Class Blog 10/14/14

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In their discussion of citizen criticism, Corbett and Eberly state, “In a democracy, rhetoric as the actualizer of potential depends on citizens who are able to imagine themselves as agents of action, rather than just spectators or consumers” (Corbett, Eberly 131). The terms that Lazere introduces that most closely align with Corbett and Eberly include:

• “partisan viewpoint (that, is a viewpoint siding with a particular party or ideology)” (Lazere 125).
• “the fallacy of quotation out of context, pulling a few, extreme-sounding words out of their qualifying context” (Lazere 127). 
• “stack the deck by presenting only arguments in support of your own position, while ignoring or distorting arguments on the other side” (Lazere 130). 

These terms come into play in Bouie’s “Criminal Justice Racism” as this article is about “The futility of fighting criminal justice racism with statistics” (Bouie 1). After two studies of comparing “more-white” crime statistics with “more-black” crime statistics, the results were the same and “the conclusion was that ‘exposing people to extreme racial disparities in the prison population’ led to a greater fear of crime and - at best - an unwillingness to support reform” (3). 

This conclusion of the study discussed in Bouie’s article related to Lazere’s terms because those participating in the studies were intentionally set up to view either “more-white” statistics or “more-black” statistics, giving them a partisan viewpoint because these staggered statistics lead to racist conclusions. Quotation out of context is also relevant because by presenting statistics as “more-white” or “more-black” to lead participants to these racist conclusions puts the actual statistics out of context. Stacking the deck is applicable as well because the statistics were presented in a staggered fashion to see the effects of manipulating the statistics to lead to racist positions and a lack of participants seeking reform for these underprivileged and misrepresented communities. 

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The way in which Corbett and Eberly break down the “Diversions of Reading” takes up and forwards Jones’s notions of citizen criticism. Two important concepts from Jones’s “Finding the Good Argument” include: “Argument as collaboration would be more closely linked to words such as dialogue and deliberation, cornerstone concepts in the history of American democracy” and “What is often missing from these discussions is research, consideration of multiple vantage points, and, quite often, basic logic” (Jones 157,158). While Jones points out what citizen criticism is typically missing in making its argument, Corbett and Eberly further break down and explain what these issues may be. 

Addressing these “Diversions of Reading,” Corbett and Eberly state, “One very common diversion of reasoning is generalizing without looking at enough cases to support a sweeping conclusion” (Corbett, Eberly 124). This is what Jones brings out as a major issue, that those participating in public discourse choose a stance and make conclusions without properly examining evidence and considering other viewpoints or options for resolutions. In reference to another diversion, Corbett and Eberly include that, “People are said to pander their audiences when they use emotional appeals as diversionary tactics or scare tactics” (Corbett, Eberly 127). This applies to Bouie’s “Criminal Justice Racism” as the staggered statistics presented to the participants in his studies are appealed to at an emotional level as a scare tactic by presenting “more-white” versus “more-black” statistics to show how citizens react and refuse to attempt to reform policy when racism is brought into the picture. Focusing on Corbett and Eberly’s opinion that, “In a democracy, rhetoric as the actualizer of potential depends on citizens who are able to imagine themselves as agents of action, rather than just spectators or consumers,” Jones’s article and Corbett/Eberly’s article could work together to show that if all of the information for a public policy issue is correctly presented and viewed from all possible viewpoints, while simultaneously eliminating the “Diversions of Reading,” real conclusions could be made to start furthering these issues and making the public accurately aware of how they can be involved for the greater good (Corbett, Eberly 131). 

Old and New: Public Policy Solutions Through Re-Mediation and Appeals to Time

Both Handa and Killingsworth address the use of rhetoric today. Handa’s book The Multimediated Rhetoric of the Internet focuses on a critical textual analysis of the successful use of rhetoric in today’s digital world. Killingsworth’s chapter “Appeals to Time” focuses on how rhetoric functions in the modern world and in reference to the past, present, and future to send the appropriate message to the audience. The use of rhetoric that both of these authors are discussing are relevant to current issues of public policy. Issues of public policy are always immediately addressed by news media and quickly bring attention and lots of followers attempting to enact immediate change in public policy to prevent future situations. However, these stories are often quickly forgotten as new stories pop up and steal the attention. This creates a re-mediation of news stories when similar issues come up over and over again because the issues are never properly addressed and solved. 

