January 9

I believe that rhetoric/ rhetorical is a strategy in which the reader pays attention to the position that the writer has and to the claims the writer makes in order to make an argument.

Rhetoric has much to do with reading academic articles because not every piece of information in an academic article is fact. much is claim and the reader needs to have rhetorical skills to see the rhetorical situation so that they can make their own opinions instead of assuming certain things to be facts.

Kantz states that facts, opinions, and arguments actually are claims.  Alice describes the difference between the facts and options are really how they are received by an audience.

In paragraph 17, Kantz states that students misunderstand because they read sources as stories, they expect the research to be truthful, and they do not understand that facets are a kind of claim.
    - I defiantly expected everything in my books and research to be truth. I never really questioned anything. I now think about what was written by whom and what they wanted the audience to get out of it.  Of course an article written by hershey will tell me that a bar of chocolate each day is good for me while leaving out facts about how this is also bad for me. If I understood that Hershey just wanted my business, then I would not really take this claim as a fact.  This comes from reading rhetorically.

This article has taught me that every article written has some bias. Like Kantz says, there is always a rhetorical situation;  a writer, audience, and a topic.  The writer wants to portray a certain topic to an audience in a certain way, presenting information to support and leaving out details that argue the topic. We have to identify their position and reasoning so that we can question their support and details.

I feel like I will now be able to be much more aware of the background of the author I am reading. I will collect many different sources so that I can gather an argument that presents many sides. I will question many facts and now look at them as claims instead of truth.

I believe that Kantz is trying to show that claims are constructs because they are not completely fact, but are opinions based on the concepts already formed.  It would be useful because she is showing us different sides to reading and writing that I have not been introduced to. This makes writing much more meaningful instead of just presenting facts, we get to see the loop holes and form our own argument. This will help us to be able to write better papers but also understand and carefully read in everyday life.

I really liked this article because I was introduced to a completely new way of reading and writing that is so much more efficient and meaningful than previously. Now I am aware of the rhetorical situation and will be paying much closer attention to points of view and claims made.