Bedford Researcher -- Chapters 12, 19, & 20

Chapter 12

In Chapter 12, it is discussed how to develop your argument by means of supporting your thesis, as well as assessing the integrity of your argument.

To support your thesis, it is good to choose reasons why your thesis is right. These reasons vary with the different types of writing there are (bloggers may analyze an issue and choose reasons to help the audience understand, and argumentative essays offer claims that lead the readers to accept the argument being made). With these reasons you will need evidence to support your claims. Without evidence, facts, expert opinions, personal observations, and the like to support your claims, your argument is invalid, as there is no other way to prove your statements to be true. That is also where citing your sources comes in. With your sources summed up into a bibliography at the end of your paper, you are giving a list of credible information banks that backed up your argument. These sources are proving you right. After explaining your reasoning, you are going to want the audience to begin to buy in to what you're feeding them. This is called appeal, which is asking them to accept your argument by having them consider it -- listen carefully for anything you might say that catches them, and them weigh our what they've just heard. There are several types of appeal: Appeal to Authority, Pathos (Appeal to Emotion), Ethos (Appeal to Principles, Values, and Beliefs), Appeal to Character, and Logos (Appeal to Logic). These different types of appeals give a writer many different sides to come at the read from and attempt to warm up to them from there.

Assessing the integrity of your argument is crucial. Many retail advertisements of today are, in a way, offensive to the audience of the product being sold, as the retailers often use logical fallacies (methods that attempt to throw the reader/audience for a loop by not digging down to the important truth). If at any time your argument is using a logical fallacy, scrap that part and rewrite it so you are not coming off as though you assume the reader is an idiot. Rewrite whatever leads up to that logical fallacy and get to the point while still preparing a backing for what you  are arguing.

Chapter 19

In Chapter 19, it is discussed how you can design documents, presentations, and essays.

To design anything takes a lot of effort and focus. Most essays, articles, and other presentations or documents (whether websites, oral presentations, multimedia presentations, etc.) have a few similar steps to bring them together. Choosing your purpose is key in all forms of designing. Without a purpose tailored to whatever style of document or presentation, you've got nothing. Each style of document is different, for example, academic essays, design articles. In an academic essay, you will focus more on margins and readable font, making it easier for the reader to scan through your essay. In a design article, you will still be focusing on the overall design of the publication & the audience being addressed, but it is more so about visual appeal combined with the ease of reading than just making it easy for the reader to look over. Just as documents differ, so do types of presentations, like oral presentation and multimedia presentations. When giving an oral presentation, you will need to first figure out your purpose and intended audience. Having those in mind, you will want to narrow your scope in on just a few key points you will discuss. With these key points building up the purpose of your presentation, this will add a foundation to whatever your audience may already know about the topic, and then construct from there. Before you even get up and give this presentation, however, you will need to create an outline to follow as you guide the flow of thought. An outline will help you to keep focused n your main points, along with the help of a main sentence that catches the audience's attention, and a conclusion that draws everything back to your initial point. Along with all of this stuff, you as the speaker will need to think about your language (pronunciation, diction, etc.), know how to engage the audience (by speaking loudly, using inflection on your voice at necessary times, maintaining eye contact, etc.), and remember where to go on from after one point has been made (use of speaker's notes while presenting to remind yourself of key points, phrases, etc.). On the other hand, a multimedia presentation differs from an oral presentation in many ways. First of all, there aren't as many steeps to remember, as everything is already compiled into one big multimedia package. What you will need to do, like all other documents and presentation types, is pick your purpose for this presentation. What do you wish to communicate through this presentation? Once you have that part in mind, it's your job to construct a media display that embodies your topic and sends out a message appropriate to conveying it. If one were to create a presentation about the ocean, you may think to include blue toned lettering to link the connection between your piece and your topic.

Chapter 20

In Chapter 20, it is discussed how to understand documentation systems.

Writers often use documentation systems because they help with the storage of sources, which works to keep plagiarism at bay. There are four main documentation systems for different subjects of work: Modern Language Association (MLA; used in humanities such as English, philosophy, linguistics, world languages, etc.), American Psychological Association (APA; used for social sciences such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, education, etc.), Chicago (used for history, journalism, and the humanities), and Council of Science Education (CSE; used mainly in the physical and life sciences, like chemistry, geology, biology, botany,etc.). After determining which documentation system is right for the subject you are in, you will need to document your sources by citing them. A proper citation should include the author(s) and/or editor(s), the titlee, the publication date, the publisher and city of publication (if for a book), periodical name, volume, issue, and page number (if for an article), and URL access date (if for a website). If you cannot find one or more of these items, simply inquire what you can find out about each source. Remember, each quotation you inquire into a paper is to be annotated and placed on a  works cited page! If the quote is not placed in quotations or is not cited in an in-text citation, that is considered plagiarism. If the source is not cited at the end of the paper, your quotation from that source is considered illegitimate, as you have no citation to derive the source from.