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

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
  • 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
    • April 14th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • April 7th: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • February 17th: Verb is the Word!
    • February 24th: Coordination and Subordination
      • A Practical Editing Situation
    • 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)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • March 10th: Midterm Exam
    • March 17th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • March 24th: Choosing Nominals
    • March 31st: Stylistic Variations
    • March 3rd: Form and Function
  • 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)
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • 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
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
  • 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
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • 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
ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology » April 8th: Writing Discussion

April 8th: Writing Discussion

If we were in a face-to-face class, I’d have you do a writing workshop on your coming Technology Project. Make sure you check out the updated guidelines. This will be due April 22nd!!!

Instead, I’m going to provide some information on how to improve the flow of your sentences. By the way, if you want some serious advanced lessons on prose revision and style, I’m teaching ENGL 4183 “Editing with Digital Technologies” this Fall (2020). The title is somewhat misleading (I’m working on changing it, but, imagine that, is low on the University bureaucracy list of priorities). The course should really be called “Rhetorical Grammar and Style.”

Why Prose Revision

Being able to write efficiently and effectively is one of the most important skills to have as a future professional. Managers and supervisors have been complaining for quite some time that college graduates just can’t write well. Now, it’s typical of the older generation to claim that “things were much better in the past” (and, yes, contemporary TV is better, but today’s music is atrocious), but surveys show that these future (and current) employers think more time should be spent on writing.

This lesson deals with making your prose move faster. I assume that you have a good foundation in Standard Edited American English—proper grammar and syntax. The goal here is to help you write with your audience in mind. Of course, you should always write with your audience in mind, but what I mean is write so that they don’t have to struggle to find the meaning of your communications. Remember, the best thing you can hope for when you write a bad message (aside from the audience reading your mind) is that the receiver will contact you and ask for clarification. Carrying out your assumed (but false) message may actually be worse than doing nothing at all.

Often discussions of Plain Language come around to writers claiming that their language will suffer if they can’t “say what they want the way they want to say it.” I’ll let you in on a little secret: rarely does a writer, like a novelist or poet, sit down and write without some editor coming in and pruning his or her work. (My editor actually wanted my to write more, but, no surprise there). Writers consider their words to be their children—precious little beings they can’t get rid of. Longwindedness has been the downfall of many a writer. Don’t look at the following examples as destroying your authorial voice; look at it as enhancing your prose or clarifying your communications.

  • Unclear: It is of the utmost importance that you, the reader, a Mr. Johann G. Vonstrügum, take the time to inquire about your recent credit card purchases in order to determine the validity of numerous transactions that may not have been authorized.
  • Clear: We suspect an unauthorized user made recent purchases with your credit card.

Normally, I give the example and go through the revision step by step before offering the revision in its entirety. However, I want to show you this lesson’s goal immediately with an actual example. The original example is an enormous 41-word sentence, and the revision is a nice, efficient 11-word statement that gets right to the point. Before we go into the revision, think about which sounds better? Some people believe the original is better because an over-affected style signals a writer’s learnedness. Also, the original seems to follow legal writing (often called legalese), which has the tendency to be long-winded prose using big, scary words.

The revision may not appeal to some because it’s, well, too efficient. After all, if you have 12 pages to get to…The above revision comes right out and quickly states its intentions—“someone has used your credit card!” Because philosophers and other long-winded writers, who are considered the greatest minds ever, use big words and complex syntax, readers often feel that good prose is difficult prose. That isn’t always true. For instance, philosophers like Michel Foucault or Jacques Derrida aren’t just writing about simple ideas in complex ways; they’re writing about very complex issues (in a language other than English sometimes) that are just hard to understand. Some issues are just difficult to comprehend, so, of course, they’re difficult to describe. This difficulty shouldn’t be a part of your writing. Unless your business is an existential detective firm (like the one in I ♥ Huckabees), you shouldn’t be writing about the meaning of life or other overly complex philosophical matters.

