Week 2 Assignment 1/26

The exigence for writing online environmental news articles is that people are typically ignorant of the constantly shifting dynamic between the public, our governments, and the environment. Awareness of environmental degradation is quite rare when taking into account the scope of the world and its population.

The primary audience would consist of environmental scholars and enthusiasts, while possible secondary audiences might include government officials or people who have a neutral dispostion towards the environment.

A constraint to this genre is that writers are urged to remain neutral in their position on the topic for the sake of professionalism and credibility, meaning it shouldn't show in their writing that they feel one way or another.

The writers are most likely reporters on environmental issues, with at least some experience or interest in them. These may also be scientists/teachers that write in addition to their main careers in the environmental field. Either way, their goals aline with the purpose of the genre, which is to inform and spread awareness of environmental issues to their readers so that they may become interested in or better able to help solve or mitigate these problems.

With an appeal to Logos, or logic, the genre attempts to persuade the reader to care about our environment with the fact that the reader actually holds a stake in the topic; changes in our environment affect us directly, therefore, we should take the necessary measures to protect it.

For Ethos, this genre holds that the environment is inherently good, and that we should protect it for its own sake, regardless of its benefits towards humanity. Also, as we are inhabitants that have impacted the environment in different ways, we have a natural responsibility to compensate for our actions.

Appealing to Pathos, this genre may reference the past or present state of the environment, instilling a sense of lament over its degredation or alteration when looking towards the future. It may also try to appeal to emotion by examining the affects of environmental change on wildlife, some of which may hold places in the hearts of nature lovers or animal enthusiasts.

I would hope that this genre does get people to care about what is happening to our environment, because without it, humans would not have much longer to exist comfortably. If the readers are part of the discourse community, then hopefully they are that much more informed or interested in the topic. Environmental awareness is more widespread than ever, and a part of that may be due to the publication of online environmental news articles.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 2 Assignment

Online environmental news articles tend to use technical words regarding the environment, politics, and science. The words are not too difficult to comprehend, such as "sequestration" or "biomass," but the genre usually assumes the reader is familiar with environmental terms, especially since environmental scholars and advocates are the primary intended audience. Acronyms for established systems or organizations are used after explaining their meanings. Overall, the language tends to be formal. The titles can be both functional and/or descriptive. Many articles use words like "it" or "this" along with a clickbait phrase to get the reader's attention and curiosity, and press them to read the article. Others use titles that simply and generally describe what the article will be about; in some cases, one could read the title and already have an acceptional understanding of the topic without reading further. Summarizing headings are usually pr...
Read more

Week 1 Assignment

1. I am an ES student who came to UCSB from San Diego, but has moved around a lot between places like Portland, OR, Las Vegas, and Philidelphia. I am half African American and half Thai. I appreciate good animation and video game art design, am a fiend for dogs and animals alike, and have never left the US. 2. I would define writing as a medium by which humans can record and spread ideas, stories, and information to one another. It is a form of communication that serves as a basic component of most social and cultural systems. 3. I hope to actually become more interested and inclined to write outside of an academic setting. It is rare that I find myself writing for fun or for any reason other than for school, so hopefully this course will inspire me to write more for myself.
Read more

Week 4 Assignment 2/6

It was difficult trying to keep my paper within the word limit since I had plenyty to say about my topic, but it helped that I didn't start eliminating certain features until the entire essay was written. I was then able to get rid of or combine sentences to make it more concise. The whole editing process helped immensely along with the weekly writing assignments. I was able to write my paper with relative ease since I already had an outline and some advice from my peers. My parents were the proactive type. They took all the regret of not furthering their own education after high school and focused it into preparing me to be a straight-A student. I was close, but the occasional B, sometimes even a C, would slip through. My parents were also the strict type. They didn't like Bs or Cs slipping through, so, naturally, I spent a lot of time grounded as a kid (I got in trouble for a lot of other stuff, but that's another story). The only thing I was allowed to do whenever I g...
Read more