Why are these issues not solved when first brought to public attention? How does rhetoric prevent them from being solved and how could it help to solve issues of public policy in the future?

Killingsworth says, “A modern person thinks that the world, or at least the human understanding of it, is generally improving. Because of advancing technology, accumulating knowledge, and increasing information, North Americans and western Europeans are inclined to see our world as better than that of our ancestors” (Killingsworth 39). This view that the modern world is better is incorrect though because issues of public policy like racism and discrimination that our ancestors battled with are still very relevant issues today. Aware of the fact that issues of public policy are often not improved on, Killingsworth discusses how rhetoric today appeals to time in order to introduce change in their audiences. Discussing the use of appeals to time, Killingsworth says, “Time becomes a position of value that authors use to draw audiences to their own positions. Authors may appeal to the past, present, or future, but the focus tends to fall on the need for change, the pursuit of something new, in the present” (Killingsworth 39). 

Killingsworth also addresses the fact that news stories can not be pure re-mediation because audiences are interested in what is new and exciting, and therefore, appeals to time. In the chapter, Killingsworth says, “The implication is that what remains the same is not worth reporting. The result, according to at least one media critic, is that news stories build upon the four D’s: drama, disaster, debate, and dichotomy. New favors the volatile and dramatic but has trouble sustaining interest in topics over the long haul” (Killingsworth 39). This also brings up how audiences value time when Killingsworth says, “They assume that the audience thinks of time as money, values newness over oldness, and thinks of the present as the culmination of progressive forces working over the ages” (Killingsworth 40). If journalists and reporters using rhetoric to address public audience take on this view of time as something of value, then they can argue from a stasis of value to more effectively bring up issues of public policy and introduce solutions to enact solutions and actually change public policy so that issues won’t be re-mediated over and over again.

Handa introduces the idea of “re-mediation” in her text which she defines saying, “No medium today, and certainly no single media event, seems to do its cultural work in isolation from other media, any more than it works in isolation from other social and economic forces. What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media” (Handa 86). Using this definition, the use of re-mediation uses appeals to time in news media to report current events while also bringing up and comparing these news stories to past events to address large issues of public policy. 

In her book, Handa also focuses on digital sources, which are largely used by the news media today and because these news stories are archived on online sources it make re-mediation even more successful. Handa quotes experts on the subject saying, “Emily Golson and Toni Glover, more recently, agree: ‘When we mix traditional composition pedagogies with pedagogies and knowledge from other disciplines, the effect can be disorienting, but if we push past the demarcation that separates the familiar and unfamiliar, we can harness powerful new energy made possible by mixing disciplinary knowledge and composition pedagogy” (Handa 154). 

If today’s journalists and reporters appeal to time through current events and report them using digital sources where they can also re-mediate past stories to bring attention to issues of public policy, a new approach to changing public policy could emerge. 

Handa, Carolyn. The Mediated Rhetoric of the Internet. New York: Taylor and Francis Group. Web. 

Killingsworth, Jimmie M. "Appeals to Time." 38-51. Web. 

Is There Adequate Proof for the Claim: "Society is Dumbing Down"?

Bauerlain’s article “Society is Dumbing Down” focuses on examining the literacy and reading habits of the Google Generation. Using a study from the British Library, Bauerlain compares people who grew up after the invention of the Internet (the Google Generation) to those who grew up prior to this time. Halfway through the article, Bauerlain brings in a second source which is optimistic of new reading forms that have been developed by the Google Generation but then jumps right back into negative trends that are lowering literacy in younger generations. The last paragraph of the article also includes today’s general population, reaching the conclusion that “power browsing” is dumbing down society.

The aim of Bauerlain’s article seems to be proving how the Google Generation’s invention of “power browsing” due to new digital technologies is causing the dumbing down of society. While the evidence that Bauerlain provides is enough to question whether “power browsing” is a negative reading development, he doesn’t provide enough evidence to ultimately conclude that it is dumbing down society as a whole and his one inclusion of optimism for new and creative forms of online reading halfway through the article complicates his argument.

In the article “Finding the Good Argument,” Jones says, “What is often missing from these discussions is research, consideration of multiple vantage points, and, quite often, basic logic” (Jones 158). This is largely what is missing from Bauerlain’s argument; Bauerlain introduces much criticism for the Google Generation’s reading habits, but also introduces a small bit of optimism for it. Providing more research and evidence for one of these stances, or even further discussing both of them to view the issue from multiple vantage points could further his argument and make it more effective.

