This
sci/tech sphere is one that I had my reservations about; partly for being
unfamiliar with reading and working within it and the other part for the
daunting task of writing this blog post. Even after the weeks we have spent in
this unit, I felt as if I was just beginning to grasp the concepts and theories
explored in our critical readings. So when I was given the assignment sheet for
the blog post, I was apprehensive about being able to complete all the
components asked of me.
Picking my sci/tech discourse was one of the
easier parts of this assignment for me. Wechsler’s case study on the correlates
of binge drinking among college students was an article that I found some
relevance in reading. It fell within the respected sphere I needed for this
assignment, but because of the subject matter, college students, I felt like I could
position my re-purposing for an audience I could connect with. Writing for an intended
audience is one of the constituents of any successful rhetorical situation, and
I didn’t feel I would be as effective if I had chosen a subject matter I could
not see myself relating to.
In
reading past all of the statistics and numbers of Wechsler’s case study, I
found my narrative in his conclusions about stereotypes of college drinking
being perpetuated by fact. It was more than the idea of the socialized, party-crazed, Greek-system, college
experience. These factors were found in the study to be the most likely to
contribute to binge drinking. The parallel between what is considered
stereotype and the facts behind the study are what I chose to base my new
narrative on. I took the stance that now college drinking has become part of
our culture, accepted and expected. With it becoming such a normal part of the
college experience, the hazards of binging have become almost transparent to
our culture as well. It is only when we address both with a sense of concern
for this cultural shift, could any kind of effort to change this mentality or
stereotype be effective.
I
used Bazerman’s levels of intertext in trying to format my platform. I had
never conducted any kind of research study, so establishing me as a credited
writer on the matter meant that I needed to balance my own ideas with facts
from Wechsler’s study and my supplementary sources from the College Drinking
Prevention database. I built my post on the foundation of these facts at “face
value” and then started to draw on accepted social beliefs, generally
circulated ideas, and recognizable language that my audience would be able to
relate to. For every fact I gave directly from a source, I had to repurpose it
to fit into my new narrative. It was balancing the intertext of my sci/tech
post that helped me to frame my argument. Fahnestock and Secor also address the
different stases to build an argument as scientific discourse. I tried to
reference the lower level stases of facts and up to a cause/effect in writing my
post. In referencing the case studies I had read as my basis for fact, I was to
create a situation to parallel between the correlates of binging and the
necessary measures needed to make a change to this cultural norm. I feel like
the progression of the post carries both of these stases of scientific
discourse.
In
trying to compose and edit this text, I really tried to keep in mind the
principles of cohesion we had discussed in our workshop Tuesday. I had never
really explicitly thought about how and when I chose to break up paragraphs, or
if there was a better way to be doing it. It really was more of a subconscious
decision and when we discussed cohesion in class, it made sense for the ideas
and keywords of one sentence to reference those of another. When I was editing
my post, I found myself arranging and rearranging the order of my paragraphs for
it to be read in the most cohesive manner. Especially in linking my opening
ideas to the case study and then segueing to the supporting material, it was
balancing the connection between each that created the flow of the post. Not
only did the post need to be coherent in language and context but also cohesive
in its formatting.
This
sci/tech blog has been one of my most challenging assignments, in both the
research behind it and in its composition, and served as a capstone project for
this sphere of public discourse.
