RHETORIC and TECHNICAL WRITING: COMMUNICATING TRUTH WITH FACTS AND LOGICAL ARGUMENT ALI ALMOSSAWI

Mozilla Metrics Team, San Francisco Masters in Engineering Systems – MIT Masters in Software Engineering – Carnegie Mellon RHETORIC

1: the art of speaking or writing effectively: such as a : the study of principles and rules of composition formulated by critics of ancient times b : the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion 2 a : skill in the effective use of speech b : a type or mode of language or speech; also: insincere or grandiloquent language 3: verbal communication TECHNICAL WRITING

Process Analysis/Documentation Presenting Facts in Order to Influence ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT

Convince the audience of something using a series of strategies to persuade them to adopt your side of the issue. emotion values language

Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion. Stephen Hawking (PARADE Magazine) PATHOS passion LOGOS logic evidence reason explanation

How can sky be the limit when there’s footprints on the moon? Logic/Young Sinatra II reputation character credibility

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world. Albert Camus, attrib. ETHOS ethics COMMUNICATION

The act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc., to someone else. METHODS OF INFLUENCE

Whether they are getting buy-in around an idea, selling a product or service, or trying to move the organization in the direction of a new goal, leaders are frequently called on to be persuasive. ARGUMENT

GOAL: Discover the “truth.”

TECHNIQUE: Offers good reasoning and evidence to persuade an audience to accept a “truth.”

METHODS: Considers other perspectives on the issue. Offers facts that support the reasons (in other words, provides evidence). Predicts and evaluates the consequences of accepting the argument. PERSUASION

GOAL: Promote an opinion on a particular position that is rooted in truth.

TECHNIQUE: Uses personal, emotional, or moral appeal to convince an audience to adopt a particular point of view.

METHODS: May consider other perspectives on the issue. Blends facts and emotion to make its case, often relying on opinion. May predict the results of accepting the position, especially if the information will help convince the reader to adopt the opinion. PROPAGANDA

Goal: Offer “political advertising” for a particular position that may distort the truth or include false information. Technique: Relies on emotions and values to persuade an audience to accept a particular position. Methods: Focuses on its own message, without considering other positions. Relies on biases and assumptions and may distort or alter evidence to make the case. Ignores the consequence of accepting a particular position. AD NAUSEUM

Repeating ideas relentlessly so that the audience becomes accustomed to them. AUTHORITY and CELEBRITY

Use of authority figures (or perceived authority figures such as celebrities) to support ideas.

Also, the depiction of attractive famous people or happy people to associate success or happiness with adherence to an idea or cause or purchase of a product. FEAR

Disseminating false or negative information to undermine adherence to an undesirable belief or opinion. BLACK & WHITE

Presentation of only two alternatives, one of which is identified as undesirable. BANDWAGON

Exploitation of an audience’s desire to conform by encouraging adherence to or acceptance of idea that is supposedly garnering widespread or universal support. FLAG WAVING

Appealing to nationalism or patriotism. COMMON MAN or PLAIN FOLKS

Adoption of mannerisms and/or communication of principles that suggest affinity with the average person. GLITTERING GENERALITIES

Applying emotionally appealing, but vague and meaningless words to an idea or cause. HALF-TRUTH

Making a statement that is partly true or only part of the truth, or is otherwise deceptive. LABELING or NAME CALLING

Using euphemistic or derogatory terms to encourage a negative OR positive perception of a person, an idea, or a cause. LATITUDES OF ACCEPTANCE

Introducing an extreme point of view to encourage acceptance of a more moderate stance, or establishing a barely moderate stance and gradually shifting to an extreme position. MANAGING THE NEWS or SPINNING

Influencing news media by timing messages to one’s advantage, reinterpreting controversial or unpopular actions or statements (also called spinning), or repeating insubstantial or inconsequential statements that ignore a problem (also called staying on message). QUOTES OUT OF CONTEXT

Selective use of quotations to alter the speaker’s or writer’s intended meaning or statement of opinion. RATIONALIZATION

Use of generalities or euphemisms to justify actions or beliefs. SCAPEGOATING

Blaming a person or a group for a problem so that those responsible for it are assuaged of guilt and/or to distract the audience from the problem itself and the need to fix it. SLOGANEERING

Use of brief, memorable phrases to encapsulate arguments or opinions on an emotional rather than a logical level. CARD STACKING

Manipulating information to make something appear better than it is, often by unfair comparison or omitting facts. Imbalance of positive or negative information. STRAW MAN

Misrepresentation or distortion of an undesirable argument or opinion, or misidentifying an undesirable persona or an undesirable single person as representative of that belief, or oversimplifying the belief. SELECTIVE TRUTH or CHERRY PICKING

Restrictive use of data or facts to sway opinion that might not be swayed if all the data or facts were given. TRANSFER

Association of an entity’s positive or negative qualities with another entity to suggest that the latter entity embodies those qualities. “DATA = TRUTH” TRUNCATED Y AXIS

One of the easiest ways to misrepresent your data is by adjusting the y-axis of a bar graph, line graph, or scatter plot. In most cases, the y-axis ranges from 0 to a maximum value that encompasses the range of the data. However, sometimes we change the range to better highlight the differences. Taken to an extreme, this technique can make differences in data seem much larger than they are. CUMULATIVE GRAPHS

Many people opt to create cumulative graphs of things like number of users, revenue, downloads, or other important metrics. For example, instead of showing a graph of our quarterly revenue, we might choose to display a running total of revenue earned to date, without actual sales numbers (left). The overlay (right) shows that, although Apple can boast more than 400 million iPhones sold for all time, its quarterly sales of the product have declined over the last three quarters. IGNORING CONVENTIONS

