My Rhetorical Action Plan

742680, "Planning" 02/15 via Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

The purpose of this post is to analyze my plan in terms of my audience, my genre, and my actions/responses in and to my argument. Through the bulleted list of questions in Writing Public Lives, pgs. 412-413, I can achieve a detailed plan for my rhetorical actions in my argument, and better determine my audience, purpose, and context.

1. Audience: My audience does not need to know much, if anything at all, about my topic for argument, since I want the argument to intrigue them into the topic. In terms of values, I am assuming there will be an abundance of people who are on the liberal side of the argument, believing sex-difference research can be sexist. Statistical evidence with a great deal of claims to frame the evidence might be helpful for my audience, to give them some immediate information on the subject, as well as facts that appear irrefutable. Images, a few, might help engage my readers and peak their interest more, maybe even add to the emotion of the piece. My audience is reading my piece to gain knowledge about current controversies in gender equality and neuroscience, they will possibly take a position of their own after reading mine.

2. Genre: My genre will be an opinionated article for my argument. This genre, as previously mentioned, might be seen on sites like buzzed or slate. The reason this genre works for my purpose is because it appeals to the right audience, the younger audience that has little interest in academic issues. I can use an abundance of pathos in this argument to add to the emotional charge of it, and an informal, conversational tone to add reliability.

3. Responses/Actions: In terms of positive support, people could agree with the position I am taking, and possibly want to take the same or a similar position on the subject. Even if they don't agree, they could give positive support through peaceful disagreement and constructive criticism on the factuality of my argument. In terms of negative rebuttal, I am most worried about those who will still find the topic boring, or find it cheesy and obviously overdramatic. This could lead to them spreading the dislike of the subject of neuroscience, which is the opposite of what I want.