Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-083: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • ENGL 2116 sec. 083 Major Assignments (Summer 2020)
      • Final Portfolio Requirements
      • Oral Presentations
    • June 11th: Continue with I, Robot
    • June 15th: Ethics and Perspective Discussion
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • June 16th: More on Ethics
    • June 1st: Effective Documents for Users
    • June 2nd: Final Project and Research Discussion
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters Better
      • Research
    • June 3rd: Technology in a Social Context
    • June 8th: Information Design and Visuals
    • June 9th: Proposals, Marketing, and Rhetoric
    • May 18th: Introduction to the course
    • May 19th: Critical Technological Awareness
    • May 20th: Audience, Purpose, and General Introduction
    • May 21st: Résumé Stuff
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • May 25th: More Resume Stuff
    • May 26th: Plain Language and Prose Revision
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • May 27th: More on Plain Language
    • May 28th: Review Prose Revision
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • February 3rd: I’m in Love with the Shape of You(r Sentences)
    • January 20th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 27th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Spring 2021)
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 4750-090 & ENGL 5050-092 Video Games & Culture
    • Assignments for Video Games & Culture
    • August 25th: Introduction to the Course
    • November 10th: Aggression & Addiction
    • November 3rd: Moral Panics and Health Risks
    • October 13th: Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction
    • October 20th: Serious Games
    • October 27: Risky Business?
    • October 6th: Hyperreality
    • September 1st: History of Video Games
    • September 22nd: Video Game Aesthetics
    • September 29th: (sub)Cultures and Video Games
    • September 8th: Defining Video Games and Critical Theory Introduction
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 13th: Umberto Eco & Jean Baudrillard
    • April 20th: Moving Forward on Theory
    • April 27th: Last Day of Class
    • April 6th: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition
      • What is Postmodernism?
    • February 10th: St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
      • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • February 17th: Knoblauch on Magical and Ontological Rhetoric
    • February 24th: Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method
    • February 3rd: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 and 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • January 13th: Introduction to Class
    • January 27th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 16th: Friedrich Nietzsche
    • March 23rd: Mythologies and Meaning of Meaning (part 2)
    • March 30th: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions
    • March 9th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society
    • December 10th: Violence in Video Games
    • December 15th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • December 1st: COVID-19 facial covering rhetoric
    • December 3rd: COVID-19 Transmission and Pandemics
    • December 8th: 500-word Essay
    • November 10th: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 12th: Frankenstein (1818) Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 17th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 19th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 3rd: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 1-17
    • November 5th: Planet of the Apes (1964) Ch. 18-26
    • October 13th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • October 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • October 1st: The Golem at Large Introduction & Ch. 1
    • October 22nd: The Time Machine
    • October 29th: H.G. Wells and Adaptations
    • October 6th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology) Ch. 2
    • October 8th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 3 & 4
    • September 10th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • September 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • September 17th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • September 22nd: Collins & Pinch Ch. 5 & 6
    • September 24th: Collins & Pinch Ch. 7 & Conclusion
    • September 29th: Test 1
    • September 8th: Introduction to Class
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 280F
Phone: 704.687.0613
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
LBST 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society » December 3rd: COVID-19 Transmission and Pandemics

December 3rd: COVID-19 Transmission and Pandemics

On Monday, 11/30, the NPR-WMAU show 1A had a discussion with a virologist and a professor who analyzes misinformation. This isn’t required, but, if you’re curious and want better analysis than sound-bite media offers, I highly recommend checking out the podcast “Building Confidence In A COVID-19 Vaccine.”

