Audience and Genre

University of Houston Libraries, "Audience at a Frontier Fiesta show"  1950 via Wikipedia Commons,  Public Domain

While I may like to think everyone cares about the topic of sex-difference research and the way it affects gender and sex equality in society, the truth is, not everyone does. Too many, the topic is low on the list of intrigues and priorities. However, there are target audiences that might be interested in learning a little more about the subject. A couple possible audiences for my argument on the topic are described below.

1. As one big conglomerate, scientists may be interested in my argument. Biologists, neuroscientists, (pharmacists,) and chemists may find sex-difference research important to learn about, as their careers may depend on this research in the future. As mentioned in the Cahill argument I previously studied, a lack of placement of importance on sex-differences cause major injuries and even deaths after the FDA approved pharmaceutical drugs for women that were only tested on men. All types of scholars involved in medicinal, health, or scientific fields could learn from the arguments about this research. I would publish my argument on JNeurosci (the Journal of Neuroscience), or Dana.org (where Cahill's argument was published) to reach this audience.

2. Another group that could be a target audience for my argument is those interested in the hot topic of gender inequality. Whether it be politicians, women's rights advocates, or just people passionate about the problems with gender in modern society, all of these groups would find a great interest in whether there is an innate difference between men and women, and if that difference should be further developed or not.  Since this is a more broad audience, I could post the argument on a regular media source with opinionated articles, such as Slate, or I could post it to a thread involving women's rights advocates, such as this one.

Extended Annotated Bibliography

futureatlas.com, "Citation Needed" 10/30/10 via Flickr, Creative Commons License

This post serves as a reference for the sources I have used, am using, and will use for my argument in project three. In my extended annotated bibliography I included sources that answer most, if not all, of the major questions I proposed as topics for discussion in my "Narrowing my Focus" post. ai may have to add to this list later on, as I find new sources that offer different facts and opinions to my argument later on, so this bibliography is a work in progress, but complete for now.

Narrowing My Focus

Derferman, "Magnifying Glass" 1/7/08 via Wikipedia Commons,  Public Domain

From the questions I wrote previously that seemed important to ask for my topic of discussion, several stood our as questions that I could go in depth on answering. In this post I will describe which questions I will be focusing on and why.

"Who is at the very center or beginning of the controversy on sex-difference research? Who brought it to the attention of the public and fellow scientists?"

- This question stood out to me because I feel like it answers many different questions in one, and is just broad enough to be able to find a good amount of information on, without being so broad that I can't narrow in on what the question is asking. By answering this question I can answer the questions of who is at the center of the controversy, when and how the controversy started, and how it was introduced to others, which are all questions of which the answers are not immediately clear without a little research, but I imagine very intriguing.

"What threat does sex-difference research pose to gender/sex equality in society?"

-This question is probably the most interesting one to me. The entire controversy of sex-difference research revolves around this question, so I feel it is a vital one to ask. I am interested in the answer to this question from a neuroscientists point of view, a student's point of view, a woman's point of view, and a general societal point of view. Because of this I feel like this question appeals to a large audience and many will also want to learn the answer to this question.

"What is the difference in argument on sex-difference research between America and other countries?"

-I did not need 3 questions to focus on, but this question was too interesting to go without asking. I feel as if too many articles and arguments are written from an extremely "Western Society" point of view, disregarding what is going on in other countries, only to focus on the U.S. As gender inequality is a main problem worldwide, not just in the U.S., I am interested in seeing how other countries handle similar research, and how the controversy plays out there.

Questions About Controversy

Neutrality, "Question Mark" 06/13/05 via Wikipedia Commons,  Public Domain

In project one I focused on the concept of mind control in the field of neuroscience, but that proved to be a very difficult topic to study since it was new to my field (in its practicality) and not discussed often or with great passion or argument. For project two, I took the approach of studying sex-difference research in neuroscience, and that proved much more interesting and heated of a debate. Because of this, I will use the sex-difference research as my topic of study for project three. While I covered a great deal of the topic in the last project, there are still many questions left unanswered about the topic, some of which that intrigue me the most are listed below.

WHO:

1. Who, besides Cahill, is extremely passionate and optimistic about sex-difference research and why?

2. Who, on the opposite side of the argument, is extremely passionate about disagreeing with sex-difference research and why?

3. Who is at the very center or beginning of the controversy on sex-difference research? Who brought it to the attention of the public and fellow scientists?

WHAT:

1. What threat does sex-difference research pose to gender/sex equality?

2. What exactly does sex-difference research entail, and how is it studied/experimented?

3. What is the most prominent argument against sex-difference research and what is its major argument?

WHEN:

1. When did sex-difference research start? Was there a specific event or reason it began to be researched?

2. Did sex-difference research ever coincide with times of major issues in gender equality social settings throughout its history?

