seen by an attending physician who would provide EC, but there were no guarantees.” (Page 5) How do they get to decide who is deserving of appropriate medical treatment, and why is the fate of the woman left for them to decide? These are some of the same questions that researchers were asking in their study since “(our) Nations medical authorities have established EC as a standard and appropriate medical care.” (Second Chance Denied, Page 8).

d.     Walter Pauk, director of a center for student study skills at Cornell University, believes that the ability to concentrate is an invaluable asset to the college students.  Pauk states that “will power alone can't induce concentration.  Students may be breaking concentration whenever they remind themselves that they must use will power to concentrate.”  Noted philosopher and psychologist William James also talks about concentration when he advocates continued concentration in the face of mental fatigue. "The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before.  We have evidently tapped a new level of energy."

Peer Review of Topic Proposals

Use the following questions to review each other's topic proposal. Post your suggestions as a comment on your your peer's post.

1. Is the topic narrow enough a) to collect data within a few days and b) to maintain a clear focus? 
2. Are research questions specific? Are they open-ended? Open-ended questions are often better than yes/no questions. 
3. Is the research method(s) chosen appropriate for the research question(s)?

Assignment Topics

Individually

• Come up with 3 topics related to your field or anything you are interested in exploring. 
• Write down one research question for each of the topics. 
• Post them to your blog (both topics and questions)

Group

• Discuss the topics and questions with specific focus on 
• scope (whether it is too broad)
• time
• importance/interesting

Questions about the Second Major Writing Assignment

Read the assignment prompt one more time. Pay attention to all the details and make a list of a few questions and post them as a comment here.

Reflection

Write a few paragraphs reflecting on the following questions. Post your reflection to your blog.

• How well do you think you did in the first major speech? What went well and what did not go very well and why?
• What two aspects of delivery do you think you will need to improve for the next speech? 
• What strategies will you use for that purpose? 

Schedule for Final Speeches

Monday

West, Jordyn, Hummel, Matt , Harden, Emma , Murphy, Parker , Trokel, Gabe , Polous, Kayla , Whelan-Linares, Sami, Guo, Miranssa , Cahill, Laney, Garcia, Stephanie 

Wednesday

Vrabel, Annalise, Capobianco, Bella , Coclanes, Christian , Tafreshi, Media , McDermott, Ellie , Tallman, Autumn , Lutz, Alex, Wendell, Allie , Delaney, Casey, Mitchell, Ashley

Sample Outlines

http://largetrhet103092.blogspot.com/2017/09/revised-commercial-speech-outline.html

http://draiseyrhet103092.blogspot.com/2017/09/revised-speech-outline.html

http://gienapprhet103092.blogspot.com/2017/09/assigned-wednesday-927-speech-1-outline.html

Schedule for Rehearsals

Monday

Mitchell, Ashley , Delaney, Casey , McDermott, Ellie , Vrabel, Annalise , West, Jordyn , Lutz, Alex , Coclanes, Christian , Polous, Kayla , Capobianco, Bella , Garcia, Stephanie 

Wednesday

Wendell, Allie , Whelan-Linares, Sami, Murphy, Parker , Trokel, Gabe , Tallman, Autumn , Tafreshi, Media , Guo, Miranssa , Harden, Emma , Cahill, Laney , Hummel, Matt 

Speech Anxiety

Individually (spend 10 minutes)

1. Do you experience speech anxiety or stress?
2. What do you think are the causes of your anxiety? List all the potential causes. 
3. What do you normally do to overcome your speech anxiety or nervousness? What works and what does not? List all the things that you often try to do to avoid nervousness. 
4. Now find a reliable source online that talks about strategies to overcome speech anxiety. State what you learned from the source and the new things you might want to try for this speech.
5. Post your answers to your blog. 

In Group (5-7 minutes)

1. Discuss the sources of anxiety and the strategies you often use to address them. 
2. Post a comment here including the sources and the specific strategies to address those sources of anxiety. 

Outline Workshop

1. Show your commercial and the outline. 
2. Discuss some potential ways to improve. Focus on:
1. Clarity and specificity of the claims about purpose and effectiveness. 
2. Sufficiency and relevance of reasons to support the claims. 
3. Sufficiency and relevance of specific evidences to back up the reasons. 
4. Effectiveness of the introductory hook and the closing hook.
5. Overall organization of the outline. 
3. Each member should offer at least two substantive suggestions. 
4. Finally, go to your outline on your blog and revise it based on the feedbacks you received.  

Speech Analysis

When you watch the speech, make a list of things that you think the speaker did well and a list of things that he did not do so well. Overall, based on what you saw, do you think it is a good speech? Post your lists and your overall impression as a comment here. 

Questions about Speech #1

Post your questions as a comment. Include at least two questions. 