In order to not overwhelm you, let’s focus on two major ways to revise your prose and eliminate an overly verbose style:

Changing Passive Voice to Active Voice

Sentences in passive voice aren’t as lively as active voice sentences. In a passive voice sentence, the action is killed by having the agent of a sentence eliminated or added in with a preposition to the end of the sentence. In order to understand passive voice, we need to reexamine the basic structure of a sentence. All sentences have a subject and a predicate. The predicate contains the verb and everything else in the sentence. For instance,

  • Congress raised taxes.

is a complete sentence. The subject, Congress, performed an action, raised, on the direct object, taxes. Since Congress performed the action, it is considered the agent of a sentence—the thing doing the doing. Active voice sentences always have the agent in the subject position. Take a look at the alternative passive voice construction of the above sentence:

  • Taxes were raised by Congress.

Notice that the subject is no longer Congress but taxes—the thing “raised.” Technically, this is a grammatically correct sentence, but passive voice constructions aren’t always the most efficient sentences. Although you should avoid these passive voice constructions, you should also know when they’re appropriate. If we remove the agent from the sentence, here’s what we have:

  • Taxes were raised.

By whom? Well, that’s the benefit of passive voice—you can have agentless prose. Obviously, Congress (or anyone raising taxes) would like the passive voice because it can shield them from blame. There are times when passive voice isn’t a form of chicanery, though. What if the agent isn’t important or unknown? In that case using passive voice is your best option.

Consider a much longer passive voice sentence:

  • The file was delivered to the office of Mr. Harrison by Jerome.

Hmmm…wouldn’t this be better:

  • Jerome delivered the file to the office of Mr. Harrison.

It certainly is. But what if we don’t care about Jerome’s delivery, and we just want to emphasize that the file got delivered? After all, the file is the most important piece of information in the sentence, so

  • The file was delivered to the office of Mr. Harrison.

is perfectly fine. The passive voice also comes in handy if you’re trying to communicate that something should be done, but you don’t know or don’t want to say who should do it. For instance,

  • The database should be updated weekly.

By whom? Well, if you don’t know, you very well can’t include that bit of information. However, more likely than not, your goal should just be to eliminate all unnecessary passive voice constructions.

Limiting Prepositional Phrases

In an effort to have more efficient prose, we’ll want to limit the number of prepositional phrases tacked onto our sentences. Let’s return to a sentence from earlier:

  • The file was delivered to the office of Mr. Harrison by Jerome.

Let’s care about Jerome in this example; he’ll be accountable for the delivery. First of all, we need to get Jerome into the natural agent position as the sentence’s subject. It’s an easy move and makes the sentence active:

  • Jerome delivered the file to the office of Mr. Harrison.

The by Jerome in the previous example was just added to the sentence as opposed to having Jerome the main player. The best sentences (excluding artistic, poetic styles, which can’t be taught and aren’t exactly necessary for professional writing) have the subject and verb as close together as possible; we can’t get closer than Jerome delivered. However, we still have a lengthy phrase—the office of Mr. Harrison. Can’t we just say,

  • Jerome delivered the file to Mr. Harrison’s office.

If we weren’t meant to use possessives in English, they wouldn’t have given us ‘ses. Sometimes readers think that lengthening prose with prepositional phrases sounds better. I’m not exactly sure why, but it may have something to do with ornate, ceremonial prose we hear at special occasions. For instance, the following is a graduation style:

  • I hereby declare at this Noon hour on the eighth day of the fifth month in the year of nineteen hundred ninety-eight that the students before us by the recommendation of the faculty and by the power of the Board of Regents are to have the degree of Bachelor from our school.

Yikes! Remember, graduations (and Presidential Inaugurations) are where we hear long-winded prose. There is no reason May 8th, 1998 should take 15 words to say.

Next Class

I adjusted the readings for this week and next before Spring Break. For Monday, you’ll be reading Hunter Havelin Adams, III. “African Observers of the Universe.” It’s on Canvas, so go check it out. I’ll have video game article up on Canvas for Wednesday, 4/15…I’m just not sure how many yet. They will also be on Canvas.

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