3. What is the most recent argument that can be found on sex-difference research?

WHERE:

1. What university or research lab first hosted sex-difference research?

2. What university or research lab now has a large focus in sex-difference research?

3. What is the difference in argument on sex-difference research between America and other countries?

HOW:

1. How has sex-difference research been argued scholarly? Has it been a popular topic in scholarly journals for the field of neuroscience?

2. How was sex-difference research introduced to the mass media/social media?

3. How do those in the mass media/social media feel about the argument of sex-difference research?

Reflection on Project 2

jourixia, "Reflection", 10/12/12 via Deviantart, Creative Commons License

Overall, the process of writing this piece was much easier for me than the QRG we had to write for project one. In reflecting upon this project, I realized there was not much I feel that I did incorrectly, or wish I could go back in time and do differently, as I felt with the first project. This reflection goes in depth on my writing and revision process for project 2.

1. While I revised many parts of my essay, I placed most of my focus on the revision of my introduction and conclusion. I completely started the two from scratch, as per request, and realized that much of what I had written previously had very little substance or relevance to my purpose, and was just filler. I revised the two in every aspect-- organization, purpose, structure-- until I felt that they effectively added the framework I needed for my piece. The rest of my revision was mainly just minor edits, and the addition of some evidence, because my essay was originally lacking much evidence.

2. In terms of my thesis, not much was changed. My thesis was the only part of my introduction that actually did work, and those who commented on my rough draft agreed that it was pretty good for our purposes. I did edit it however to add the word "effectively", as to make it clear and explicit what my feelings were on Cahill's argument. In a more broad sense, I did not change much of the organization of my piece, or if I did, it is solely due to the different direction that my revised introduction headed my piece in comparison to the old introduction.

3.  What led to these changes wasn't necessarily a shift in purpose, as much as it was a better understanding of purpose. Originally, it was hard for me to fully grasp what our purpose was for this project, who we were addressing, what we were addressing, and how we were supposed to address it. After writing my rough draft and revising, I realized I did not fully answer our informal prompt of describing explicitly to the audience how an effective argument in our field is laid out. So most of the changes I made were due to this realization.

4. I don't really feel like these changes add or subtract any credibility in my writing, but the audience might definitely consider me more credible in my writing after my revisions, as there is more bulk and evidence to the piece, so there is a better chance for the audience to see where I am getting my information from, rather than me making broad, unsupported claims.

5. These changes better address the audience because I am explicit in my acknowledgement of my purpose in this piece, what the audience is trying to gain from reading my piece. By acknowledging this, there is a more comfortable and relatable aspect to my writing that helps me to connect with my audience and provide them with what they need to know for drafting an argument in our field.

6. I did not edit much of my sentence structure, punctuation, or grammar. I changed a few sentences to help my paragraphs flow better, but most of this came with the addition of new support and evidence that helped made my writing sound better simply because it didn't sound as vague. I added an apostrophe or two where they were needed, and made use of dashes which I rarely employ in my writing, but overall, my sentence structures remained.

7. The few changes I did make in structure and punctuation will help my readers by avoiding the confusion that might be caused by poor phrasing or organization. Without good structuring and punctuation in a piece, it can become confusing and distracting for the reader, causing the reader to focus more on the technical aspects of the writing than the writing's actual purpose. So, potentially, I dodged these distractions.

8. The only way in which I reconsidered conventions in my field when writing and revising my piece was when I considered how important evidence was in my field, and therefore placed more weight on the logos part of my rhetorical argument. Other than this, no other conventions relate enough to my field of study enough for me to have to reconsider.

9. Overall, I feel I learned much about myself as a writer through this revision process. In all honesty, I am a very stubborn person, so often when I am revising my writing I am thinking of how I can change a few things without losing much of what I already worked to achieve. Scrapping my introduction was like pulling teeth for me, but in the end it was very worth it, and made me reconsider my editing process as a whole.

Reflection: After reading Lauren and Tom's reflections on their revision processes, I discovered that mine was not incredibly different from theirs. The three of us paid the most attention to the revision of our introductions and conclusions, and instead of reconsidering many other parts of our essays, we simply revised and tweaked them to work with the rest of the piece. I think, in comparison, I probably made less changes to my piece than the others did, but that's because I felt pretty good about my piece as I was reading along. I think all three of us, along with the rest of the class, truly learned a lot about what works in our own writing and revision with this project.