Things to Remember for These COVID-19 Readings

  • Yes, this will be on the Final Exam
  • Notice the article dates regarding this emerging pandemic
    • March 6, 2020: Dr. April Baller video
    • May 28, 2020: Louis Casiano “WHO Guidance…” from Fox News
    • June 10, 2020: Holly Yan “Fauci says the WHO’s comment…”
    • Aug. 15, 2020: Morens & Fauci “Emerging Pandemic Diseases” from Cell
  • Only the journal Cell is a peer-reviewed source vetted by scientists in the field
  • You should be drawing comparisons to other topics covered this semester about emerging science, specifically:
  • Collins & Pinch’s “Story of Cold Fusion”–Sept. 17th
  • Collins & Pinch’s Pasteur-Pouchet Debate–Sept. 17th
  • Collins & Pinch’s “AIDS Cures and Lay Expertise”–Oct. 15th
  • Scientific consensus doesn’t happen overnight, and COVID-19 underscores that fact

Besides using dates to split up this discussion, I’m also separating out these Anthony “Tony” Fauci articles. The first one is about his advice on COVID-19 spread and the other article is one he co-wrote. Seems an obvious way to split the discussion. Don’t just focus on what’s being said in the video or articles but how it’s communicated. Not all information is equal. As Isaac Asimov reminds us, our “right to know” is meaningless without our actually making an effort to read.

WHO, pronounced W-H-O, stands for the World Health Organization. Don’t confuse them with the English rock band The Who…it could happen.

Fauci says the WHO’s comment on asymptomatic spread is wrong

For this article, Holly Yan interviews or finds public statements from experts in the field in order to explain the reasons behind why wearing masks slows the spread of COVID-19. Specifically, the article defines the following:

  • Asymptomatic spread: “transmission of the virus by people who do not have symptoms and will never get symptoms from their infection.”
  • Pre-symptomatic spread: “transmission of the virus by people who don’t look or feel sick, but will eventually get symptoms later.”

Here’s what’s interesting about the title. Yan uses “Fauci” in the title, yet she uses quotations from a variety of experts. Fauci, an infectious disease expert who has been in the public’s eye since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, is very well known and trusted. Rhetorically, having the title “Fauci says…” rather than “Experts say…” conveys a stronger ethos, stronger credibility, because readers know Fauci’s character and expertise. I’m not saying Yan is misleading readers; after all, she does include information from Fauci. Just don’t miss the subtle rhetorical move of putting “Fauci” in the title.

Some key quotations from the article:

  • para. 6: the WHO claims “asymptomatic spread ‘appears to be rare,'” but other scientists disagree
    • Consensus is being established in the news, but, as an emerging disease, scientists still have questions–not certainty
  • para. 8: “Evidence shows that 25% to 45% of infected people likely don’t have symptoms” (paraphrase from Fauci)
    • Yan doesn’t ask how Fauci derived that statistic. Doing so wouldn’t be appropriate for the readers who aren’t well versed in how statistics are compiled.
    • This doesn’t mean the article is bad; we trust Fauci has done the proper research or understand the research others did to get that 25%-45% range.
  • para. 11: Yan points out that pre-symptomatic carriers might be more of a concern to the public than asymptomatic
  • She provides us with more research, but she never again mentions Fauci’s name in the rest of the article.
  • Then, she cites actual research that found pre-symptomatic spread more likely than asymptomatic.
    • para 15: “…studies have found that paucisymptomatic transmission (meaning they have extremely mild symptoms) can occur, and in particular, in the German study, they found that transmission often appeared to occur before or on the day symptoms first appeared.”

Other Experts in Yan’s Article

In the rest of the article, notice how Yan cites reputable and well-known sources. Find comments in the article from the following:

  • Anne Rimoin, an epidemiology professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health
  • The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  • The journal Science
  • Harvard Medical School
  • CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said “People tend to be the most contagious before they develop symptoms, if they’re going to develop symptoms” (para. 29)
    • Although Dr. Gupta is at CNN and they’re publishing this article, he is a highly respected neurosurgeon and was considered as a choice to be Surgeon General by President Obama.
    • In 2003, while reporting on medical conditions in Iraq, he actually saved soldiers and civilians lives by performing emergency surgeries!