This article had very few grammar and aesthetic errors. Half of the article is composed of direct quotes which do not require line editing, but their organization and how effective including them is can be questioned.

In Paragraphs 1 and 6, Bauerlain provides links to other articles as evidence for his argument. Both of these links are broken and the sentences including the links do not further his argument, especially when the reader cannot access the additional information. The second link especially, from The Chronicle’s Footnoted blog, is not relevant to the article as Bauerlain does not explain why it is included and right after mentioning it jumps back into evidence and quotes from a different article.

The most important issues in this article that need to edited for are a lack of clarification and the length of the article. Bauerlain could provide much more information and proof for how “power browsing” is detrimental to the Google Generation as well as back up his argument that there is also optimism for new and creative forms of online reading. This lack of clarification and further proof for the argument violates Jones’ Burden-of-Proof Rule. Jones says, “If you make an argument, you have to provide evidence to back it up” (Jones 173). Bauerlain fails to do so, hindering his overall argument and complicating for the reader how optimism for this apparently negative trend comes into play here.

This article functions as a public deliberation argument. In his article “I Agree, But…,” McDonald says, “They suggest that, for a rhetorical democracy to flourish, controversies should be welcomed, encouraged, stimulated, and even organized in order to implicate ordinary citizens in government decision making” (McDonald 200). Bauerlain does welcome controversy from his outsides sources by introducing negativity and optimism for “power browsing” but doesn’t provide enough sufficient evidence for either argument, hindering his article as a whole by confusing the article’s aim for the reader. McDonald also states, “The aim of public deliberation therefore need not be to consolidate different points of view but rather to learn, understand, and test a party’s beliefs about an issue by juxtaposing them with those of an opposing party. Thus deliberation has the potential to generate new ways of interpreting a controversy, even when the parties do not arrive at an agreement” (McDonald 200). If Bauerlain included further evidence for both sides of his argument, particularly the optimistic side, he could create a public deliberation piece, opening up the issue for the public to argue each side and introduce new ideas for whether “power browsing” is really as damaging as recent research is showing.

In addition to this article’s stance as a public deliberation argument, it also functions as a human interest issue. Bauerlain is using outside research to call into question whether the Google Generation’s usage of “power browsing” is becoming detrimental to literacy. Literacy is necessary in today’s society and fast changing digital world and if this is hindering younger generations from being literate then it is certainly an issue of human interest for current and future generations. In their article “Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America,” Killingsworth and Palmer state, “The emphasis on human interest carries the journalist out of the field of natural science and into the action-oriented fields of social movements and politics” (Killingsworth, Palmer 135). Bauerlain has carried his concerns for the Google Generation’s reading patterns into an issue of human interest, but his lack of proof for both sides of this argument does not raise the social or political movement that it is capable of. By providing more context and evidence for the detriments and benefits of “power browsing,” Bauerlain could take a stronger stance on one of these sides, most likely for the detriments as this is what most of the article focuses on, and take his argument to a further level by providing his own opinion or bringing in more outside sources to suggest a solution to how “power browsing” is negatively affecting literacy. In their article, Killingsworth and Palmer address two issues to the human interest approach, the second of which says that, “…science must solve human problems” (Killingsworth, Palmer 135). Bauerlain’s article is capable of taking a further stance, and while maybe not possible in a single article, this article could still raise possible solutions and discussions of solving the issues of lowered literacy in the Google Generation.

I found many strengths and weaknesses in my abilities as an editor for this assignment and specific article. My strengths lie in being able to recognize weaknesses in Bauerlain’s article where he complicates his argument (when he raises the question of optimism for “power browsing” in his mostly negative article) or fails to provide enough evidence to prove his argument. This strength directly led to my biggest weakness: the assignment guidelines simply said to edit the article’s current content and to reword but not to add additional information. I think Bauerlain’s article is currently too short to sufficiently prove his argument. After viewing the one working link in the article from Steven Johnson in Paragraph 6, there is sufficient evidence both to further prove the argument for how “power browsing” is detrimental to literacy as well as to bring in an entirely new argument (or even a separate article) for how “power browsing” is increasing the amount of literature that a reader can take in and methodically sort through in a quick manner to find the most useful information. If Bauerlain were to raise these further questions and possibly even suggest a solution for one or both sides, his article would be much more thorough in achieving what I understood his aim to be: the Google Generation’s invention of “power browsing” due to new digital technologies is causing the dumbing down of society.

