Audience and Genre

In this post I will be discussing the audience for whom the questions I have identified will be useful and where I would go to publish these results of my research.

Extended Annotated BIbliography

In this post I have included a link to my annotated bibliography concerning the controversy surrounding "Quantum Consciousness".

futureatlas.com, "citation needed". October 30, 2010 via flickr. Creative Commons Licence. 

Here is the link.

Narrowing My Focus

In this post I will be choosing three of my favorite questions about my controversy and then discussing why I like each of them.

Overland, ANdreas, "Upper Hallway Narrowing", uploaded 2 April 2010 via flickr.com, Attribution Nodervs 2.0 Generic.

• Is it just the physics community who is involved in this idea or are there other fields and groups who have stakes in the idea of quantum consciousness?
• What sparked this controversy and what made it become so big?
• Where was the first concept of quantum consciousness published and who owns it?

I think that these questions are the most interesting for 3 reasons. For one, I believe that the strongest parts of arguments come from understanding the history of the subject at hand. Two of these questions directly address the history of the controversy itself and in turn will make for a stronger argument. Second, understanding if this topic is isolated strictly to the field of physics, or like Francis criticized in his article if this is a cross disciplinary study and in turn how does that affect the ideas presented by the papers. Finally I think that the these three questions when taken together form a unique possible question centered around two questions: who and where. By completely cutting down to the who and the where it will be much easier to create an argument based on these questions.

Questions About Controversy

In this post I will be asking 3 different for each of the questions who, what, where, when and how concerning one of the previous controversies I have examined.

Bellucci, Marco, "Question Mark", uploaded 4 Aug 2005 via flickr.com, Attribution 2.0 Generic

Who

• Who in the physics community supports the idea of quantum consciousness and why do they?
• Who are the factions surrounding the idea of quantum consciousness and what are their factions called?
• Is it just the physics community who is involved in this idea or are there other fields and groups who have stakes in the idea of quantum consciousness?

What

• What are the arguments for and against the idea of quantum consciousness?
• What are the main ideas and arguments of each of the factions involved?
• What sparked this controversy and what made it become so big?

Where

• Where are each of the factions based out of?
• Where was the first concept of quantum consciousness published and who owns it?
• Where does this idea of quantum consciousness fit in the disciplinary fields?

When

• When did this controversy become a thing?
• When was the last publication of this controversy published?
• How long has this controversy lasted and how long do these debates usually last until something new is brought to light?

How

• How does the public discuss this controversy?
• How does the scientific community discuss this topic?
• How is this controversy portrayed on social media and other forms of media?

Reflection on Project 2

In this post I will be discussing my drafting and revision processes for the rhetorical analysis essay using several questions from the book Writing Public Lives.

Berkati, Muhammad, "Macro, Nature, Reflection, Beautiful, Reflections" uploaded 5 Sept 2015 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

• I really began to revise clarity issues and not focusing on the main topics in each of my body paragraphs from one draft to another, and then also grammar and punctuation.

• My first thesis consisted of getting all of my ideas on paper and then editing. I figured the best revisions were the ones that focused more on the strategies relations with both the author and the audience and focusing specifically on those three things.

• These changes were brought on by a narrowization of my thesis and focusing more a few specific things.

• I think that when I narrowed my thesis it made both my thesis and entire paper more clear and in turn making my credibility as an author better.

• I think that these changes will focus more on what the audience needs than what I want for the audience. Since this essay is supposed to be informative, I don't want it informative just for me but I wanted it to be more centered around the audience's needs.

• I mainly focused on clarity and punctuation when providing local revisions as well as staying on topic throughout an entire paragraph.

• I think that these local revisions will help my audience understand the point I am trying to get across better as well as making the entire essay more fluid.

• No I mainly knew what kind of conventions were expected from this writing style because it is very similar to nearly every other kind of analysis essay out there.

• I think my reflection process helped me in understanding that my writing style is the kind that needs a lot of revisions and discussion with people to actually put my thoughts into clear coherent sentences. So I definitely fall in the Heavy reviser section

Punctuation, Part 2

In this post I will be focusing on three different punctuation techniques and then reviewing my draft to find out what I learned about my writing while dissecting them for punctuation errors.

ZIPNON, "Symbols, Grammatical, Marks, Punctuation, Template, Set" uploaded 24 April 2015 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

Final Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Here is a link to my final rhetorical analysis essay!!!!

ESSAY

Paragraph Analysis

In this post I will be examining my body paragraphs for how well the tackles 5 different things as given by A Student's Guide. After doing so I will also be discussing what I learned about my writing and paragraph style.

Kim, Johnathan, "Writing" uploaded 26 March 2007 via flicker.com, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic

After going over my paragraphs I realized two things. The first is that I need to be better at organizing my paragraphs internally. When I write them, I tend to just throw my words onto the paper in hopes that they will become coherent thoughts; however, I tend to create a confusing argument that jumps around a lot within paragraphs. The second thing I learned was that I need to develop my main point more for each paragraph. This most likely includes adding more evidence and having more analysis of that evidence to create a coherent, effective argument that will convey the main point and how that relates back to the main thesis.