Project 2 Final Draft

Jenny C., "Stack of Papers" 8/20/12 via Flickr, CC0 License

Here is my final draft of my Project 2. I feel like I did most of my editing to my introduction and conclusion, but I actually don't think that is a bad thing. I learned a lot in this unit of what an introduction can add to a piece, it works as the framework, the foundation for the entirety of the piece. Having a solid introduction allows you something to work off of when writing (or in my case editing) the body paragraphs.

Punctuation, Part 2

Jelte, "Semicolon" 6/12/05 via Wikipedia Commons, Public Domain

Punctuation is one of the most important aspects to a piece of writing. As per the famous example, there's a huge difference between "the panda eats shoots and leaves", and "the panda eats, shoots, and leaves." In this post I will be analyzing punctuation in my own writing.

1. The comma- The comma helps segment writing to help shape and aid the flow of the writing. It is clear to me when to use commas in lists or when using appositives, but it is not as clear when to use commas otherwise. For instance, using a comma after an introductory clause, as described in 32b of Rules for Writers, is something I often forget to do. And I also regularly fail to use commas to join independent clauses correctly. An example of this from my own writing is when I say  "[l]et’s say you’re about to go skydiving." This sentence does not stand well alone, and should have been joined with the sentence that follows through the use of a comma, to help the piece flow better.

2. The apostrophe- Apostrophes appear easy to employ in writing. All one really has to remember is to use apostrophe's when making something possessive. EX: "It is Molly's room." But apostrophes are also useful in contractions and abbreviations for numbers. The most common mistake in most writing is the misuse of the apostrophe, or placement of it in the wrong place. For instance, I didn't know it was incorrect to use an apostrophe when forming the plural of numbers and letters, such as the 1960s.

3. Other punctuation marks- I do not often use many, if any, other punctuation marks in my writing besides the question mark. The example using a question mark from my piece is "what does neuroscience and gender equality have in common?" It is effective because it adds some variation in the punctuation and tone of the writing. Partially I avoid other punctuation because I find things like dashes, ellipses, and exclamation points difficult to fit into my writing. However, I want to look back over my writing now and add some variation in my punctuation.

Paragraph Analysis 2

Bondus, Jonathan, "Stack of Copy Paper" 7/11/11 via Wikipedia Commons CCA License

In this post I am providing my Paragraph Analysis for my Project 2 Rough Draft.

Looking through my paragraphs, it is plain to see that I don't have my main idea incorporated in a way that is clear and makes my piece effective. I also don't have much explanation to my main idea, as I don't incorporate much evidence. These are all things I need to work on revising. My organization and transitions also need to be revisited, now that I can see what ended up working and what just made the paragraphs more confusing.

Revised Conclusion

M1-L3C, "CONCLUSION" 11/27/13 via Wikipedia Commons,  Creative  Commons Attribution License

In this post I got rid of my conclusion from my rough draft and started over, which needed to be done with such a vague, disinteresting conclusion. While my first conclusion didn't add anything for the reader, my 2nd conclusion adds the answer of the "So What?" question for the reader, which is far more interesting and effective. My 2nd conclusion also ties into things i mentioned in my introduction, while still including pieces of my thesis, therefore making my essay more seamless.

Old Conclusion:

"Cahill uses the rhetorical strategies of appealing to logic, credibility, and emotion in his argument to convince his audience of the importance of sex-difference research. His argument demonstrates an effective argument in neuroscience, as you need all three strategies to convince someone of an unpopular opinion in a field that is so important, factual, and controversial."

New Conclusion:

While inequality among the sexes is extremely problematic in wage gaps, the workforce, and virtually all other aspects of society, it is actually an important differentiation in the field of neuroscience. Through effective use of evidence, scientific expertise, and dramatic tone, Cahill convinces his audience, which he assumes may disagree with his sex-difference research, as many others did, that the research matters and should continue. Cahill's argument is a perfect example of what we should aim towards for an argument in our field, convincing the audience of the impossible to convince, through nothing more than evidence, credibility, and appeals to emotion.

Revised Introduction

Schurz, Carl, "The New South - Introduction" 2014 via Wikipedia Commons, CC0 License  

In this post, I revised (totally changed) the introduction that I produced for my rough draft. I found this introduction to be a drastic improvement to my previous one. It is still in the same basic format, but now there is more of a link between my thesis and my topic sentence, and there is more inclusion of the rhetorical situation. I also did not mention the effectiveness of my author's argument in my first introduction, whereas in my revised introduction, I did! Overall I found the process of scrapping my first intro VERY helpful, otherwise I would have just changed a few words and called it a day.