Jones, Rebecca. “Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother With Logic?” Writing Spaces: 

Readings on Writing. 156-179. Web.

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie, and Jacqueline S. Palmer. “Transformations of Scientific Discourse in the News Media.” In Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois U P, 1992. 133-60. Print.

McDonald, James. "I Agree, But...Finding Alternatives to Controversial Projects Through PublicDeliberation."Rhetoric and Public Deliberation. 199-217. Web. 

A Citizen’s Role in Public Deliberation

In McDonald’s chapter of Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation he defines an individual’s place in the public sphere: “individuals become citizens by discursively - and thus rhetorically - engaging one another in the public sphere” (McDonald 199). McDonald explains how citizens are involved in these academic sociotechnical controversies when he says, “Sociotechnical controversies, that is, those pertaining to society, science, and technology, seem to occupy a particularly important place in the contemporary public sphere and are the subject of numerous analyses in various disciplines, including rhetoric and the sociology of science and technology” (McDonald 201). Ordinary citizens are usually not welcomed into contributing to sociotechnical controversies because they typically lack expertise in these fields; however, the presence of these controversies in the public sphere gives credibility to these lay audiences whose public lives revolve around sociotechnical stock issues. 

In “A Plan for Teaching the Development of Original Policy Arguments” David S. Kaufer defines stock issues: “Stock issues are points of disagreement that recur regularly when people deliberate on questions of justice or public policy” (Kaufer 57). Stock issues are widely addressed among individual citizens, especially in today’s digital world where they can discuss and respond to stock issues on public forums like blogs or social media. In the article, Kaufer says, “They knew that stock issues (1) aid invention by helping speakers single out from the list of stock issues those obtaining in the immediate case; (2) aid organization (or arrangement) by insuring speakers against omitting information needed to marshal a comprehensive argument; (3) aid adaptation of speech to audiences by guiding speakers to include the points audiences expected them to address” (Kaufer 57). In this instance, Kaufer is referring directly to students learning how to write about public policy but these aims of raising and discussing stock issues can also apply to individual citizens who interact with these stock issues outside the classroom. 

Both Kaufer and McDonald support the role of the individual citizen’s participation in these issues. Kaufer explains the role of the student - which can also be applied to individual citizens in general - when he says, “Instead of urging or opposing legal judgments, student policy writers urge or oppose actions…They are the judge because they are finally responsible for deciding the greater merit of one side over the other. They are the advocates because they must try to maximize the possibility that their decision has been informed, even if not equally influenced by, the analogies of both sides” (Kaufer 62). McDonald also takes a stance on individual citizens being beneficial to the deliberation process saying, “They suggest that, for a rhetorical democracy to flourish, controversies should be welcomed, encouraged, stimulated, and even organized in order to implicate ordinary citizens in government decision making” (McDonald 200).

Sociotechnical issues are often not seen as issues that the general public is knowledgeable about. In his chapter, McDonald says, “The main particularity of these controversies is their heterogeneity: the issues come from several registers, from ethics to economics, from psychology to atomic physics. As Lyne affirms, ‘science and technology controversies are not just about science and technology. They are also about our culture, our comfort, and our metaphysics’” (McDonald 201). This is, therefore, why the public is not often involved in the deliberation of these issues. McDonald, however, recognizes that the public should be involved in contributing to discussions and solutions of these issues because sociotechnical issues are about more than just science and technology at academic levels.

Individual citizens clearly have a place in the deliberation of stock issues or sociotechnical controversies, but what are the benefits of their involvement? McDonald defines public deliberation for us: “The aim of public deliberation therefore need not be to consolidate different points of view but rather to learn, understand, and test a party’s beliefs about an issue by juxtaposing them with those of an opposing party. Thus deliberation has the potential to generate new ways of interpreting a controversy, even when the parties do not arrive at an agreement” (McDonald 200). Allowing individual citizens to involve themselves in issues of public deliberation can be beneficial in resolving these issues because they are members of the general public who experience, relate to, respond to, or maybe sometimes even cause these issues. In his chapter, McDonald recognizes this important role of these individual citizens saying, “Remy and Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe have shown that ordinary citizens, when discussing technical issues, can think of solutions to complex scientific problems that have been overlooked by experts” (McDonald 201). 

