This is my first time blogging, so admittedly I'm a little uncomfortable and probably wouldn't write a blog if it wasn't required. But nonetheless, I think it could be a fun and different way of getting my thoughts and opinions out there, and I'm looking forward to see how it progresses throughout the semester. To get some basics out of the way, my name is Aaron and I'm a senior biology major. I've loved being at Clemson and I'm still having a tough time accepting the fact that I'll be graduating this year. I seem to be all over the place in deciding what I want to do after college, but the two major options seem to be graduate school, or working for a year or so then going to graduate school. Either way, there will definitely be more school. I could go on, but I just wanted to write a brief introduction and get some of those details out of the way so that I can start writing about what this blog is really about-- technical writing and my thoughts on the subjects we discuss in class.
If someone had asked me what rhetoric was before we talked about it class, I honestly wouldn't have known what to say. It's not as if I've never heard of the word, but to be able to define it would have been quite difficult for me. After reading some articles about it now though, I believe that it not only is the art of persuasion, but the effective use of language and other symbols to express something. It certainly can be harmful, but if used when speaking to an audience that has the ability to think critically, then rhetoric can actually lead to truth, rather than to distract from it. Although some may say rhetoric is seen in every aspect of speech, I don't think it necessarily is. Rhetoric is used to persuade, even though the persuasion may not be of the conventional kind. Because of that, when something is irrefutable fact, I don't think it is rhetoric. Like we discussed in class, in order for it to be rhetoric, the situation has to be contingent on something. There has to be multiple sides of an issue, where neither one is necessarily correct, but that arguments can be made in order to convince. Lawyers always seem to get bad reputations, and this is probably because it is their job to use rhetoric to convince everyone they are correct, but I think instead of rhetoric giving lawyers a bad reputation, lawyers give rhetoric a bad reputation. If used in an ethical way, "rhetoric" doesn't have to be an insult.