Old introduction: 

"What do Neuroscience and Gender Equality have in common? Neither are to be taken lightly. In the field of Neuroscience, it is easiest to convince your readers of an argument you are passionate about when you are seen as a credible and factual source, before providing your audience with the passionate, dramatic appeal to emotion that will help convince them on moral grounds, especially when the two conflicting subjects have such high moral and cultural implications. This is why Dr. Larry Cahill, in his  2014 article "Equal =/= The Same: Sex Differences in the Human Brain", employs strategies such as personal stories and expertise, as well as a dramatic tone implying annoyance with the current situation to effectively convince the reader through an appeal to both emotion and credibility of his argument. Cahill also includes use of historical and relevant evidence and statistics to provide context for the reader, helping him gain credibility and therefore agreeability even more."

New Introduction:

"Neuroscientists consistently make the seemingly sexist claim that men and women are inherently different. Dr. Larry Cahill insists they aren't wrong, and that ignoring the science behind these claims can be dangerous. Let's Clarify: Cahill is not a self-proclaimed sexist. In fact, Cahill believes strongly in the political and social equality of the sexes, just not the biological equality. In the field of neuroscience, containing controversies such as these, it is hard to make an argument that everyone will agree with, despite the obvious factual evidence a neuroscientist may be able to provide. The issue to overcome when writing your argument is convincing your audience that you are someone worth listening to, and that the cultural and moral implications, as well as the evidence, on your side of the argument surpasses that of the other side of the argument in the long run. This is why Dr. Larry Cahill, in his 2014 article "Equal =/= The Same: Sex Differences in the Human Brain", employs strategies such as describing personal stories and his scientific expertise, as well as using a dramatic tone implying impatience and frustration with the current situation to convince the reader through an appeal to the audience's interest in both Cahill's emotional reaction and his credibility in his community. Cahill also includes use of historical and relevant evidence from credible sources to provide the context of the purpose behind his argument, helping him gain credibility and therefore agreeability even more.

Reflection on Project 2 Draft

ClkerFreeVectorImages, "Cloud, Thinking" 2014 via Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain License

My draft is definitely a work in progress. Overall, I found this draft harder, but less stressful and more familiar to write than the draft for project one. This post is my reflection on my project 2 draft. I reviewed both Thomas and Chingiz' drafts.

• I believe my thesis is clear and identifiable in my piece, It points to specific parts of my rhetorical situation, but in all honesty I need to work on making this part more specific, by alluding to the appeals in ways other than their definitions "appeals to emotions". It is also unanimously agreed that my thesis and my intro don't tie in together seamlessly, so I need to work on tying them together. 

• My essay is structured in a typical essay format. There is an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Each paragraph does have a central point that relates to my thesis, but I was not very careful in organizing my evidence and analysis, so there is not necessarily much of each in each paragraph, nor is it structured in a way that might help the reader understand it and how it relates back to the main point.

• I analyzed the author's purpose/context, and vaguely the audience by mentioning what type of audience the author might pitch his argument to, but I did not go in depth in analyzing the audience or author of the situation, so that I could improve upon in my writing.

• I did not really thoroughly explain why each strategy was employed, which I need to fix. I briefly described how each strategy affects the audience, but not in a way that answers the question of why these strategies are used in a more specific sense, or how/why these affect the audience. By going more in depth about the audience and rhetorical situation, this will be easier to fix, I assume.
  
• I used evidence in each of my paragraphs, but not much of it. After looking over other drafts and reading the comments on mine, I realized I need more evidence and more specificity in the evidence I provide than what I have now. Evidence helps the audience grasp the situation better, and establishes my own credibility. The evidence I do provide does explain how it is relevant though, I think.
  
• I possibly leave the reader wanting more just because my draft is short and does not give much information/evidence to the reader, or analysis that goes in depth about why the author employs the strategies they do. My conclusion answers the question of "what did I just talk about" but not "so what" as it doesn't really bring any new insight or explanation for the reader, which most good conclusions do, so I will fix that as I edit.

Punctuation, Part 1

Zipnon, "Symbols" 04/15 via Pixabay, CC0 license

I pay little attention to my punctuation while writing, especially when I am quickly skimming through and editing my work, as well as the work of others. In this blog I will address the 3 main issues I have in my writing in terms of punctuation.

1. Unnecessary commas- Probably the biggest problem in my writing is unnecessary commas or comma splicing.It's just hard for me to be able to judge whether I should end a sentence or continue on with a comma. While the Rules for Writers reading mentions problems such as putting commas between a subject and verb, that is not my problem. My problem is usually either creating a run-on sentence with too many commas, or adding a comma between a dependent and independent clause, causing an awkward wording throughout my piece.

2. Quotations- Punctuation in regards to evidence and quotations is difficult, especially when you're quoting something that isn't exactly the way it was said. or putting quotes inside of quotes. The most difficult and new (in the way it was explained) concept for me when  quoting is figuring out whether punctuation should go inside or outside the quotation marks, or both. The answer is pretty much always "before the end quote". As demonstrated by that sentence, this is not ALWAYS true.