These texts also both address that public deliberation does not always lead to one conclusion or solution. McDonald says, “This suggests that public deliberation is not only about persuasive strategies but also about developing a better comprehension of important issues and consequently modifying one’s initial opinion” (McDonald 215). This clearly suggests that the point of public deliberation is not always to achieve clearly outlined answers. Public deliberation is complex and because it involves so many audiences and contributors. Endless ideas and rhetorical situations can be created and each member of the public deliberation can learn something new or view an idea from a new perspective. 

- Christina Morgan

Kaufer, David S. "A Plan for Teaching the Development of Original Policy Arguments." College Composition and Communication. 35.1 (Feb. 1984): 57-70. Web. 

McDonald, James. "I Agree, But...Finding Alternatives to Controversial Projects Through Public Deliberation." Rhetoric and Public Deliberation. 199-217. Web. 

Analytic Reflection

For my Sci/Tech Blog “A New-Age Twist on Longhand Note-Taking” I focused on Mueller and Oppenheimer’s article “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard” using additional sources from Wired.com and International New York Times to build my own argument. The principal source that I used, the Mueller/Oppenheimer article, focused on how laptop note-taking in the current digital age is leading to decreased academic performance compared to traditional longhand note-taking. The other two sources that I used focused on the importance of newer technologies and how they are shaping the face of note-taking today. None of these articles focused on putting these two things together though. So for my blog post I brought out a new idea: what if new technologies like smartpens would allow for digital versions of handwritten notes so that students are still transcribing their own ideas and not losing out on information by typing lectures verbatim. 

To create a blog narrative, I took Rettberg’s Blogging into account, focusing on her definition of “blogging.” In the text, Rettberg uses the Oxford English Dictionary definition of “blog” as “A frequently updated website consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites” (Rettberg 34). This definition precisely describes the blog post that I created. My individual class blog takes my personal observations of note-taking as a current student into account while bringing in other sources through hyperlinks to their articles to provide credibility and citation on old and new note-taking technologies. Part of the assignment in creating a Sci/Tech blog was also to give our blogs a “Sci/Tech” appearance. I changed my blog temporarily for this assignment, changing the background and fonts. I created a new green background that I feel is fitting for the assignment and chose a serif font to give my blog post a sharp appearance. 

Rettberg also focuses on how blogging changed how we define authors and publishing saying that blogging “[opened] up publishing to regular people” (Rettberg 12). This is an important concept to consider for this assignment because as students and young professionals it is necessary to still take a credible stance on the issue. While I am not strictly a professional in the field of note-taking, I am a student who relies on note-taking to receive an education on a daily basis, thus giving me credibility on this issue. For some classes I use a laptop for note-taking and in others I am prohibited from using a laptop so I can argue for the benefits and detriments of both. 

In “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts,” Fahnestock focuses on how science writers accommodate to their non-science audiences. Referencing how science writers address their lay audiences, Fahnestock says, “Accommodating the scholarly piece for the non scholarly magazine is not, therefore, simply a matter of translating technical jargon into nontechnical equivalents” (Fahnestock 280). The same was necessary in writing my Sci/Tech blog. While I was translating information and creating a new idea about note-taking in the modern age, I was still writing for an academic audience; therefore, the assignment was not just about translating the issue into more understandable material, but presenting a new argument for a new audience. Fahnestock also says, “In the space limits of a short notice in a magazine of popularized science, there is not room for the qualifications a more knowledgeable audience would demand, qualifications that show the author’s awareness of the criticism and refutation that an expert audience could raise against his inferences” (Fahnestock 283). While only composing a short individual blog post, I had to establish credibility in that amount of space but only the credibility necessary for the audience I was trying to reach. This intended audience would be other students and frequent note-takers like myself. I established credibility quickly because of my knowledge of note-taking as an academic student as well as by providing hyperlinks for the articles I referenced so that readers can access them and gain more information for themselves without my unnecessarily lengthening my post to provide extraneous information that does not directly add to my specific argument. 

Fahnestock, Jeanne. “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts.” Written Communication 3.3 (Jul. 1986): 275-96. JSTOR.

Rettburg, Jill Walker. Blogging: Digital Media and Society Series. Cambirdge, 2014. Print. 