Constructing misleading data visualizations is to violate standard practices. We’re used to the fact that pie charts represent parts of a whole or that timelines progress from left to right. So when those rules get violated, we have a difficult time seeing what’s actually going on. We’re wired to misinterpret the data, due to our reliance on these conventions. NEIL POSTMAN

Amusing Ourselves to Death Technopoly The End of Education

"Argument is the soul of an education because it forces a writer to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of multiple perspectives.” MARSHALL McLUHAN

The Medium Is The Massage

“All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage.” SUGGESTED READINGS An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi (2013) (www.bookofbadarguments.com)

Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore (1967)

Various titles by Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) • Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992) • The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (1995)

Attacking Faulty Reasoning by T. Edward Damer (1980)

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula (2007)

The Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky (1988) SLOGAN

PHOTO CREDITS MTV: http://ubertopic.com/the-end-of-the-tour-director-james-ponsoldt-to-adapt-i-want-my-mtv/199448/

Subway: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Subway_Eat_Fresh_Logo.svg

MARSHALL McLUHAN Nike: http://blog.size.co.uk/2012/10/17/how-nikes-just-do-it-slogan-was-conceived/ https://www.marshallmcluhan.com/more/ FOOT IN THE DOOR https://www.utoronto.ca/news/coach-house-institute-renamed-marshall-mcluhan https://brandismthing.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/one-foot-in-the-door/ https://psmag.com/the-medium-is-the-message-50-years-later-3e04ee3b3b7 https://kimberlywherring.com/2014/04/01/welcome-to-the-team-a-3-part-series-and-a-practical-guide-to-landing-the-job-you-want/

PROPAGANDA GLITTERING GENERALITIES https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/what-is-propaganda/the-story-of-propaganda http://www.keysermackay.com/biogradable-glitter/ https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5493/11924851286_772d522690_b.jpg https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-ourselves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/100-years-of-propaganda-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ HALF TRUTH Water glass: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-the-glass-half-full-or-half-empty-science-knows-your-answer-a6676741.html

LOGIC BANDWAGON/CROWD https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2016/04/13/inside-the-methodical-rise-of-rapper-logic/#258a6a0fc278 Cows: https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/bam/cattle-industry-funding-scheme Sheep: http://globe-views.com/dcim/dreams/sheep/sheep-05.jpg ETHICS CARD STACKING devil/angel: https://www.ilscorp.com/saskatchewan-council-approved-ethics-courses/ https://www.teamcard.com/our-solution/bespoke-card-artwork/ Face scale: http://aubreydaniels.com/pmezine/ethical-decision-making-workplace http://www.thegreenhead.com/2014/04/la-carte-stackable-playing-card-table-shelf.php https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_plus/2015/december/making-ethics-a-priority-in-your-workplace NAME CALLING/LABELS http://www.wrmi-llc.com/Ethics_and_Compliance.html http://www.thegreenhead.com/2014/04/la-carte-stackable-playing-card-table-shelf.php PASSION http://images.wisegeek.com/boy-child-being-bullied-by-two-other-boys.jpg http://drwillsparks.com/2017/02/actualized-leadership-passion/ LIE https://www.thespruce.com/passion-fruit-mousse-cake-3029184 (Mark Gillow / Getty Images) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2014/05/children_lie_parents_should_teach_them_not_to_but_also_know_that_lying_is.html

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/311863205/why-we-lie REPETITION House: https://medium.com/javascript-non-grata/the-three-big-lies-about-javascript-e227cabe3beb https://sorryabouthatbud.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/repetition-and-variety/ (m and ms) CONTEXT Umbrellas (pexels) http://www.mktx.com/in-search-of-a-promotional-context/ CELEBRITY/AUTHORITY https://www.grammarly.com/blog/quotation-marks/ Obama https://www.pexels.com/search/celebrity/ SELECTIVE TRUTH/CHERRY PICKING Referees (pexel) http://www.sydneybookingcentre.com.au/uploads/P302_5.JPG

MIDDLE: http://prsbrokers.com/underwriting-trends-in-the-private-doepl-marketplace-stuck-in-the-middle-with-you/ (gummy bears) ARGUMENT https://getlighthouse.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Mocking_Bird_Argument.jpg LOVEBOMB https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ac/8d/80/ac8d8088ea13a31161c9b018274ce38f.jpg http://self-love-u.blogspot.com/2015/07/love-bombing.html PERSUASION: http://www.mattmorris.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Picture34.jpg http://scoutmob.com/p/love-bomb PROPAGANDA: http://www.henry4school.fr/Language/images/propaganda/propaganda.jpg

MILIEU DATA: http://www.augusoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/big-data.jpg

Selfie: http://redribbon.org/curriculum/78peerpressure/ DATA VISUALIZATION: https://blog.heapanalytics.com/how-to-lie-with-data-visualization/

OBSFUCATION iPHONE SALES CHART: https://qz.com/122921/the-chart-tim-cook-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

Road sign: https://leadingstrategicinitiatives.com/2011/05/19/strategic-thinking-part-1-a-fight-with-ambiguity/ READ: http://www.thebachelorguide.com/wp-content/uploads/30-Books-every-Man-Must-Read.jpg http://www.thebachelorguide.com/wp-content/uploads/30-Books-every-Man-Must-Read.jpg SIMPLIFY POSTMAN: https://pepeneutle2cero.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/neil-postman.jpg http://www.mikekunkle.com/2014/03/16/oversimplification-of-sales-performance-work/ http://hvordanda.no/test/mediehistorieBM/tv/images/sxaf21cf.jpg

SCAPEGOAT ALI Photo: © Ali Almossawi http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/walter-palmer-scapegoat http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbl2g6pc5R1qz62xqo1_1280.jpg