Piper Harris's Writing 2 Blog: 2016

Summary

For my WP3, the article I selected is “Textual Silences” by Huckin. The article investigates the rhetorical power of “silence.” In other words, it analyzes the different ways that information is purposefully omitted from something, and why the author/speaker chose to do so. It looks at the ways in which certain information is conscientiously left out, and what that accomplishes. The article focuses mainly on the deceptive and manipulative ways that textual silences are used.

A textual silence can be implemented in various ways. A “topical silence” is one where “some topic relevant to a larger issue is omitted from discussion” (421). Usually, the information omitted for a topical silence “surreptitiously disadvantages” the audience. Then there is the “conventional (genre based) silence”, in which information is left out because it is appropriate for the genre. For example, one would not write about a man’s drinking problem in his obituary (423). There is also the “discreet silence,” which is then the writer “refrains from mentioning sensitive information either to avoid offending the reader, avoid revealing organizational secrets to rival forces, or avoid infringing on another person’s privacy” (423). A “lexical silence” is when a word is used in place of another that possesses more descriptive features. For example, if you say the word “run” when someone is in fact sprinting, you are silencing the features of “sprint” (424). In an “implicational silence,” something is not openly said because it can be inferred from another statement which is more explicit. Finally, there is the “presuppositional silence,” in which relevant information is left out because it is assumed to be already known to the reader. For example, in an advanced Calculus, the teacher would not have to explain simple subtraction and addition, as it is already well known by the class. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Younger Genre Transformation: Children's Story

(Pictures of pages of actual book included at very end of post)

The Six Evil Silences

Once upon a time, there was an evil politician named Mordrake who lived in the far away land of Flowerville. Mordrake had six minions called “The Silences.” Their names were Topical, Conventional, Discreet, Lexical, Implicational, and Presuppositional. All had different powers, but they were all good at making the evil politician seem less evil to the town. Each one helped Mordrake gain power by trying to make him seem good.

Mordrake was trying to become mayor and take over the town, but he needed the help of The Silences. Mordrake simply couldn’t think of a good speech that would persuade the city to elect him. He was just too evil, and didn’t know what kinds of things the city wanted to hear. So, he looked to his minions for help.

The first Silence the evil politician went to was Topical. When Mordrake showed Topical the speech, Topical immediately started laughing. In Mordrake’s speech, he provided terrible details about all of the cities he robbed and burned down. Topical warned Mordrake, “You can’t put stuff like that in your speech! That would scare townspeople and make them not like you!” So Topical crossed out that entire section of the speech, in order to deceive the town into thinking Mordrake wasn’t bad. They didn’t want anyone to know how truly evil the politician is.

Mordrake went on to the next minion, Conventional. When Conventional read the speech, he too started laughing, just like Topical. When Mordrake asked what was so funny, Conventional said “You can’t call the members of the city ‘peasants’ or ‘fat’! You’re writing a speech to make them want to elect you as mayor. You can’t use mean words towards them, or they won’t like you!” The evil politician agreed, and got rid of all mean words towards the townspeople. Who would want to elect someone who calls you ‘peasant’?!

Mordrake went to Discreet for help next. Discreet read Mordrake’s speech, and what do you know – he started laughing. When the evil politician looked confused, Discreet said “You can’t just tell them that once you take over, you’re going to kick out all the people you don’t like! You don’t want them to know your true intentions, or they’ll never elect you. You have to keep that part discreet.” The evil politician nodded his head in agreement, and moved on to the next minion - Lexical.

After Lexical read the speech, giggles followed. Lexical explained to the evil politician “You can’t just tell the town that you want to ‘dictate’ them! They don’t want that. You should say that you want to ‘lead’ them instead. That sounds much better than ‘dictate’!” So Mordrake listened to Lexical, and fixed all the negative words in his speech to something the people of the town would like more.

Mordrake then looked to Implicational for help. Implicational read the speech, and chuckled quite a bit. Implicational giggled, “You can’t always say such straight-forward things like ‘I am evil’! You can just imply those concepts through other things you say in your speech. That way, you can deny that you’ve ever said you’re evil.” Mordrake accepted this advice, and moved on to his final minion - Presuppositional.

Does it even need to be said? After Presuppositional read the paper, he spewed out laughter. Presuppositional claimed “Master Mordrake, you don’t need to say ‘I am here to run for mayor’! The town already knows you’re running for mayor, or else you wouldn’t be giving the speech!” The evil politician nodded in understanding.