3. End Punctuation- With end punctuation my problem is my lack of variety. I basically only use periods to end my sentences, besides the occasional question mark, which gets boring. There isn't really much new to learn from this section of Rules for Writers, except that you can use question marks rhetorically, and exclamation points help give you a more upbeat tone that might help me promote my idea and make it more relatable.

Reflection: I commented on Thomas' and Chingiz' rough drafts. I realized that both of my classmates had basically the same problem as me, problems with comma placement, quotation marks, and too many periods. Maybe it is the confusing ways we were taught growing up of how to handle these problems. An example from Thomas is a comma problem, "Smith includes these downsides of the prohibition of alcohol, in order to show her readers that the ban on marijuana is having very similar effects on America that the prohibition of alcohol had" Another example issue includes quotations. Quotations must have parentheses/brackets if things are being changed in the quote. And periods go either in or out of the quote, depending. An example of this is Rachel's sentence "He establishes himself as a senator in the “about the author” section by writing “About Steve Daines is a Republican senator from Montana.”." The punctuation at the end is extra, and the quote sounds awkward in general.

Draft of Rhetorical Analysis

Reneman, "Draft Icon" 2013 via Wikipedia Commons, Creative Commons License

Finally. My Draft. It would be an understatement for me to say this project was complex and complicated for me to grasp. Despite the numerous times Mr. Bottai explained that our essay should serve as an explanation of the rhetorical strategies of an example of an argument in our field, it didn't really hit me what we had to do until I was writing the actual essay. Even then... let's just say I referred to the Project 2 Breakdown often.

My draft is rough, obviously, so I know it could use more substance, length, and evidence. I mainly want anyone peer editing to focus on exact points on the rubric that I am missing, so I can gain those points. I also would like feedback on if what I do have is effective enough for our purpose.

Thanks!!!

Practicing Summary and Paraphrase

We already learned how to summarize several deadlines ago, but we had not yet formally been taught to paraphrase. The two methods of avoiding plagiarism seem similar, but they serve different purposes in writing. I provided some examples in this blog post from the text I've been focusing on, "Equal =/= The Same..." by Dr. Larry Cahill.

Gupta, Arpit "Can You Summarize?" 11/21/13 via Flickr, Creative Commons License

Original Source:

"To make matters worse, studying sex differences in the brain was for a long time distasteful to large swaths of academia. Regarding sex differences research, Gloria Steinem once said that it's "anti-American, crazy thinking to do this kind of research." Indeed, in about the year 2000, senior colleagues strongly advised me against studying sex differences because it would "kill" my career."

My Paraphrase of Original Source:

According to Cahill, on top of other problems surrounding the studying of the differences between the brains of different sexes, many people found the studies to be controversial and wrong. Some even once thought that studying sex differences went entirely against American values. As Cahill explains, he was chastised for the research he did on sex differences, and warned that it could have put his job and public imagine in jeopardy.

My Summary of Original Source:

Essentially, Cahill describes that studying sex differences was a dangerous and controversial topic when he started, which put both his career and respect from his colleagues on the line.

Project 2 Outline

In this blog post I outlined the basic structure of my essay, with help from the tips from "Writing Public Lives" (pgs. 122-125). Just as the tips suggested, I have a working introduction with a thesis, 3 body paragraphs each with analytical claims and support, and finally a summarizing conclusion. I found the tips of providing background information and framing your issue in the introduction helpful, as I otherwise wasn't sure how to go about the intro. I also found the tips about making an analytical claim that is debatable but also supportable helpful in understanding just what an analytical claim was.

Escamilla, Alejandro, "Left-Handed Writing with Wristwatch"  5/19/13 via Wikipedia Commons, CC0 Public Domain

Introduction: Provide:

• background information about Neuroscience and the argument
• an introduction into how an argument is constructed in the field 
• my thesis
• a closing statement that describes what my essay's purpose is

Thesis: Dr. Larry Cahill's 2014 article "Equal =/= The Same: Sex Differences in the Human Brain", Cahill employs strategies such as personal stories and expertise, as well as a dramatic tone implying annoyance with the current situation to convince the reader through an appeal to both emotion and credibility of his argument. Cahill also includes use of historical and relevant evidence and statistics to provide context for the reader, helping him gain credibility and therefore agreeability even more.

