Analyzing Purpose

For this blog post I will answer questions to the "Thinking Through the Purpose" section from Writing Public Lives on page 326.

Menasim. "Magnifying glass 01". 8 February 2007 via Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication  

Freewrite for a few minutes on the goal of your public argument, or what you would like to see happen as a result of your argument.  What do you want your readers to do, feel, think, believe, etc. as a result of reading it?

The goal of my public argument is to provide further analysis from my first project, the controversy of  mandating vaccination requirements.  Since I already have some knowledge on the issue, I want to provide deeper analysis on the issue, including a deep understanding of the most important facts, the direction the issue has taken, and what key figures are doing to resolve this controversy.  I want my readers after reading my project to understand and be reminded about the main issues that keep the controversy from being resolved.  I will also want my readers to read my project and help me and other readers try to see what has yet to be accomplished and how the controversy can change for the better in the future.

Now that you have an idea of what you want to accomplish, draw a line down the center of a piece of paper.  Label the left side "Plausible Actions/Reactions" and the right side "Not Plausible."  Then, fill these categories with likely and unlikely results of reading your analysis.  

(Left side):  Research about the specific data involved with individual states and their rates of children being vaccinated.  Finding further analysis of the different types of exemptions and their rates throughout all of the states in the U.S.  Try to compile all of my analysis to be able to have a better understanding of finding ways to resolve this controversy.

(Right side):  Using data that is only one-sided, for example saying that lawmakers only decide what is right, without listening to parents who do not fully support vaccination laws.  Writing opinions about the individuals who do not vaccinate their and saying that they are the cause of diseases spreading.  Instead, by providing data, I could potentially use it to prove if this statement is true or not.

From your freewriting and list, we can now build a chain of likely consequences for your public argument.  Take a plausible action from your list and then trace out the possible effects of it.  For example, if your said "raise awareness about issue," draw a line beside it and then state what raising awareness might accomplish.  Let's say that awareness might motivate the public to act.  Draw lines outward from that for the possible actions the public might take.

By researching the specific data involved with individual states and their rates of children being vaccinated, readers will be able to see which states are better or worse at having vaccine-preventable disease rates.  Conducting data and analyzing, we might be able to see why certain states have better rates and then be able to urge people living in the states with the worst rates to speak to their lawmakers to initiate reforms to have stricter vaccination laws.  If more individuals were able to urge lawmakers have these laws, these states could see improvements in the health of schoolchildren and more schools with lower rates of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Now, think through the possible audiences that you might want to address.  You want to think about the people who are most likely to move towards achieving your goal.  Draft out a paragraph that describes the groups of people who are most likely to advance your cause.

There are two specific groups of people that I want to address. The first group comprises of individuals who already have considerable knowledge of this controversy and want to help this controversy become less of threat to many people in the U.S.  Individuals in this group, could potentially be people who have more authority than many people.  This could include doctors, leaders of different school districts, and lawmakers.  By providing information in my project, I could perhaps have these individuals take a closer look at what I will talk about and see whether not what I am saying can make a difference in the direction that controversy turns to.  The second group comprises of parents that already have some knowledge of the controversy and want to improve the lives of the many schoolchildren that either fall ill with vaccine-preventable diseases or want children who don't to be safe from acquiring them.  By having parents be a part of the audience in my project, I will be able to possibly bring together parents along with individuals from the first group to potentially agree with one another and finally put an end to this controversy, or at least make the situation better.