After talking to all six Silences, Mordrake sat in his office and thought about what his minions had told him. Their advice all had one thing in common – they all took out something from the speech. The evil politician was starting to understand that certain things just need to be left out sometimes, because they just show the town how evil he is. The townspeople would never elect someone evil. Mordrake now saw that leaving information out could help him deceive the townspeople into thinking he was not evil.

Mordrake eventually gave his speech, and ended up being elected for Mayor. The people of Flowerville had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

The moral of the story is that sometimes, people leave information out for the wrong reasons. Evil people can leave information out to deceive and trick others. Not including information in something should only be done if it does not harm people in any way!

The End.

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Older Genre Transformation: College-Course Homework Assignment

Journalism 101

Ms. Johnson

Homework Assignment 1:

Identifying “Textual Silences” In News Reports

Due: Friday, September 29

700-1000 words

Assignment: For your first homework assignment, you will be analyzing reports about the same topic from two different news stations/publications, such as Fox News, CNN, or the LA Times. You will be investigating and writing about the different techniques and strategies that each author used, and how their style unfolds in the article. In addition to studying how the writer presents their work, you must also analyze the things they don’t say. These are called “Textual Silences” (See the following page for a list of the types of textual silences). A textual silence is defined as “the omission of some piece of information that is pertinent to the topic at hand.” It is the absence of information relevant to the topic being discussed. Textual silences can be harmless, but can also be used to deceive the reader by keeping them in the dark about something. In other words, you will be investigating the ways that these people purposefully omit information, and why they make the decision to do so. Think very hard about this part – the purpose of this assignment is to understand why writers make the choice to leave out certain information, and what effect it achieves. Knowing the different kinds of textual silences and how they are used will be a big part of your career as a journalist, so it is important to be able to identify them and understand how they work. Being a journalist involves knowing what to say, and, similarly, what not to say.

Questions to Consider When Writing: What was similar between the two articles? What was different? Were there things mentioned in one article that were omitted in another? Why do you think the author chose to leave certain things out? What effect does that have on the audience? Is there anything one article accomplishes that the other doesn’t?

Tips: You should choose articles with topics that you are familiar with and are interested in, as you will have an easier time seeing what exactly the report did not include. You should also look into more works about that topic to see what is relevant about it, and what other people included in one report that may not be in the one you chose. After looking at reports from other people, you can return to your original article, and make note of what is missing. Do a critical/rhetorical analysis of these textual silences and speculate on how they might influence the intended reader.

Types of Textual Silences

The Topical Silence

Explanation: The topical silence is where some topic that relates to a larger issue is not mentioned. This is the most common type of silence, as few texts are able to discuss everything about a matter. This type of silence can be used to exclude relevant information that may be disadvantageous or unpleasant for the reader.

Example: In the U.S. news media, the Congo genocide is seldom mentioned. In the past 10 years, the Congo genocide has killed over five million people and sexually traumatized even more. The topical silence is used to keep the American public uninformed about a very pressing issue, which benefits certain economic and political interests.

Conventional (genre-based) Silence

Explanation: The conventional, or genre-based, silence is used when a certain genre calls for certain types of information being omitted. In other words, the omission is used because it is standard for the type of genre being used.

Example: The obituary genre calls for the omission of information that might make the dead look bad. In obituaries, one never mentions information that is unfavorable to the dead, such as how someone might have been an alcoholic or abusive parent. It is also used in advertisements, where companies purposefully omit the bad aspects of a product, such as how eating McDonald’s is bad for your health.

Discreet Silence

Explanation: The discreet silence is when the writer excludes sensitive information that might offend the reader, reveal a secret, or infringe on someone else’s privacy.

Example: Hospitals won’t release someone’s medical records to the public to retain that person’s privacy. It could also be something like refraining from mentioning someone’s race when discussing college admissions so as to not seem like you’re attributing their success to their race.

Lexical Silence

Explanation: The lexical silence is slightly more complex than the ones mentioned above. A lexical silence is when one word is chosen that excludes features that other appropriate words may provide.

Example: Think of the words “run” and “sprint.” If you described someone as running when they were actually sprinting, then you are omitting the features of “sprint” that aren’t present in the word “run.” Another example relates to the issue of abortion. People that are for abortion use the word “pro-choice,” indicating that the mother’s opinion in the matter is relevant, but the interests of the fetus are not. However, people that are against abortion say they are “pro-life,” which silences the woman’s interests and focuses on the fetus. Both terms don’t mention some key aspects of the underlying issue.

