In my AIS3070 course through University of Cincinnati I began as a basic writer. Writing without thought of my audience, genre, purpose or rhetorical situation. Throughout the course I have learned how to evaluate what I will be writing, who my audience is and what my purpose was to present better thought out papers and present clearer and more impelling information to my readers. As I write this final blog I must consider what my purpose is? To achieve the grade? To summarize my course? This is a step I have skipped in my prior writings, but have somehow become ingrained in my process of writing throughout the course. I have come to learn that writing is not only a freely flowing entity, but also a well thought out and formatted piece of information presented to your audience. Going forward I hope to hold on to these lessons and stop, think and organize my thoughts prior to writing in my future endeavors. I imagine in the future I will be writing articles for executives, coworkers and customers and only hope that I can continue to grow these building blocks of writing I have learned.
Portfolio Design Rationale
While editing and revising my WordPress site for my AIS3070 course at University of Cincinnati I have made many adjustments. I began by reviewing what I had created. Was my flow efficient? Were the articles well thought out and communicated? I knew that I needed to keep some of the information for future classes while still focusing on my goals for the Applied Writing course. The first thing I changed was the large glaring photo of myself on my home page, while doing this I decided to change my title from portfolio page to home https://aoki889087655.wordpress.com/. While editing I realized that to make my portfolio more geared to my AIS3070 class I needed to rearrange the order of my menu to make the most pertinent information more accessible to my instructor and class mates. To do this I moved my prior courses pages further down my menu and made my current work more accessible to my team. Finally, I reviewed my prior submissions and the grades that they received to see if I needed to make some small edits. I found a few under my blog postings that needed editing and made the appropriate changes to these to create a better presentation on my blog page.
Reflecting on the PLP
The natural order of writing academically or professionally is to progress and develop your skills. Through deep understanding of the different aspects of writing you can accomplish this. Throughout my time at University of Cincinnati I have been working on developing my knowledge of the concepts of writing. In my Applied Writing course through UC I was assigned to write a Personalized Learning Plan (PLP). By assessing my prior learned knowledge I am able to form these documents of which I had no prior knowledge for a profession in the Veterinary Pharmaceutical Fields. Using a formal and businesslike format to form professional looking documents to present to my professor and hopefully achieving my purpose of getting a good grade on the project.
Focusing on things like audience, genre and the rhetorical situation have helped me to become a more thoughtful writer with a better awareness of how to write effectively. My key take away from this is that all of these important aspects are intertwined and inherently there in most writings. Although I have practiced these in different writings I have completed throughout my time at school and early college I never knew they had a name or place in my papers. Without knowing who my audience was, or what tone (genre) of communication they would respond to or specifically what the purpose was that I was trying to achieve I wrote to persuade (rhetorical situation), whether this was to persuade for a grade or a point of view it was all part of my purpose. I learned and grew with the knowledge I obtained and presented my communications to a discourse community of peers and professors.
I think one of the most important tools I learned was to write to my Genre. This means reviewing my audience, purpose and which discourse community I was using to use the rhetorical situation effectively in the right genre or format to captivate my audience. Without assessing the genre for my PLP I would be unable to use these important tools of purpose, audience and rhetorical situation that I have learned to complete the project effectively.
Within my discourse community we have a common goal.
There are six elements to the idea of a discourse community. Each group of individuals must learn, follow and adapt to these elements when joining a new discourse community to excel in that group.
- Has a broadly agreed set of public goals.
- Has mechanisms of intercommunication among the members.
- Uses participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback.
- Utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.
- In addition to using genres, a discourse community has developed a specific lexis to use with its members.
- There is a threshold level of members with a suitable expertise and understanding of relevant content.
One of the most important elements in my work at a local veterinary clinic is that we have a broadly agreed set of public goals. Within our practice we have a goal of providing efficient, thorough and effective care for our patients. This can be a difficult task to accomplish in any veterinary clinic but especially ours as we are a very high-volume practice.
For example, you are working on a routine first patient visit. During this visit you must review prior history (usually from a rescue, breeder or prior owner), examine the patient while addressing any concerns, making the best recommendations and educating the proud parent. Suddenly, a critical patient comes through the door requiring all hands on deck. So how do you jump back and forth between critical and routine care with two different patients while addressing all clients concerns in a timely manner? You can accomplish this through the use of your discourse community. By having support from individuals with similar knowledge and goals you can quickly delegate or receive support from others amongst your discourse community.