Yan, a journalist, cites the experts to explain why wearing masks is helpful. She doesn’t go into enormous detail but provides pretty good evidence for why we ought to wear masks and not rely on whether or not someone’s showing symptoms. She references actual scientific studies that were done: these studies are what builds scientific consensus. Scientists do their research and disseminate it via peer-reviewed outlets (mainly through journals and, prior to 2020, conferences*). This vetting process, which you’re read about this semester, is how science gets established. During an emerging issue–such as a pandemic–science might not be as quick to resolve disputes as the public wants. That’s not a failure of science; that’s a failure of citizens who don’t understand the process of science.

Speaking of citizens who fail to understand, compare Yan’s short article to the Fox News article from Casiano that only mentions what the WHO says and what the CDC says without going any further into the science behind transmission. Notice the sources Casiano mentions; notice the studies he references; notice that it’s nearly a useless article.

Yes. All news is not created equal. There is a difference, and, as college-educated readers, you need to be able to recognize the difference.

*Academic conferences have continued during the pandemic, but they’re mostly done remotely. All my conferences this year were canceled.

Morens & Fauci “Emerging Pandemic Diseases”

As mentioned above, this article comes from a peer-reviewed source, meaning the authors had reviewers read and verify their findings before publication. This is the difference between journalism that reports on findings (although investigative journalism may approach the rigor of peer review) as opposed to academics who create knowledge. If there are any aspiring academics out there, your goal is to publish peer-reviewed research. Even in the humanities, we have our research vetted by blind reviewers (meaning we don’t know them, and they don’t know us).

This isn’t the longest thing you’ve had to read, but it’s longer than the previous articles. Notice the way it’s written. It’s not written for a general audience the way the other articles are written. There are lots of definitions and several charts that display information visually. I’m going to focus on just some areas. This article is pretty comprehensive and provides context for COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2. I’d be stunned if you’ve gotten the information on how pandemics emerge from popular sources (newspapers, online news outlets, nightly news, NPR, etc.). If you have, you should comment on that in this week’s Weekly Discussion post or on your last weekly discussion in two weeks.

In order to make things easier to locate, I’m using page numbers from the PDF version of the article. You can read either version for the same information.

