My Rhetorical Action Plan

For this blog post I will answer answer questions in regard to developing a rhetorical action plan.  These questions come from Writing Public Lives pages 412 and 413.

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Audience: Who are you going to try to persuade with your public argument?  Describe the following aspects of your audience in a few sentences:

• Knowledge: What does the audience know about the topic, text, or idea?  How do they know the topic (where do they get their knowledge from)?  Do they have certain predispositions or opinions about the topic that you will need to address?

        Whether it is doctors, lawmakers, or parents, all of them know at least something about vaccines.  Some may support and some may not.  Parents for the most part, have a good sense of vaccines and their purpose because they need to have their children be immunized before they go attend school.  Doctors of course know about vaccines because their field of study requires them to know about them.  Lawmakers, specifically, the ones who deal with implementing vaccination requirement laws, know about vaccines because they work on improving the quality of lives of the people in their state.  All of the people in these groups get their knowledge about vaccines by either studying them in school or they read information about them on government health agencies (or any other health websites).  I believe for the most part, doctors and lawmakers are the major supporters of having children being vaccinated.  Although many parents have their children be vaccinated, a large group of the ones who do not, choose to do so mainly because of their beliefs (nonmedical exemptions).  I will need to express in my project how these types of parents are contributing to higher rates diseases spreading due to them not vaccinating their children.  I will provide data and information showing the difference (state level) between parents who vaccinate their children and show their health conditions compared to parents who do not vaccinate their children.

• Values: What do you know about how the values, ideals, principles, or norms (standards of conduct) that members of the audience might hold?

          Doctors, generally speaking, would value and support the use of vaccines on children and adults in that case.  Since many lawmakers do not share their views on vaccines, I cannot say that they overwhelmingly support them.  But the ones that implement laws requiring them would be in favor of their required use.  Parents hold different values towards vaccines.  There are some religious groups that do not use vaccines.  Some parents have their own philosophical beliefs towards the use of vaccines and therefore do not vaccinate their children.  

• Standards of Argument: What type of research or evidence do you think will be persuasive for your audience?  How might you have to translate this research for them?

          I believe providing data from government health agencies such as the CDC and NIH, along with providing data from scientific journals where scientists published papers regarding vaccines, will be the most persuasive forms of evidence for my audience.  I will use the data I can get from these sources to correctly use in a convincing fashion and to be able to show vaccines can be more beneficial than harmful.

• Visual Elements: What visual images or elements might your audience respond to?  Why?

           There may not be too many images that I can show to my audience that they can respond to, due to the nature of my controversy.  Perhaps pictures of diseases (microscopic images) to readers to show them how they could look inside someone if they do not get vaccinated.  This may not be helpful at all, but I will decide with further research.

• Purpose: Why is your audience reading or listening to your argument?  Are you trying to expand their understanding of an idea, encourage them to take action on an issue, challenge a long-held tradition or viewpoint, etc.?  How likely is your argument to motivate your audience?

          My audience is reading and listening to my argument so that they can review further analysis on how the vaccination requirement controversy has become so important.  The longer parents wait to realize that vaccines are in fact more beneficial than harmful, the bigger the chance there is for more children to acquire vaccine-preventable diseases.  My project's purpose is to expand individuals' knowledge about this controversy and having this knowledge be able to take action on the growing number of parents who do not vaccinate their children.         

Genre: What form of writing will you use?  After identifying your genre, list your answer for the following questions:

• What is the function of the genre?  What is it designed to do for your readers?  Or, why did you choose it?

          I will write my project in the form of a presentation.  I believe that in doing so, I can provide informative explanations along with using some useful images to be able to appeal to the audience.  I chose to do use a presentation for my project because I find that it is not in the style of a long and boring essay, but a shorter and still informative project.

• What is the setting of your genre?  Where could you see it being used?

           My project could be used in a school setting, possibly being used by other teachers.  Even elementary schools can use the information, where it could help convince more parents how vaccinations could be a beneficial process.

• How might you use the rhetorical appeals we have studied--ethos (character), pathos (values/emotion), and logos (logical argumentation) in this genre?

          I will incorporate these appeals into my project by using sources that include ethos and logos, by using either government health agencies or scientific journals as sources.  The pathos will be the end decision for each source that a parent makes either having them view the information and either supporting it or disagreeing with it.

• What type of visual elements, if any, will you use in this genre?

          I will include a few images along with the use of either maps, tables, or graphs showing the effects of vaccine requirements (or exemptions) across the country (at a statewide level).

• What type of style (formal, informal, conversational, academic, etc.) will you use in this genre?

          I will include a formal style that can be a more serious form to help convince readers the difference vaccines make for people.  Since I will be using scientific journals and government health agencies as sources, the project will also be a bit academic.

Responses/Actions: Explain the possible actions you would like your audience to take after they read or view your argument:

• On a blank sheet of paper, make two columns: Positive Support and Negative Rebuttals.  Then list out the potential positive and negative reactions to your argument.  

           For the positive side (left) side of the page I believe that would be a few reactions made by the audience.  Some points could include outreach from more parents to convince other parents to look more closely into the vaccination requirements.  By doing so, more children can perhaps be safer from acquiring certain diseases.  More parents can become more convinced by viewing the different data that is provided by the two government health agencies and the scientific journals.  For the

           For the negative rebuttals (right) side of the page I find that the only rebuttals would come from certain parents that still believe vaccines are more harmful than beneficial for their children.  

• Looking at this list, circle the negative rebuttals that you feel will be most important for you to address and briefly list your response to them.

          Since I believe the group of parents who would not favor vaccines even after reading my project would be the only group involved with a negative rebuttal.  My only response to them will be, since I cannot change your views on vaccines, do more research on whether vaccines are truly proven to cause serious harm to children.

• Finally, trace out the potential chains of action that your writing might create.  If for example, you wanted to "raise awareness" about an issue, draw a line from this point and list the potential actions that raising awareness might create.

          I would want to trace out the action of providing specific data involved with vaccine rates a state level and being able to point out which states have stricter or more lenient vaccination requirement laws.  By pointing to this idea, readers can get a better understanding of the difference that stricter laws make on vaccine-preventable disease rates.  If more readers find my information helpful, perhaps the parents who do not support vaccinations can possibly change their views.