Module 7 Assignment Sheet: The Same Coin

Background and Purpose

For this assignment, you will explore how authors can create authority/ethos within a variety of writing environments. An awareness of authority in writing situations helps as you work to gain members in the discourse communities of your major. As a student, you may feel you don’t have authority/ethos in your field, but that shouldn’t stop you from writing as though you do.

Using our Library’s Databases, find two online articles, about the same subject/issue, written by/for two different discourse communities—for instance, reports of a scientific discovery written for scientists or for the general public, reports of a court trial written for interest groups that support or disagree with the decision, or announcements of the latest smartphone written for fans of Android or iOS devices.

Then, compare the decisions made by the authors that accommodate the expectations of their respective audiences. Look at their word choice, their assumptions, their arguments, and their negotiation of authority present through textual signifiers of authority. Your job for this assignment is to draw conclusions about the differences you observe in the discourses and explain those differences to your colleagues who have selected different texts. Your ultimate goal is to answer this: How and why do authors make adjustments for different discourse communities?

Objectives

· Analyze how writers navigate authority/ethos in various situations

· Identify textual signifiers of authority as listed in the “Writing with Authority” video

· Explain authorial decisions in terms of audience awareness and accommodation in the reflection concluding your essay.

Preparation

For this assignment, you will need to read the “Authority and Belonging” chapter in the textbook and view the videos included in Module 7.

Procedure

1. Search the Library’s Databases to find two online articles that express different perspectives on a single issue, written for different audiences.

2. Perform a rhetorical analysis of these documents to determine what each author wanted to accomplish beyond just persuading the audience to agree with him or her.

This will be very similar to what you wrote in the Module 2 Assignment, except you will be analyzing two, not just one article in order to compare them, and you will be including summaries, paraphrases, and quotations from your articles in order to illustrate your points. Each time you summarize, paraphrase, or quote the articles, you will be using in-text citations to properly cite these sources.

3. In an essay intended for your colleagues, explain how the language and other rhetorical situation elements used by each author indicate the authors’ ability to respond to audience expectations. Explain your analysis sufficiently, so your colleagues understand why each article was created.

4. Please, copy and paste the text of the two articles at the bottom of your paper.

5. Please, structure your comparison essay by beginning with the analysis of the first article, followed by the analysis of the second article, and concluding with a reflection answering the question: How and why do authors make adjustments for different discourse communities?

Evaluation

Your task for this assignment is to analyze how and why authors make adjustments for different discourse communities. Your work will be assessed using the evaluation criteria presented below:

Excellent: Evaluates the connections among the authors’ claims, the audiences’ expectations, and each discourse community. Evaluates why the authors’ use of authority is appropriate for each discourse community. Evaluates how the lexis, tone, and other rhetorical situation elements used in each source are appropriate for each discourse community. Abundant summaries, paraphrases, quotations used, properly cited according to the MLA format.

Acceptable: Explains, with examples, each author’s specific decisions for making claims. Explains, with examples, styles of citation, quoting, and establishing authority. Explains, with examples, differences in authors’ tones and chosen lexis.

Insufficient: Omits mention of, or inaccurately identifies, authors’ claims. Omits reference to issues of authority or sources. Omits discussion of lexis/tone used in sources. No summaries, paraphrases, quotations form sources and no in-text citations used.

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This guide was designed to introduce you to library resources that you will likely use when completing your research paper. As a result of using this LibGuide, you will:
-Formulate  searches using keywords, natural language & controlled language (subject headings) appropriately

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