A New-Age Twist on Longhand Note-Taking

Note-taking has recently become a topic of intellectual interest. Experiments have been conducted and conferences have been held to determine how modern technology has changed the face of note-taking and how this is affecting one’s ability to effectively take in and regurgitate information. The benefits of traditional longhand note-taking versus laptop note-taking have been widely discussed, but an alternative medium like the smartpen could be the answer to making hand-written notes digital for purposes of sustainability and shareability. 

Taking notes is an important mode of learning. Each individual person has their own methodology for note-taking in a manner that best facilitates their learning style. Ann Blair, a professor of history at Harvard is quoted in “Note-Taking’s Past, Deciphered Today” asking, “What is reading, after all? Even if you look introspectively, it’s hard to really know what you’re taking away at any given time. But notes give us hope of getting close to an intellectual process” (Schuessler). This stresses the importance of note-taking and why we should be working toward discovering the most effective note-taking mediums. 

While taking notes on a laptop allows for a student to record more information at a quicker pace, professors express concerns over the distractions that laptops offer. In the article “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard” Mueller and Oppenheimer state, “Empirical research tends to support the professors’ view, finding that students using laptops are not on task during lectures, show decreased academic performance, and are actually less satisfied with their education than their peers who do not use laptops in class” (Mueller/Oppenheimer 1). 

Because most students today are far more computer literate than previous generations, laptop note-taking allows them to record information quickly enough that their notes are verbatim to the lectures they are hearing. Mueller and Oppenheimer conducted three experiments, which are further explained in the previously linked article, to investigate how academic performance is affected by laptop versus longhand note-taking. The first experiment simply compared longhand and laptop notes without any instruction. Aiming to replicate these findings, the second experiment attempted to determine if instructional intervention not to record verbatim notes on laptops had an effect on performance. The third experiment tested whether students performed better after studying longhand notes versus laptop notes. 

All of these experiments ended with similar results. Those taking longhand notes recorded far fewer words than those using laptops and the lack of verbatim notes when using longhand resulted in superior performance in each experiment. Even when instructed not to take verbatim notes in the second experiment, it was completely ineffective in reducing verbatim content, once again leading to results proving superior academic performance after longhand note-taking. Mueller and Oppenheimer take these results into consideration, concluding, “For that reason, laptop use in classrooms should be viewed with a healthy dose of caution; despite their growing popularity, laptops may be doing more harm in classrooms than good” (Mueller/Oppenheimer 8). 

Schuessler’s article focuses on a conference called “Take Note” which was intended to explore the history and future of the book. An attendee of the conference, Peter Burke, addresses the comparison of enthusiastic note-takers to “compulsive hoarders” saying, “But I distrusted the students who took lots of notes as much as the students who didn't take any” (Schuessler). This is a similar concern for professors who are beginning to ban the use of laptops in their classrooms due to the decreasing academic performance that results from verbatim note-taking on laptops. 

In addition, Schuessler includes that scholars at “Take Note” discussed the benefits of digital note-taking because it gives the ability to put notes in a more lasting form than paper and allows for easier sharing. David Weinberger, a Harvard technologist who attended the conference, is quoted in Schuessler’s article as saying, “Private note-taking seems selfish to me. Make it all public, using standards. Big clouds of notes!” (Schuessler). 

While there is adequate defense for both longhand and laptop note-taking, neither of these articles sought a medium that would encompass the benefits of both. Several smartpens have been created in recent years, which operate using wi-fi, allowing students to hand-write notes which are directly uploaded to a digital format. These pens can also simultaneously record audio so that students can go back and listen to lectures again and record any additional information they may not have had time to write down. In her article “Hands-On With Livescribe’s Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen,” Christina Bonnington discusses her personal experience using the smartpen and how the convenient technology allows for making hand-written notes digital. 

Technologies like the Sky Smartpen are still new mediums for note-taking and their affect on academic performance has yet to be fully tested. However, smartpens do provide a medium that allows for taking longhand notes that can be converted to a digital format, eliminating issues of laptop note-taking like verbatim content.

Analytic Reflection

Bonnington, Christina. “Hands-On With Livescribe’s Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen.” Wired.com. 29 

October 2012. Web. 

Mueller, Pam A. and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: 

Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking.” Psychological Science. 23 April 

2014. Web. 

Schuessler, Jennifer. “Note-Taking’s Past, Deciphered Today.” International New York Times. 6 

November 2012. Web. 