Body 1:

Topic Sentence: Cahill gains credibility through his expertise

• Analytical Claim: expertise adds credibility

1. Evidence: Cahill mentions his title/research done aka his expertise
2. Evidence: Also mentions his colleagues that are experts, and their opinions, making him believable

• Analytical Claim: credibility adds agreeability

1. Evidence: Uses his expertise as an argument
2. Evidence: introduction to credibility eases into the argument

Body 2:

Topic Sentence: Cahill includes statistics, evidence, and context to further convince his audience of credibility and believability

• Analytical Claim: Logos (facts/stats) actually create ethos in this case

1. Evidence: context in beginning adds background info
2. Evidence: statistics and graph make the argument more believable

• Analytical Claim: facts and credibility are important to convince readers in neuroscience since it is such a factual field

1. Evidence: context in beginning and studies throughout appeal to the academic audience
2. Evidence: science=knowledge, without facts, the argument would be too loaded/emotional

Body 3:

Topic Sentence: Cahill appeals to emotion through loaded words, personal stories, and dramatic tone.

• Analytical Claim: Cahill's dramatization appeals to emotion

1. Evidence: claims he could've lost his career
2. Evidence: makes claims about backlash

• Analytical Claim: By appealing to emotion Cahill grabs his readers attention and forms a bond that makes the reader want to listen and agree.

1. Evidence: uses tone to seem more close to the audience
2. Evidence: uses sob stories as a "cry for help" sort of argument

Conclusion:

• restate thesis in new way
• add last insight into argument in my field

Reflection: Upon reading and reflecting on both Sam and Ann Emilie's outlines, I realized that my outline is on the right track. I was a little unsure of its brevity before reflecting on others, but I actually like outlines that are on the short side, because they seem more summarized, well-organized, and clear. I hope I can transfer this outline into my actual essay in a way that thickens it and simultaneously still makes sense.

Draft Thesis Statements

Koslowski, Roger, "Typeface: Thesis" 12/06 via Wikipedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License

A thesis statement should provide the reader with an introduction of the purpose of the writing, in this case, answering how and why the author of our text uses what rhetorical strategies they do. The Craft Box on page 192 of Student's Guide helps to break the thesis into a step-by-step process in order to create one that will be effective in its purpose. Here are the best 2 thesis statements I could manage roughly:

1. In Dr. Larry Cahill's 2014 article "Equal =/= The Same: Sex Differences in the Human Brain", Cahill employs strategies such as personal stories and expertise, as well as a tone implying annoyance with the current situation to convince the reader through an appeal to both emotion and credibility of his argument. Cahill also includes subsequent use of historical and relevant evidence and statistics to provide context for the reader, helping him gain credibility and therefore agreeability even more.

2. Dr. Larry Cahill defies his audience's cultural norms and effectively achieves his purpose of convincing his neuroscience audience that sex difference matters through his evident statement of his purpose, contextualization through statistics and evidence of recent events, and appeal to the readers' emotion through an annoyed tone and dramatic personal experience.

As is evident, I haven't really narrowed down what I want to focus on in my body paragraphs. Drafting a thesis isn't too difficult on its own for me, but going solely off of one thesis might prove difficult for me as I'm writing my draft, as I can't decide whether I should focus more on rhetorical situation or strategy.

Reflection: I replied to Tyler and Thomas' "Draft Thesis Statements" posts. The thesis statements they came up with were not perfect examples, but that was helpful for me, as it made me feel slightly less bad about my own thesis statements being flawed, vague, and weirdly worded. Their thesis statements also helped me realize that vague and bland theses do not help the audience, so I should try to narrow mine down a little and make them more interesting!

Analyzing My Audience

Unknown, "Eaton's War Bonds Rally 1943 Audience" 1943 via Wikipedia Commons, Public Domain

Project 2 is sort of complicated because the essay has a "meta-" aspect to it. I am not writing a rhetorical analysis, I am explaining an example argument, and my audience therefore must reflect this. My audience for this purpose is in many ways imaginary.

• I am writing for students that don't understand how to construct an argument in my field of Neuroscience. It can be assumed that my audience is pretty unaware of my text's argument, so their beliefs may go against the argument and against the way the argument is constructed.
• My audience may be confused about the construction, in which case I will have to make sure I go very far in depth in my explanations.
• My audience will want to know the organization pattern used by the author, what a successful thesis statement looks like in this type of argument, what types of rhetorical strategies are most important in this type of argument, etc.
• It is possible that my audience could find my explanations too general, or too hard to grasp, so I will attempt to keep this in mind while explaining the strategies used.
• I am trying to relate with my audience by showing that I too once did not understand how to construct an argument in my field, in order to make them feel like they are not alone in their confusion.
• In order to relate in such a way, I can refer to how "complex" the style is, to explain that I recognize it as not immediately easy to understand. 