Implicational Silence

Explanation: The implicational silence is when something is not explicitly said, because it is implied, or conveyed, by other ideas. It is an idea that is not stated explicitly because it is inferred from another statement. In a more manipulative way, implicational silence can be used in case someone needs to be able to deny something later. One can say they never said such a thing, as they never explicitly stated it, it was just implied (this is commonly used in politics).

Example: Before you and your friend goes out to a party, your friend asks “Don’t you want to brush your hair before we go?” Although your friend is not explicitly saying it, it’s inferred that your hair looks messy, and that your friend thinks you need to brush it.

Presuppositional Silence

Explanation: A presuppositional silence is used when information is not mentioned because it is assumed that the reader already knows it. Something is omitted because it seems like it should be obvious to the audience

Example: Imagine there’s a news article with the line “So and So was arrested and placed in jail.” The article doesn’t need to explicitly say that the police did the arresting, because it seems obvious enough.

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Piper Harris

Zack De Piero

Writing 2

4 March 2016

Self-Analysis

Part of being a successful writer is knowing how to navigate throughout genres, and understanding how the conventions of those genres work. That is, “good communicators “morph” themselves and their writing to fit different subjects or situations” (Losh and Alexander 117). When writing my WP3, I had to really sit and think about how I could effectively convey the messages of “Textual Silences” to both the younger and older communities. I heavily considered which genres would appeal the most to each age group, because “different communities will find certain identities more or less credible or reliable.” How, exactly, could I make “Textual Silences” relevant to two completely different age groups? After much time and effort, I think I hit the jackpot.

For my younger audience, I chose to transform the piece into a children’s storybook. I decided that story is being given to a fifth grade class that has been learning about the value of being honest and always telling the truth. The purpose of the story is to teach little kids about how important it is to always tell the truth – and what can happen if they don’t. This transformation was a little difficult, as it is hard to make a concept as abstract as textual silences relevant to children as young as fifth graders. However, “adopting an identity can be about doing real research – not just putting on a costume” (Losh and Alexander 125). So, in order to best transform the article into a children’s story, I researched many children’s books so I could get a better understanding of their features and implement those in my own story.

The main goal of my book was to try to convey the message of “Textual Silences” in a way that children would understand. I never explicitly say the words “textual silences,” as that would probably just confuse the children, but I tried to convey the concept through the story so that the children would be able to follow along. One move I chose to make was using the names of the different types of textual silences as the names of the characters – Topical, Conventional, Discreet, Lexical, Implicational, and Presuppositional. Then, I gave each character the qualities of its definition; for example, the character Topical told the evil politician not to mention his blundering of cities, since topical silences are used to omit information that is unfavorable to the audience. I did this so that the function of the type of silence could be made clear, but in a more interesting and less confusing way than just stating it in a word/definition format. To further help the children better understand, I had the characters say what, exactly, in the speech should be taken out. For example, Conventional told the evil politician Mordrake not to “call the members of the city ‘peasants’ or ‘fat’” because a conventional silence omits things that are not appropriate for the genre, which in this case is a speech given by someone running for mayor. I also tried to have the characters explain why certain things shouldn’t be said, so that the children can understand the function of the silence as well as what it actually is. In addition, I showed how each character took something out of the speech, which helps convey the idea to the children that the silences are used to omit information.

Now on to the more technical stuff. In all of the children’s books I researched, they all used extremely short sentences. The reason for this is obvious – children wouldn’t understand long, complex sentences. So, I tried to implement the same move and keep my sentences relatively short, such as “Mordrake went on to the next minion, Conventional” and “After Lexical read the speech, giggles followed.” I also tried to use very simple, clear wording that wouldn’t confuse children. When editing my story, I realized I had used words like “language” and “conquests,” which children would probably wouldn’t understand. Thus, I changed the more complex words to simpler phrases like “words” or “robbed and burned down.” I also used the move of “repetition,” which is fairly common in children’s books. When the evil politician shows his speech to each minion, I used repetition by saying they all laughed at it. In addition, I included many colored pictures in my storybook, as practically every children’s book has a myriad of pictures. The pictures are used to keep the children interested in the story, so that they aren’t just reading paragraphs and paragraphs of words.