Here is a link to my paragraph analysis

Revised Conclusion

In this post I will be providing both my original and revised conclusion to my rhetorical analysis. I will be revising my conclusion to answer a so what question.

ClkerFreeVectorImages, "End, Detour, Sign, Signage, Information, Motorists", uplaoded 21 October 2012 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

Original

The use of character in this article was what drove the message of the article while logic took the back seat in the argument. In physics, the use of logic is one of the most important things when arguing. However this paper has shown that there is a possibility to convince people in the physics field using mainly ethos. While physicist are not always directly creating arguments in the typical sense, when arguing with people outside of the field of physics, these strategies from this argument are key to creating effective arguments.

Revised

In light of this it can be seen that Francis uses his character to drive the message of his article while drawing on logical arguments to show his well educated audience that cross-disciplinary research is to be taken on cautiously. From this rhetorical analysis the takeaways from this is that for an argument in physics, the best attack is either from the character or logical arguments due to the fact that the audience is typically well educated. In addition to this knowledge of understanding which rhetorical strategies to use, the other important takeaway from this analysis is to identify the difference between an appeal to character from an appeal to logic because the two often have similar qualities.

Reflection on Project 2 Draft

In this post I will be answering several questions that help me determine what I learned from revising my peer's drafts and what I can do to revise my own.

Stilianou, Harry "Beach, Sand, Reflection, Mountain, sunset, Water" uploaded 26 October 2014 via pixabay.com, Public domain.

I revised both Hallye and Casey's rhetorical analysis essays.

Do I have an identifiable thesis?

• Yes, my thesis is clear and concise and pinpoints key elements that help the writing and how effective each of those strategies are at conveying the authors message to the audience.

Have I decided how to organize my essay?

• Yes. I have organized my essay by first talking about the logical strategies the author uses. I then continue to talk about how the author disguises his ethical strategies as logical and then conclude by talking about the author's ethical strategies.

Did I identify and analyze the five elements of the rhetorical situation?

• Yes, I have identifies who the audience of slate magazine is, the author's credentials as analyzed in the ethos section, the context which this article is in-slate magazine last year online-what the author is trying to convey and how he goes about doing it.

Did I explain how and why certain rhetorical strategies were used?

• Yes. For both the logic and ethical arguments I identified the use of the cartoon and why that is important, the transitions, and for ethical the author's expertise.

Am I thoughtfully using evidence in each paragraph?

• In each paragraph I mention either the author's background or the text but I only ever quote once. This is because the author uses strategies that do not rely on quoting but rather on the visual appearance and knowledge of the author himself.

Did you leave you readers wanting more?

• I believe I did, but that is from my point of view. I did answer the so what question about why this analysis was useful and hopefully got them thinking about different ways in which the rhetoric for physics might come in handy.

Punctuation, Part 1

In this post I will be examining three different uses of punctuation and how to use them. I will also be talking about how it helped me and what I learned in each section.

ZIPNON, "Stars, Stripes Font, Template, Patriotic, USA, America", uploaded 18 June 2015 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

Comma

In the comma section, I learned that the comma is one of the most useful, as well as the easiest punctuation to misuse.  I often use a lot of commas in my sentences because of the amount of information I like to cram into one sentence. For me, the most useful parts were the sections on restrictive and nonrestrictive elements as well as the listing sections. Since I like to use a lot of descriptive words, phrases and other elements to describe things both of these sections helped with those. In the restrictive sections the most important parts for me was the fact in distinguishing between what need to be separated with a comma-the restrictive-and those that do not-the non restrictive.

Apostrophe

For the apostrophe section the most useful information for me was the fact that the joint possession and the part on misuses of apostrophes. In the joint section I have always had the problem of where to put the possession when talking about several different nouns. In this section I figured out that it comes at the very end not after each one of the nouns. I also found out from this section that the most common misuse of apostrophes is when nouns are not possessive which I am guilty of every now and again.

Quotations

I thought this was one of the most important sections for this paper because of the amount of necessary evidence that we need to use. I found that the most useful parts of these sections was the punctuation placements and the section on quotes within quotes. I have never really learned any of the conventions of using quotation marks so the placement of periods always confused me because of the MLA puts the period after the citation and other styles put it in the quotation. In this case the fact that I put the period inside the quote except for MLA citation helped me tremendously. I also had never learned the style for quoting a quote that was quoted, and the use of single quotation marks described in the book helped me do just that.

Reflection

I revised both Casey and Hallye's drafts. Hallye used quotation marks superbly when titling articles and such but like me fell into the trap of punctuation mistakes when quoting. One example of this was when Hallye said, "he claims he worries the decision is 'a harbinger of the new arbitrariness of rules in Russia...like what happened in the obscenity rulings that closed down a lot of theater plays'. ." and places the period outside of the quotation. While this is a small detail it is important to take note of. For Casey, I found that she tended to be more hesitant in using commas but when she did, she did a very good job at it like when she says, "This article was both in print and online, which means a broader audience was targeted than if only one medium was used.". All in all both drafts were good (while one was incomplete) but good ideas in both.