  • p. 1077: “Newly emerging (and re-emerging) infectious diseases have been threatening humans since the neolithic revolution, 12,000 years ago, when human hunter-gatherers settled into villages to domesticate animals and cultivate crops. These beginnings of domestication were the earliest steps in man’s systematic, widespread manipulation of nature.”
  • p. 1077: “Only a century ago, the 1918 influenza pandemic killed 50 million or more people, apparently the deadliest event in recorded human history. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, recognized in 1981, has so far killed at least 37 million.”
  • p. 1081: “Also of importance to the infectivity of newly emerging infectious diseases are viral genetic properties associated with pathogenicity and co-pathogenicity, exemplified most clearly with pandemic IAVs. The 1918 H1N1 pandemic virus, which killed an estimated 50 million people (equivalent to 200 million when adjusted to the 2020 population) was particularly lethal.
    • Notice what the authors do here by explaining the lethality in today’s population terms. They’re basically saying that in 1918, with a world population at 1.8B (billion), 50M (million) deaths would be around 200M based on today’s world population.
    • The math is easy enough for an English professor. Fifty million is 2.7% of the world population in 1918. Today’s world population is 7.7B, and 2.7% is 210M (these are estimates of population, so their “200 million” isn’t an exact calculation but a good estimate).
    • You hear this all the time when someone says this amount of USD (dollars) would be $XXXXX.XX today because of inflation.
  • p. 1084: “Human beings have many different organ systems, each with many different cell types, and with each cell having arrays of different receptors; therefore, it is not surprising that switching of a pathogen from an animal host to humans results in very different clinical and epidemiologic outcomes, including different disease manifestations and transmission mechanisms.”
  • p. 1085: “Preliminary evidence from clinical and pathological studies of both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, which indicate viral infection of multiple tissues, is consistent with elicitation of robust and hopefully long-lasting protective immunity, providing a potential for control of COVID-19 with vaccines.”
    • I take this as a good sign (but the next quote should scare you).
    • They cite other researchers and suggest–remember, they can’t prove anything at this point in time–a vaccine for COVID-19 should be very likely because it “looks” and “behaves” similarly to pathogens scientists know about.
    • Again, they aren’t certain, but, based on how viruses of this type act, they are confident a vaccine will be developed soon.
  • p. 1085: “More ominously, expression of ACE-2 receptors on endothelial and numerous other cells, and autopsy evidence of significant SARS-CoV-2 endothelial infection, are consistent with systemic viral infection causing both pulmonary and extra-pulmonary pathology, including widespread microthrombus formation, among other outcomes.”
    • There are a lot of specialized words here (endothelial, microthrombus, ACE-2, etc.), and the meaning will only be immediately understood by members of this discourse community.
    • Now for the scary part and our purpose regarding rhetoric: Scientists try to limit the adjectives they use because they believe it is a more objective way to communicate. They don’t like to “dress up” their language. When they do use an adjective–especially ominously–you ought to pay attention.
    • pulmonary pathology: diseases related to the lungs.
    • extra-pulmonary pathology: diseases situated outside the lungs.
    • Basically, this respiratory disease can spread and affect your other organs: heart, kidneys, liver, brain, and even skin!
  • p. 1087: “The discovery that its closest identified viral relatives are enzootic in horseshoe (Rhinolophus) bats indicates that SARS-CoV-2 probably emerged from an as-yet-unidentified bat reservoir either directly or after infection of an intermediate host such as a pangolin.”
    • Again, they aren’t certain, but, based on their knowledge of past pandemics zoonotic diseases, they are confident COVID-19 originated in a bat.
    • enzootic: disease particular to animals in a specific region or locality.
  • p. 1089:  “As human societies grow in size and complexity, we create an endless variety of opportunities for genetically unstable infectious agents to emerge into the unfilled ecologic niches we continue to create. There is nothing new about this situation, except that we now live in a human-dominated world in which our increasingly extreme alterations of the environment induce increasingly extreme backlashes from nature.”
  • p. 1089: “The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another reminder, added to the rapidly growing archive of historical reminders, that in a human-dominated world, in which our human activities represent aggressive, damaging, and unbalanced interactions with nature, we will increasingly provoke new disease emergences.”
  • The text in red might seem peculiar for academic writing, but we must consider where this text is in the article: the conclusion.
    • Academics often use conclusions not to simply summarize their study (which you were probably told was appropriate in 5-paragraph essays…) but to point out where new research should focus.
    • In this conclusion, I think the authors are telling us to wake up! The conclusion’s style is much more aligned with expectations for general or lay audiences, and, rhetorically, they’re warning readers that pandemics will return, so we ought to consider what causes them and work to avoid them.

The authors’ conclusion points out that our “meddling” and “aggressive” actions in nature cause these zoonotic diseases to spread to humans. The article never mentions masks, facial coverings, or social distancing. It tells us that COVID-19 is yet another pandemic humans have had to deal with and it won’t be the last. In case it isn’t clear…

COVID-19 isn’t a hoax; it wasn’t created by rogue scientists; it can kill you in painful ways.

After reading this peer-reviewed article that details the pathogenic properties of COVID-19 in relation to other pandemics, you know the authors are very well educated and know viruses. If they suggest I wear a mask for protection, I’m gonna wear the $&%*#@ mask!

Next Week

Don’t forget to post Weekly Discussion #12 to Canvas by 11:00 pm tomorrow (12/04). After this week, you’ll have two posts left. Your 500-word Essay is due on Tuesday (12/08) on Canvas.

The last readings for the class will be on video games. You’ve done so well and come so far this semester that you deserve a reward! The readings are all on Canvas, and I’ll have notes up shortly for Dec. 10th and Dec. 15th–the last day of class.

Skip to toolbar
  • Log In