This blog post represents the beginning of project 3. In this post I will address the rhetorical situation of project three. I will look at the context, the audience, the author, and the purpose. This blog post will be a rough outline of what I am thinking about for this project.
This project will require me to connect my interests to the ideas that will be presented in the project. Foremost I must decide what interest I want to focus on. The idea of this project will focus on a controversy of my own choosing. The first place that I looked for controversy ideas was within my major. The controversy from this major that I would look at was the construction of the South Mountain Freeway in Phoenix. This has been a major controversy for years and has people polarized on either side of the argument. Another idea was to look at a controversy in my hobby of music, this would be the controversy of music ownership and music copyrights.
I must be careful of my own biases and opinions. In both these instances I have my own opinions and ideas that could sway my argument from being a neutral stance. Although in many cases this might not actually be a bad thing, if I am trying to refute or support and argument, a little personal bias might not be the worst thing in the entire world. All of these arguments might be persuaded by the ideas that I grew up being taught and the ideas that I have adopted as my own.
When I consider my audience for this project I will consider someone who is personally vested in the controversy that I am writing about, either for or against my argument. I will try to inform them and possibly convince them that my argument is the right one. These could be local stakeholders, national people, and other people. These audience members most likely have their own opinions and will either highly agree with me or highly disagree with me. Some of these people may have strong feelings about the controversies that I might talk about and might respond poorly. The way that I will try to connect with my audience is by looking at what the issues that they hold strongly to are and then comparing them to my views. Mainly I need to do this in the least confrontational way as possible. Specifically if I was doing the piece on the south mountain freeway then I would look at talking to the native american community that has so strongly objected to the freeway for years.
I have a major purpose for this project, I want to inform the general public about the ideas and opinions that are expressed in this controversy and possibly how the controversy can be solved. I want the audience to gain knowledgeable information into the controversy and form their own opinion about the controversy. It is important no matter what the side I choose that all the information and sides of the controversy are presented to the reader. Each side should be reminded of the controversy but then should be presented with a clear stated opinion.
For this project I will be writing in the genre of a standard college essay. The audience usually expects a formal presentation of the ideas and clear citations for the essay. Everything needs to be researched and backed up efficiently. This is the genre that I have worked in the most. Overall this means that I am fairly confident about this genre although I know it will still be a tough task to do. Overall the most effective conventions in this genre are the citations and the overall body structure of an essay.
The time frame of this project centers around the legal challenge for the construction of the South Mountain Freeway. The Gila River Indian Community sued the state government over the construction of the freeway. The federal government did not rule in their favor though and allowed the freeway to begin construction. AZCentral reported on the controversy by breaking the story of the native tribe suing. Local news 12 News also reported on it. AzFamily.com also reported on the story. Finally the phoenix new times also reported on the story. The counter-arguments to building this freeway are seen in the Azcentral story above, a local South Phoenix paper writing about how the freeway was not actually a needed freeway and an opinion piece from a local phoenix radio station.
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