Reflection: I looked at Jenny and Rachel's "Analyzing My Audience" posts. I found their answers to these questions vaguely similar to mine (although better sounding), as I think we all agree that our audience is people in our fields that don't understand how to write proper arguments, but we all have very different answers to these questions. I am looking at this essay in terms of my only argument to my audience being the effectiveness of this article, and I'm still unsure if this is correct or not.

Cluster of "Equal =/= The Same..."

In my cluster I demonstrated and explained the rhetorical strategies, rhetorical situation, and cultural ideology used in the text "Equal =/= The Same..." by Cahill. This mind map helped to summarize what i had learned about the strategies, context, and purpose seen in the text.

Stevens, Danny, "Mind Map Guidelines"  06/25/06 via Wikipedia Commons,  GNU Free Documentation License

Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in "Equal =/= The Same..."

Jordan, Brett, "Rhetorical" 07/08/11 via Flickr, Creative Commons License

Rhetorical strategies include the logos (logics and evidence), pathos (appeal to emotion), and ethos (credibility) of a text. It is important to look at rhetorical strategies of a text as they help the reader determine what approach the author uses in conveying their message, and therefore makes the message easier to understand. In my text, all three strategies are employed in abundance.

Appeals to Credibility or Character 

• In my text, my author mentions his own expertise, public image, and personal stories. He also includes the counterargument of his colleagues and the general societal values that he came against. 
• Cahill used these strategies to show that despite his expertise (in its own giving him credibility), he faced judgement. 
• By mentioning the judgement he received, even as an expert in his field, Cahill makes himself more relatable, down-to-earth, and likable to his audience, therefore increasing his audience's interest and agreement on the subject. 
• These strategies make the purpose more clear as there is less the audience has to pick through to get to the purpose. It is laid out transparently by introducing the topic with the exact purpose and theprobldms this purpose has created.
• It doesn't appear that the author has a bias leading him to prefer one sex over the other, influencing his text in one direction, the main bias stems from facts about sex-differences that Cahill follows religiously.

Appeals to Emotion

• Personal stories that evoke emotion, repetition of loaded words, a low level of formality, and a "victim" tone of voice all are strategies used by Cahill to appeal to emotion in his text.
• The author, as mentioned, is trying to come across as a victim in the heated situation to his audience, therefore making his audience agree with his point of view simply because they feel bad, disgusted, or shocked about the situation.
• The actual result is that these strategies work for Cahill. The reader feels, by the end of the text, as if not agreeing with Cahill would be wrong or going against science itself.
• These emotions are effective in this situation since it is an emotionally and culturally charged topic to begin with, if Cahill had not convinced his audience of his side of things he would be going against societal norms and no one would support him or his desire for change.
• The emotional appeals both make the credibility and evidence of this piece seem more acceptable and agreeable. With the emotion the piece appears more factual to the reader.

Appeals to Logic

• Cahill includes historical evidence, statistics, expert opinions, and effective organization in his text as part of his appeal to logic.
• By using these strategies, Cahill frames his piece, later adding to this frame the emotional appeal. Basically his organization is to introduce facts and later explain those facts in an emotional way.
• The result is that, even though there is enough reason with emotional appeal to agree with Cahill on its own, the evidence provided makes the argument even more believable and credible, therefore adding not only to logos, but ethos as well.
• These strategies are effective for the audience because they cut the emotion just enough so that the text doesn't seem dramatically opinionated with no evidence to support the opinions of Cahill.

Analyzing Message in "Equal =/= The Same..."

kropekk_pl, "message" 2014 via pixabay, CC0 Public Domain license

On page 181 of "A Student's Guide to First Year Writing" it is explained that one can analyze what a text's message and purpose is by determining exactly what an author is or is not trying to achieve. I used these examples of questions to ask in order to determine my text's main purpose.

1. The three bullet points from page 181 that seem most relevant to my text are that the author is trying to:

• inform the reader about a topic that is often misunderstood
• persuade an audience of something
• advocate for change

What these 3 bullets all have in common is that my text conveys a clear problem and need for change in terms of how we treat research done on different sexes, so it is definitely trying to persuade, inform, and advocate.

2. All of the bullets seem fairly relevant to my author's purpose with the exception of the text as a response to a specific event. While the text itself was brought about by the problem with the FDA and medicine given affecting different sexes in different ways, it is not in response to that event so much as it is in response to the general concept of sex differences.

3. There are not really layers to my text's purpose. Cahill, the author, lays the purpose out for all to see practically immediately, with the introduction of the problem that serves as background information. Then, again almost immediately, the cultural issue as part of the purpose of this text is brought up. The message sent through this text is not hidden in any way.

