It starts out with stating that definitional arguments "don't just appear out of the blue; they evolve out of the occasions and conversations of daily life." I liked their example of the word "nerd." Bascially when I am talking to you and say "omg she is such a nerd," you might think I mean a smart educated young woman when I really mean a girl that, in my eyes, is a girl that has no friends and is obsessive with schoolwork.
The next paragraphs talk more about formulating the argument. People are always going to question what you have to say, so it is important to show your credibility and make them believe you. They continued on with the volunteer example and used more detail. When sticking with the nerd example, I could say: Lisa Simpson is always doing her schoolwork and sitting at home with no one to hang out with; therefore making her a nerd and not popular. A nerd is not a smart and popular person because a nerd is someone who is weirdly obsessed with schoolwork and has no friends.
With your argument in hand, you have to make sure that it provides evidence of either:Clear example of class defined (like the nerd argument)
Clearly falls outside the defined class
Falls between two closely related classes or fulfills some conditions of the defined class but not others
Defies existing classes and categories and requires an entirely new definition
The last step is considering the design and visuals. This can definitely add to your credibility and make the argument more powerful. Contradicting my argument I have the "sexy nerd" as just a fun way of explaining the other side of nerds. Agreeing with the argument I have an actual male nerd image.
From Kristen Barnes:
ReplyDeleteI think Rachel Leff shows a good understanding of Chapter Nine "Argument Definitions". The examples she uses regarding the different definitions of a nerd make sense and are easy to understand. She explains how to formulate a claim based on her argument to full fill it with more detail and support. She states that everyone has different opinions of a "nerd" so in order to be credible as a writer you must support the claim with believable evidence. And obviously someone who is considered a "nerd" will think otherwise than someone who is not a "nerd". Her example was to state that a girl named Lisa mainly focuses on her school work and does not have many friends she associates with. This is evidence that in Rachel's definition of a "nerd", someone that does not have any friends and is obsessed with schoolwork, Lisa is considered a "nerd" according to the facts. The same thing could go for the definition of "popular", someone that has many friends and is very social. The evidence could be that Lisa has a lot of friends and hangs out with a lot of different people all the time, meaning that she fits the definition of "popular". The point is that when writing your argument and supporting claims, you have to be very specific and credible for the audience to believe what you are saying and you do that by giving specific examples and in this case, using quotations for those values. Arguments of definitions are specific and contain credible sources.
From Andrew Villareal:
ReplyDelete"For some reason your blog really caught my eye when I was going through blogger. It might be because of your crazy pink background and bright pictures or maybe because your post actually makes sense to me. The way you explained how an argument of definitions works and how they are used really helped me out. Especially with this new writing project that is giving me a hard time.
I like how you structured your post by using one main example throughout the whole post. Your example of a nerd pretty much described almost every other engineer in my residence hall haha. I have been researching definition of arguments and I have found that there is even a formula to follow when making a definition argument. This formula is X is your topic and Y and Z are both different claims about the topic in which evidence can be provided to support the claims. This simple formula gives you an idea that almost anything can be turned into an argument. For example, you can choose how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as your topic. Your two claims could be that you need to use more peanut butter than jelly and the other being you need to use more jelly than peanut butter. From here you would support your claim by providing evidence to prove your argument is valid. When you look at our writing project with this formula in mind, it becomes rather easy to think of a topic to write about since almost everything will work with this formula."
I like how Rachel uses Nerd as an example to explain the chapter. She brings up a good point that depending on a certain situation nerd does have different meanings. In one situation you can be using to compliment someone on their intelligence or make fun of someone based on their social awkwardness. It all depends on what context you are using the word in. Rachel then goes onto talk about how when you formulate a claim for the definition you have to first give the audience a vague definition of the word “Nerd”.
ReplyDeleteI like how when Rachel explains how to argue the point home she uses Lisa Simpson as her example. Majority of people know the character Lisa Simpson from The S impson as a nerdy band geek that has no friends. Using this example gives the audience a better understanding of what Rachel is trying to say.
Overall I think this blog post is a good one. I understand everything the blogger was trying to tell me and everything flowed really well