Unit 1 Reflection

1. What were the most challenging parts of the assignment? What do you think could be changed/done to make it better/more useful?
2. In preparation for the assignment, we did several things like

• Discussing basic analytical concepts (SLR, AATP, etc.)
• Outlining papers and peer-reviewing them
• Analyzing sample papers
• Peer reviewing first drafts
• Conducting individual conferences

Which of them were the most useful and which were the least useful? Post your answers as a comment.

Peer Review Guidelines

Use these instructions for providing feedbacks to your peers' first drafts.

A. Questions to think about while reading the paper. Whenever the instruction says "write," write a brief comments on the margin of the paper. 

1.     Read the report quickly and see if you clearly understand the main points. Did the paper flow well on your first reading? Briefly describe what part(s) of the essay flowed well and what part(s) seemed choppy or incoherent. What strategy(ies) are used to organize the information gathered from a variety of sources? Make some notes to suggest some ways to improve the overall organization of the paper.

2.     Now read slowly. Read the essay up until you identify the writer's thesis (not as a claim, but as a statement of findings).  Stop reading at this point and answer the following questions:

a.     Does the introduction give you enough background to understand the possible direction of the whole essay?

b.     Is the background too broad or merely tangentially relevant to the main purpose of the paper?

c.     Does the intro provide relevant background about writing in a particular profession or discipline?

d.     Does it provide a brief description of the methods used to gather relevant information to address the problem/enquiry and develop an analytical report?

e.     Is the thesis/statement clear? Does it make an argument/claim or does it state the most important information about writing in a profession/discipline?

                        Write down some points to provide suggestions for improving the introductory part.

3.     Now read through the paper, using the point-predict method.  Pause every 1-2 sentences or so and summarize the writer's main point and predict what will come next.  Clearly identify any places on the paper where your expectations as a reader were not met or where you were unclear on the writer's point.  If possible, indicate what you were expecting.

4.     Does each paragraph adhere to a single main idea?  Note any paragraphs that seem to have multiple topics competing for attention.

5.     Are paragraphs connected with transitions?  Identify any places where transitions between paragraphs can be improved. Mark those places and provide some feedbacks.

6.     Does the writer provide sufficient evidence for each of the main points?  Note any places where you would like to see more evidence.  Make suggestions for what type of evidence the writer might include.

7.     Does the writer use quotations and paraphrases of sources effectively?  Are the quotations relevant?

8.     Is the overall order of paragraphs in the paper logical?  Do the paragraphs in the body of the paper follow the order suggested by the thesis?   Does the overall organization seem to have some sort of ordering principle—such as comparison and contrast, steps/processes, etc?

9.     Does the author focus on features of writing or the aspects of writing process in analyzing written sources? How could he/she improve the analysis?

10.  How well does the writer integrate the information gathered from interviews with the information drawn from analyses of the writings?

11.  Does the essay have an interesting conclusion that does not simply repeat the main points of the essay?

12.  Does the writer include a correctly documented “References” page?

13.  Do you see any pattern errors (grammatical) in the paper? Can you offer some suggestions for improvement?

14.  In what particular aspect(s) of the paper has the author done an excellent job?

B. For your written review:

After reading and analyzing your peers’ papers, write a review for each of the papers focusing on the following aspects:

1.     What is your overall impression?

2.     What are the 3-5 most important areas for improvement? You can take assignment rubrics (analysis and synthesis, organization, use of sources, and completeness and mechanics) as a basis for your suggestions. Your suggestions have to be concrete and specific. That means, you cannot simply make general comments like “you can improve the organization of your essay” or “you need to improve transition.” You need to show where and provide some concrete ways for improvement.

Your review should be at least 3 substantive paragraphs (most probably 4-6), first paragraph stating your overall impression and a few other paragraphs explaining 3-5 suggestions for improvement). After you finish writing, post it as a comment to your peer’s blog.

Sample Analysis

Individually:

1. Read grading rubrics.
2. Go through the papers quickly if you need and rank them.
3. Assign letter grades to the papers.
4. Make a list of three weaknesses and three strengths of each of the papers based on your analysis of all the samples. 

Group:

1. Finalize the ranking and grading.
2. Select and combine the lists of 2-3 strengths and weaknesses for each of the papers.
3. Post your ranking, the letter grade you've assigned, and the list of strengths and weaknesses as a comment to this post. 

Interview Questions

Post your questions as a comment.

Academic vs Non-academic Writings

Post your definition of academic and non-academic writings and links to a few examples here as a comment. Only one comment from a group. 

Insider's Guide Activity

Group work

1.     What are 3-5 most important things that you learned from the chapter?

2.     What are some specific tools the writers offer to analyze disciplinary writings?

3.     Analyze the press release and the excerpt from an academic journal article using the tools this chapter offers. (SLR and AATP)

4.     How effective do you think the writers are in presenting their findings? What do you think about the appropriateness of the language and structure in these two samples? Explain briefly.

Post brief answers to these questions to the course blog as a comment. One group should post only one comment.

Questions about First Major Assignment

Post your questions about the first major assignment as a comment here. 

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