Being able to communicate and rely on individuals amongst your discourse community is one of the benefits of having a community with individuals that have like goals. To accomplish this you must have a clear and understood form of communication amongst the individuals. In our clinic we type very clear communication for the client to review and follow. We as a practice know that if a patient is there for pickup and we have finished our portion of the patients records anyone of the individuals at our workplace can pickup read and understand what the communication needs are for the client. This is also beneficial amongst the discourse community because it helps to inform other members what has been done or needs to be done to finish the patients visit.
As there’s a lot to learn for new staff we understand that it can take 1 to 2 years to train and become adept at learning the lingo, flow and expectations. This can lead to frustration amongst the staff as newer individuals are not growing at the pace we expect or need. Putting their personal goals above the primary goals of the practice, asking questions they know the answer to and following up with other individuals until they find the answer they want to hear and not following clearly listed procedures can all lead to discontent amongst the community. Therefore, you end up with 2 different discourse communities within one community.
This leads us to two different discourse communities with two very separate responsibilities. As part of discourse community number 1 I am at a higher level than those in level 2. I have more responsibilities, higher pay and am more involved in the managerial duties than those in level 2. While trying to teach level 2 members these tools to succeed in the practice I find that a lot of the difference in how employees perceive the goals of the clinic are through their own personality preferences. I have to point out that there is nothing wrong with having different personalities amongst the staff but there are in fact benefits to such, there are also hurdles to these individuals in growing amongst the discourse community due to their different road blocks of time management and efficiency.
But we continue to try to improve to achieve our goals of of providing efficient, thorough and effective care for our patients. By strengthening the individuals in our veterinary practice, improving communication and time management we hope to provide more support within our veterinary practice and strengthen our discourse community.
Discourse Community, What is it?
A discourse community is any group of people with a shared goal, language, genre and values. Through common knowledge they communicate using their own specialized vocabulary to achieve their goal or objective. Take for example a veterinary clinic. The staff at any veterinary clinic has its own specialized goals and their own language shared amongst themselves helps them to communicate and inform among the departments. Many individuals would never grasp the concepts of the language spoken such as RV(Routine Vaccines) , RR (Respiratory Rate) or MM (Mucous Membranes) for example as these are language and writing shortcuts that have been developed and taught overtime amongst those in the veterinary field. By using shortcuts such as these, the staff at most veterinary clinics is able to quickly and effectively triage, diagnose, treat and release their patients. More specifically each veterinary clinic may have their own special language different from others in the same field, therefore forming their own distinct discourse community. Each staff member may learn more specific language used by Dr.’s and employees within that company to suit that individual hospitals needs. Things not specifically taught but learned through practical use. We commonly use the term ADR for Ain’t doing right, sounds like a joke right? But to us this ADR term has meaning. It simply means the pet has multiple problems that most likely aren’t immediate emergencies, but that the pet will need a thorough workup to ensure we address all of the problems. By using this specialized language amongst our discourse community with shared values, language and genre the veterinary community is able to efficiently communicate important details amongst themselves.
Reflecting on personal growth
To become an expert, you must start as a novice. To develop from a novice, you must learn and process the patterns of your goal. Novices will need to grasp the basic principles and be able to build on those as they progress in the learning process to hopefully someday achieve the status of expert. By reflecting on a combination of what they’ve learned and how they learn a novice may be able to further grow and climb the ladder to success. One of the statements in the article “Challenges in Developing Expertise” is that “The expert’s fluency can conceal the very principles and strategies that a novice must learn”. So how can you accomplish expert status when it is sometimes a task that is too veiled to observe?
One new task I’ve been conquering is the human relations side of my work. As we are opening a new practice that I will be managing. Up until now I have been in a supervisory type position with reporting to higher management for management of employees. As a novice I am trying to learn the language of speaking to current and future employees for correction and management. To strengthen my skills, I have been reviewing interviews and corrections from the experts in this field, my supervisors and management. As this is not a tangible skill but rather a learned behavior I am trying to conquer I know that there are steps I am currently missing as management may be unknowingly concealing some of these strategies and principles but am hanging on every action and word that they make.
Alternatively, in my position I consider myself an expert in my laboratory skills. With comfort through my knowledge of laboratory testing and cytologic evaluation I feel comfortable identifying different cells and recognizing things that may be problematic for a pet. Although I’m always working on this skill I can recognize when the samples are above my skill level and need to be sent to the experts or laboratory pathologist. Although I consider myself an expert at this quick evaluation, I realize that I am not a laboratory pathologist and can make the referral of samples if I feel that they need true certified evaluation by a pathologist. I believe sometimes that by being an expert you need to acknowledge your limitations and be comfortable making sure that they ultimate expert is responsible for the results of whatever task it may be. I try to strengthen my skills by comparing my results to the reports from the pathologist when they come back from the laboratory. This helps me to acquire new knowledge through assessment-centered learning of my own.