Eradicating Criminalizing Homelessness through Mediated Public Discourse

In a report published by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, issues of how the homeless populations around the country are being criminalized as opposed to offering them a solution and giving them the means and education necessary to prevent homelessness to begin with are addressed. Early on in the article it is stated that, “The following report will document that people experiencing homelessness are subject to basic violations of their civil rights through the unconstitutional application of laws, arbitrary police practices and discriminatory public regulations” (6). This is an issue that is often just removed from sight rather than actually seeking a solution that benefits both the homeless communities and the rest of society who are concerned with how they are affected by these outcast members of their community. The organizations that created this report are in agreement that this is not an effective way to handle the issue, stating that, “We believe that working toward ending the causes of homelessness and not simply removing homeless people from view is cost effective, as well as just, and if presented to the general public in moral and economic terms would be widely supported” (7). 

The White Paper “Illegal to Be Homeless: The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States” acts explanatory in nature, detailing how and why homelessness is criminalized, while simultaneously functioning as a citizen’s genre by defending the homeless citizens of a community and offering a solution to end the “causes of homelessness” in a cost effective and just way. This public genre works surprisingly as mediated discourse in the way that it tackles this issue head on and offers real solutions to a problem that is often ignored out of convenience. It also complicates the notion of publicly mediated discourse by raising questions for the public to ponder and to persuade them to take action. 

By raising questions for the audience to take into account and act upon, this text creates a unique rhetorical situation to tackle this serious problem of civil and human rights. In her article “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts,” Fahnestock says, “With a significant change in rhetorical situation comes a change in genre” (Fahnestock 278). The organizations responsible for authoring this report change the rhetorical situation of issues of homelessness by uniquely pointing out how these citizens are being criminalized rather than being offered help to remove them from their negative living situations. Raising questions and thoroughly explaining what criminalizing the homeless means, a new citizen’s genre is created. Several questions are raised including, “Is society, willing to accept an economic system that not only tolerates but exacerbates homelessness?” and “Removing homeless people from public spaces in the name of improving the ‘quality of life’ of our cities begs the question - whose ‘quality of life’ are we improving and at what social and economic costs?” (79, 38). 

While this report of criminalizing homelessness is not strictly a scientific piece, its dealing with human rights and civil rights issues relates back to the Killingsworth/Palmer article on how scientific journalistic writing focuses on human interest. These scientific journalists use this focus on human interest to their benefit because, “It portrays what scientists often disparagingly call the ‘popular image of science,’ preferring applied research and engineering to theoretical concerns, and wavering between reverence and mistrust in its portrayal of the esoteric knowledge of scientists” (Killingsworth, Palmer 141). Killingsworth and Palmer’s discourse exemplifies how “Illegal to Be Homeless: The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States” complicates the notion of publicly mediated discourse because rather than this report becoming a ‘popular image’ it becomes the opposite. Governmental agencies who are largely responsible for criminalizing homelessness don’t want to shed light on this issue and attempt to solve the issue with solutions like the ones offered in this text, but rather cover up the issue. 

The way in which issues of criminalizing homelessness are ignored is because for many members of society, making these populations disappear without actually creating solutions still removes the issue from their site. This is what creates the human rights issues though, because, “The passage of laws that target behaviors associated with the state of being homeless, such as sleeping, bathing, sitting, cooking, lying down, urinating, or storing personal belongings in public spaces are unconstitutional because collectively, they target people based on their housing status, not for behaviors that, in and of themselves are criminal” (12). 

Homelessness continues to be a problem because of increasing housing costs while incomes remain the same, lack of education and other necessary resources, and the way in which poverty has become institutionalized, making a career out of the economic situations of these individuals. The organizations responsible for this article also address concerns for why these human rights issues are not widely addressed, pointing out that, “The average individual in this country is unaware of the causes of homelessness, the conditions in which homeless people are forced to live, as well as solutions to this most desperate form of poverty” (53). This report’s explanatory nature on how and why homelessness is criminalized creates a citizen’s genre that protects homeless populations and offers real solutions to eradicating homelessness in the US; however, whether these types of reports are widely shared and read by the public to create a mediated discourse in which the issue can be adequately tackled is still in question. 

Fahnestock, Jeanne. “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific

Facts.” Written Communication 3.3 (Jul. 1986): 275-96. JSTOR.

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie, and Jacqueline S. Palmer. “Transformations of Scientific Discourse in the News Media.” In Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois U P, 1992. 133-60. Print.