Science of Persuassion

People will follow credible knowledge of an expert, is the concept of Authority.  The idea of Authority in a blog is very important.  The role of this concept is to provide a message that the audience wants to read and is able to relate to the message. In addition, the goal of authority is to develop a relationship between the reader and the author.  All of the keys are important, but I think that the key of liking is less important in a blog.  The idea of liking is one that shows the similarities between the reader and the audience as well as expecting some type of recognition which is not necessary in a blog.  Credibility, rhetoric, and to inspire are some of the strategies needed in persuasive blogs.  Credibility, is important because it builds a foundation of what is mean in the message and what is deemed to be truthful. Blogs have been seen as being not as credible as a personal narrative. Therefore, a blog has to be written in a way that shows how credible the author is within his/her message. The strategy of rhetoric is not what is said but how it is said.  Blogs have to be written in a way that the reader has to not think about the words but instead is able to apply the words to their own life. The more rhetoric that is in a blog the better chance that blog will be relatable and be a passage that the reader wants to read and enjoys reading. Another, strategy that is necessary in a blog would be the strategy of inspiring.  Again, a blog is a short story in most cases and has to get to the point that the reader is trying to portray in the quickest manner as possible. So, in order to write a successful blog, there needs to be a message that inspires the reader to want to read beyond the text and potentially read more of the same passage or a passage from the same author but with a different message.  I think that bloggers use all three ethos, pathos and logos in their writing.  The goal of a blog is to create a sense of credibly, emotion and reasoning all in one.  With that being said all three of these are utilized in a successful blog.  For example, referencing Julie and Julia from last week. Julie’s blogs used all of these elements.  The ethos that she used was the fact that she references Julia Child’s previous recipes to create a level of credibility to the audience so that they knew her material was relevant.  The level of pathos in Julies blogs, was the fact that she used her daily actions and what she experienced daily as a form of emotion.  For example, when she talks about the sound of lobsters and relates it to her life that is a sense of emotion.  And logos was also used in her blogs based on the message that she was sharing and how she was getting her audience to see the meaning behind her daily blogs and how they were not just about cooking but about her daily life and what she wanted out of her life.   I do think that this differs from traditional essayist because of the nature of the material written today compared to historians.  Traditional essayist wrote based on life experiences so that the reader could learned and live in the life of what was experience. Where today essayist writes more to create a level of emotional connection and reliability of the message being written.

The Art of the Personal Essay

 “The Art of Influence”, was a striking piece of literature with over seventy-five personal essays written by various scholars.  What strikes me in this passage is that throughout most of the passage the authors tone is very consistent.  The tone throughout this passage is one that is genuine, honest and delivered in more of a friendly manner than of one that is demanding.  In the first part of the passage, written by Lopate, he expresses how a personal essay is noted more as friend than an author. “It’s friendly, conversational tone, its drive toward candor and confession, and its often-quirky first-person voice.”  

The first section alone of this passage makes me realize how important honesty and integrity is when it comes to the ability to influence or persuade an individual in ones writing.  In Lopate’s writing he allows for the reader to learn about life lessons that have not been shared with anyone or that he does not want shared with the reader.   This alone shows me as a writer that in order to be an influencer through my writing I have to gain that same level of trust from my reader through honesty, and more important being conversational.  I know as a writer that I tend to write what I think and what my views are. With that being said, I know that it is important to maintain a level of conversation so that there is a communication between the reader and the writer.  This communication is the understanding of what is written by me the writer and what is assumed by the reader.

Social media plays a huge role in Influencing people.  Before social media we relied on “word of mouth”, leaning on what others had to say about a piece of writing.  Also, before social media we had to rely on reviewing multiple documents to see if there was credibly and validity of the material that was being presented.  However, today social media today has changed how we view material and has influenced the reader and the author that much more.  Social media, is no considered to be the norm of how material is presented.  The more an author is able to get his/her passage reviewed or shared on social media the more the passage is viewed as a work of art.  Moreover, social media has a mixed role of being both positive and negative.  The positive aspect of social media is that it allows for a passage to be view easier and more regular. Also, it allows for the reader to receive immediate feedback, therefore being able to make changes as needed to any new piece that will be written. However, the negative impact of social media is that the document is readily available. So in the event the piece of writing is not well written or not in the form as what the author wanted then that will display a lack of credibility of the author, which in the long run could hurt the authors ability to write more pieces to reach his/her audience.

Being able to influence someone can be done intentionally and unintentionally.  Over the years, there have been times when I was influenced to do something that I was not comfortable doing. Also, I have been influenced unintentionally as well.  The unintentionally that I speak of is where one is influenced based on the outcomes of others actions. Even when those actions are not the right actions that need to be represented.  For example, a couple of years ago a group of my friends decided that they wanted to go rock climbing. I did not want to do it, however, after watching them all go and talk about how much fun it was, I decided I would try. Now I am afraid of heights but because everyone else was doing it and I was at the bottom looking up I had to try for myself.  Therefore, the unintentional influence here was the fact of me seeing how much fun everyone else was having and I was not. I was afraid of falling or getting hurt, but no one else did before me in my group of friends or the others that were at the wall.  

Unit 2 - Truth in Memior

Is it a “true memoir or a fictionalized one” you tell me?  This is the main argument in this entire dissertation.  Over the past weeks, memoirs have been one of the main areas we have looked at. Thinking of what a memoir is to me, it is a truthful document that provides an authentic voice or tone that is used to put the reader in the same set of minds or physical setting that he/she had experienced.  The issue in the dissertation is one that is unique to memoirs. Why you say? Because the issue is the ability to write a memoir that is truthful and accurate.  In doing so there have been memoirs that are not true memoirs. “Did they move between fiction and nonfiction restlessly until the true voice of the piece was clear? (truth in memoir, 2013). So how does the author address these issues? In a method that would be able to characterize different forms of memoirs to determine what would be the a “true memoir”.  “Different forms of writing not only come from the different people we are at different stages of our lives; they also require different writerly approaches and techniques. Smith and Watson illustrate how these techniques and practices of remembering change, using the observations of leading scholars and theorists” (truth in memoir,2013).  So the argument of tension in truth, non-fictional and fictionalized memoirs is still relevant today.  Is there a strong argument? No, there is not a strong argument, for example, “Memoir, according to academic and writer, Enza Gandolfo, is an increasingly popular genre that continues to be seen primarily as the individual’s story (truth in memoir, 2013). The goal of a memoir is to share fictionalized data that has impacted an individual or a group of individuals based on a particular time in history.  So a “true memoir” can have “truth in tension” and can be a fictionalized one as well.  A memoir is a piece of work that is unique to the author that is writing.  Every memoir will be different, every memoir will have a different tone, and every memoir will be unique to the person and the audience that is reading the memoir.