Regarding reflection, a novice can learn through reflection of an expert’s actions and process, or through reflecting on their own actions. Alternatively, an expert can always grow more through reflecting on their own processes and actions and using the outcomes of these to further grow and develop more expertise in their field.
Source:
Mcdaniel, Rhett. “How People Learn.” Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt University, 7 May 2018, cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/how-people-learn/.
My use of the rhetorical situation.
Throughout my time at University of Cincinnati I have had to use the rhetorical situation commonly without even knowing I was. For an example in my writing course I have been responsible for posting blogs discussing writing and utilizing the different tools we are using such as rhetoric, purpose, audience and genre. Recently I wrote a blog “Purpose, audience and genre form the page”. Without realizing that while writing this article I was also evaluating what my purpose, audience and genre were. Looking back, I realize that my purpose of this article was to get the grade and write for my audience of other students in the course in a fashion or genre that they would all be comfortable reading and responding to. Was my rhetoric in this writing received well? Did I influence, evoke emotion or get my readers attention?
Another example of my use of rhetoric in writing throughout my time at UC was when I wrote a blog titled “Genre is the Glue”. It was an article once again geared toward an audience of fellow students writing similar blogs for a similar purpose of getting a grade and evaluating their own definition of genre and how it can be used in writing. In this article I tried to really explore just what genre was and utilize it in the article. Through using the rhetorical situation I tried to get other students attention, perhaps amuse them a little while persuading or educating them on how I view genre as glue that holds your words together.
https://aoki889087655.wordpress.com/2020/02/16/purpose-audience-and-genre-form-the-page/
https://aoki889087655.wordpress.com/2020/01/29/genre-is-the-glue/
What is this thing called Rhetorical Situation?
Anything written can be interpreted differently by the reader and or written to be understood differently by the writer or any combination of the two, this is the rhetorical situation. Who we are, our culture, our history and our experiences shape who we are as writers and readers of any article. There are many different factors that are in play when considering the rhetorical situation. The purpose of the piece, the message and the sender or receiver of the message. Although all are individual components they all intertwine and play an important part in the persuasive nature of the rhetorical situation. All individuals seek to influence others in some way and this is the purpose of the rhetorical situation in writing. By evaluating your audience and formatting your writing in such a way to influence your writer in some direction is the end goal of the rhetorical situation. The article “What Is a Rhetorical Situation and How To Use It? – A Research Guide states that As Aristotle described it, the rhetorical situation is “the ability to observe in any given situation the available means of persuasion.” I think that Aristotle sums up the complexity of the rhetorical situation perfectly.
“What Is a Rhetorical Situation and How To Use It? – A Research Guide.” A Research Guide for Students, 28 Oct. 2019, http://www.aresearchguide.com/rhetorical-situation.html.
Purpose, audience and genre form the page
Purpose, audience and genre of an article can all help to form your document. Without knowing one of the important aspects you may send a supervisor a casual email or perhaps send a customer a document with information you may not want them to know. In the workplace I may not want my customers to know our cost of the product but only their final cost. One mistake in the wrong direction may lead to loss of sales or customers. In the workplace, you may need to craft many different documents to many different audiences regarding the same information. For example, to host an educational meeting for customers, you may need to seek approval from your supervisor, create a proposal or budget for management and create invitations for the customer. I would not want to inform the customer of my intentions of the budget for the meeting but inform them of what I may be providing during said meeting. First, I must decide my purpose, am I looking to inform, educate, seek approval or invite. To format each document to the appropriate audience I must then decide who my audience is for that document. After deciding on my audience, I must proceed in choosing which genre or type of communication to use, is it formal, casual or a mix of the two. By choosing my purpose, audience and genre I may proceed in a well written document suited to each individual audience I may encounter.
Who is your audience?
To write to the correct audience you must first assess: Who is the audience? What is their skill level? What will they be using the information for? This is a sticky situation in my veterinary practice as we have a broad range of audience from your friendly neighborhood mailman or woman for matter, biologist or 18-year-old fresh out of high school. They may not all want every detail for every procedure performed or they may want every detail down to the type of suture used on their beloved pets’ incision. So how do we proceed? Do we give every torrid detail to every individual? I am personally responsible for formatting educational information for our clients concerning their pets’ condition, procedure or general health and this is a constant battle. To inform yet not bury in information, to educate yet not reprimand and to show we care while still conveying the facts. The solution is coming up with a light but informative and thorough document for them to peruse and form questions from. So, through many different hands the paper goes when I’m finished, read by many different minds, and edited many different times. All these steps to come up with the perfect balance of information and education while showing our customers and the audience of our instructions that we care.
Robin Aoki 