Analyzing My Own Assumptions

Ferraz de Almeida Junior, Jose, "Girl with a Book"  (1850-1899) via Wikipedia Commons, Creative Commons License

We can't truly asses the cultural beliefs in a text until we take a step back and analyze our own beliefs, values, and morals, as these affect the way we look at a situation, just as they affect the text and the author of the text. In this post I will address these personal cultural relevances, and slightly step out of the frame to analyze myself and my relationship with the text.

1. My own personal beliefs coincide with the culture surrounding my text, that there is a clear problem with the inequality between sexes, especially in the U.S.. I myself have not been a victim of the interdisciplinary sexism in neuroscience that is mentioned in my text (neurosexism, as Cahill refers to it), but I have experienced blanket sexism as a woman, so this lies close to my own cultural beliefs and experiences.

2. I do not share the belief that is referred to in my text as widely accepted by cultures, that studying the difference between the sexes is "sexist". Sexism I believe, is a matter of opinion, not fact, so one can not give unbiased, factual results from experimentation and just by doing so be declaring one sex better than another.

3. My text is very close to my personal culture, so there are not very many differences due to cultural separation or distance. I will say, however, that much of the background and culture involving neuroscience that is involved in my text is not very personal or relatable to me, as I don't know the subject that well.

4. My text was written only a year ago, in 2014, so not a great amount has changed in cultural values in just one year. However, I think, or hope at least, that as time progresses, over the years, the tension and inequality between genders will minimize, so it won't be as controversial or "sexist" to look at the differences between the sexes, as less people will be prone to interpret the results in a way that glorifies or exemplifies a specific sex.

Analyzing My Text's Cultural Setting

Bye, Kent, "Core Values and Ethics" 09/16/09 via Flickr, Creative Commons License

The article I am focusing on was published April 1st, 2014, in the U.S., and presumably in California where Cahill resides and teaches. It is important to ask an answer questions about the context of an opinionated piece, as the context can help the reader further understand the piece and the reason for the tone the author employs in the piece.

Questions (answers) we might ask when analyzing the text's relationship to its social and cultural setting:

1. The major values that play a role in this specific debate are the values regarding women, sexism, and gender/sex equality, especially in the field of science, medicine, and research. By saying there is an inherent difference between men and women, scientists challenge the norms and values that stand for equality of men and women.

2. The text directly addresses these cultural beliefs and values, not through some sort of metaphorical narrative. The text mentions the values using cultural keywords such as "equality" and "neurosexists" to clearly and straightforwardly direct attention towards these values, and the question of whether these values are truly relevant in the situation of sex-difference research.

3. The text has a clear stance on its interpretation of these values and how they fit in. Cahill appears critical of these beliefs in reference to the subject matter. White it seems Cahill believes there is a socially constructed inequality between men and women that should be addressed, he does not seem to think this should hinder sex-difference research just for the sake of being politically correct. If science proves certain cultural norms wrong, or goes against them, Cahill believes this should not deter the science in any way.

Cultural Analysis of "Equal =/= The Same..."

Taco Hoekwater, "The Context Unofficial Logo" 03/09 via Wikipedia Commons, Creative Commons License

For my cultural analysis, I was asked to make a choice between the 3 controversial debates I found. I chose the Equal =/= The Same article because I felt it was more emotionally charged than the others. Especially with the topic of sex differences in the human brain, there is a major cultural background and value to the topic.

1. The three most prevalent and important cultural keywords that I could find in this article were "neurosexists", "equal", and "unisex". Each of these has a societal and cultural implication. The address the question of "does saying men and women are biologically different make you sexist?" This helps to frame Cahill's personal opinion on the topic.

2. The mention of neurosexists is only mentioned by name once, but it is mentioned by its concept throughout the entire article, as it is a main focus of the article. Unisex is mentioned often, because the main opponents to these studies are those who believe human brains are the same, regardless of sex. "Equal" or equality is mentioned both at the beginning and the end of the article, but not so much the middle. This may add to making the thought of equality among sexes in science and society in general stick in the readers mind.

3. The closest thing to a thesis statement that Cahill employs is his sentence "I survived after rejecting my colleagues' advice, and in fact, many neuroscientists have come to realize like me that their deeply ingrained assumption that sex does not matter is just plain wrong." It sums up his main purpose for his article.

4.  Most of the cultural keywords employed are found after Cahill's thesis, scattered throughout the article, with the exception of equality. Equality between sexes is mentioned earlier than the thesis, as early as the first paragraph, which adds emphasis to this key part of cultural context.

5. Overall Cahill clearly uses these keywords to evoke some sort of emotion out of his readers. He is not very shy about his opinions on whether these implications of research done on sex differences are "right" or "wrong", and his thesis reflects this. His thesis, keywords, and article overall reflect a very opinionated and one-sided tone about sex-differences.