I was even sure to include some of the subtler conventions of a children’s book. One thing I read in Losh and Alexander’s “Writing Identities” that I found particularly important was that my “tone should engage your audience in a way that will invite them to feel receptive to your message (129). Thus, I considered what kind of tone would be most effective with fifth graders. Being serious and solemn would probably not keep their attention, so I decided to use a very fun, casual tone with my writing. I also tried to convey my conversational, friendly tone with rhetorical questions such as “Who would want to elect someone who calls you ‘peasant’?!” and “Does it even need to be said?” Another move I made was including the moral of the story at the end. Although the moral was conveyed through the most part through the story, I felt it needed to be explicitly written. Sometimes, young children can read a story and completely miss the point of it, so I was clear in stating what the point was. Finally, I was sure to include the children’s story convention of writing “The End” at the last page.

When writing towards an adult audience, I chose to transform my article into an assignment description for a college-level journalism class. The goal of the assignment description is for college students entering the journalism field to understand and work with textual silences. As Losh and Alexander wrote, “Writers need to be clear about why their perspectives are distinctive and useful to others” (125). Therefore, I tried to clearly state why learning about textual silences would be useful to the students of the class by writing that “Knowing the different kinds of textual silences and how they are used will be a big part of your career as a journalist, so it is important to be able to identify them and understand how they work.” I was clear in explaining the relevance of the assignment to the students and showing why they should care by saying that textual silences will be present in their career.

An important part of the transformation over to an older genre was making sure to use the right tone. I had to think very carefully about “the audience I’m trying to reach in my rhetorical situation – and make sure I adjust my tone and voice to get the effect I want” (129). Unlike the children’s story, a college course homework assignment needs to take on a much more formal tone. Since I was writing as a college professor addressing a journalism class, I used a very professional, and serious tone in my writing, such as “Do a critical/rhetorical analysis of these textual silences and speculate on how they might influence the intended reader” because as Losh and Alexander claim, using “a forceful yet measured tone encourages your audience to take you seriously” (129). Assignments for a college course are expected to use formal and professional language, and any other kind of tone would not have been regarded with respect from the class.

When structuring my homework assignment, I was sure to keep the format very simple and professional. First, I separated the different parts of my prompt so that it would be easy for the students to identify the different sections. Then, the different parts of the prompt were clearly labeled and bolded, with subheadings such as “Assignment” and “Questions to Consider When Writing.” I also included some questions to consider when writing. The purpose of that section was to get students to think about why authors use textual silences, and their effectiveness.

One move I made was turning the four steps for identifying and analyzing textual silences that Huckins wrote into “Tips” for the reader. That way, they could see how exactly to complete the assignment, and it seemed more like guidelines than rules. Another move I made was thoroughly describing each of the silences on the page following the assignment description. The purpose of this is pretty obvious – to teach the students the different kinds of silences they should be considering when analyzing their reports. I tried to explain the types of silences in less complex terms than the original article, so that the students would be able to better understand, since it is a slightly confusing topic. Another move I made was including examples along with all the definitions, so that the students could get an even clearer understanding of the concept. Textual silences are not an easy thing to understand, so I tried to make the information as straight-forward as possible – even to a college-level class.

Overall, I think I did a pretty good job of making the transformation from the original article into two completely different genres – a children’s story and a college course homework assignment. This project taught me a lot about “how to communicate effectively with different communities” (117), and I feel I now possess much more knowledge about writing and navigating through genres.

Works Cited

Alexander, Jonathan, and Elizabeth Losh. "Writing Identities." Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing 3 (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 29 Feb. 2016

Hacking, Thomas. On Textual Silences, Large and Small. Publication. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

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Writing 2 – WP3 Feedback Matrix

Writer: _________
	Did Not Meet Expectations	Met Expectations	Exceeded Expectations
Transformed Genres (Overall)		X
Younger Genre’s Conventions and Rhetorical Factors		X
Older Genre’s Conventions and Rhetorical Factors		X
Consideration of “Big Ideas” in the Scholarly Article		X
Perceived Effort		X

Self-Analysis Reflection (Overall)		X
Description of “Moves”		X
Attention to Genre/Conventions and Rhetorical Factors		X
Use of Translated Genres as Evidence of “Moves”		X
Use of Course Readings (McCloud, Losh/Alexander, Etc.)		X
Sentence-level Clarity, Mechanics, Flow		X

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