Revised Introduction

In this post I will be completely revising my introduction and including what my introduction used to be.

Saragat935, "1. Introdcution" uploaded 15 Dec. 2011 via deviantart.com. Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 liscense. 

Original

Dating back to Aristotle, science was conducted not as it is today but more of a philosophical debate leading to many misleading theories and wrong assumptions. That still goes on today somewhat when people try to mix one field with another producing an incorrect and misleading theory. To Matthew Francis, such ideas like this and others where scientist from one field try to talk about problems in another should be taken on very cautiously. In his article, “Quantum and Consciousness Often Mean Nonsense” Francis uses various rhetorical strategies to attack these cross disciplinary studies. Although Francis does use some logical strategies to convey his argument that cross disciplinary research should be done with caution, they hinder rather than help his argument while his use of his character, such as his expertise and use of outside information, is what propels the article forward to convey his message to his rather educated audience. Francis also tries to disguise his ethical argument as a logical argument through means of stating facts with no back up to said claim.

Revised

Physics has many uses in fields from biology and chemistry all the way down to sociology. In the article, "Quantum and Consciousness Often Mean Nonsense" by Matthew Francis, Francis uses various rhetorical strategies in relation to the rhetorical situation to convey to his educated audience that cross-disciplinary research should be done with caution. This paper will examine how the author uses these strategies to convey his argument by deconstructing his strategies and in turn showing how to become more aware of how to construct an argument in the field of physics.

Project 2 Outline

In this post I will be talking about a reading and how it help develop my outline for project 2. I will also be providing an outline of my paper to both help me and so you can see how I am moving forward.

Wei, "Coffee, Stain, Paper, Texture, Text, Textured Paper" uploaded 26 December 2009 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

I found that the most helpful parts for me were the thesis, body and conclusion. I have always found it somewhat difficult to write a thesis when it comes to analyzing rhetoric, but this section helped me by giving me a question to answer. By being able to just answer a question, the thesis became a lot simpler. I have also found it somewhat difficult to transition between paragraphs and concluding paragraphs. These two problems were addressed by the section entitles body and again gave me a somewhat easy question for each paragraph that I could easily answer. Finally in the conclusions section I found the entire conclusion section helpful because I used to only restate the thesis and then add a couple extrapolations from the analysis or connect it to other areas of study, but the section gave a lot more ways to write a conclusion and in turn made it a lot easier to write.

• Introduction
• Context
• Why I am writing this?
• Who I am writing this for?
• Why does it matter?
• Thesis: The main use of ethos is stronger than the logical arguments produced.
• Logic
• Structure of the article.
• Discuss how it draws the reader down
• Breaks the article
• What kind of logical progression it creates
• How this interacts with the audience
• Use of hyperlinks
• How are these a logical argument
• What does it do for the audience
• How this ties into the ethical appeals
• Transition between logic and ethical
• ethical disguised as logical
• credible sources
• Ethical
• Expertise
• How does this act as a logical argument
• Why is this an appeal to the character
• How does the author effectively use it
• What does this do for the audience
• Why is this so effective
• Author
• Why is the expertise effective
• What allows for the expertise appeal
• Conclusion
• Restate thesis
• Answer the so what
• Not about subject about the rhetorical analysis as a whole

Draft of Rhetorical analysis

In this post I have provided a link to the draft of my rhetorical analysis.

OpenClipartVectors "Draft, Business, Document, File, Filing, Office", uploaded 13 October 2013 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

To my peer reviewers, first off, thank you, second I hope you guys can look for lots of grammatical errors and where my lines of reasoning fall short. I tend to sometime be a little too wordy as well so if you find places that seem like they keep droning on please let me know, Any other general revisions are greatly appreciated.

Practicing Summary and Paraphrase

In this post I will be taking a significant portion of the text I am analyzing and put it into my own phrase highlighting the key point in the text. After I paraphrase the quote I will be summarizing it into one sentence.

McCarthy, Mel, "silk flower manufacturing text paper" uploaded 24 March 2011 via flickr.com, Attribution non-commercial sharealike 2.0 Generic

Original Source

"I hold degrees in physics and have spent a lot of time learning and teaching quantum mechanics. Nonphysicists seem to have the impression that quantum physics is really esoteric, with those who study it spending their time debating the nature of reality. In truth, most of a quantum mechanics class is lots and lots of math, in the service of using a particle’s quantum state—the bundle of physical properties such as position, energy, spin, and the like—to describe the outcomes of experiments."

My Paraphrase of the Original Source

Matthew Francis talks about how he taught quantum mechanics for a long time. He thinks normal people think all quantum mechanics is, is contemplating the universe. However, for Francis, experiments in quantum mechanics usually take on the structure of lots of math and then trying the experiment to see if that is how it turned out.

My Summary of the Original Source

In the quote above, Matthew Francis give his own experiences with teaching and learning quantum mechanics and how it differs from the public view.

Draft Thesis Statements

In this post I will be giving you three different thesis statements for my rhetorical analysis essay. I will also be telling you a little about them, what I think of them, what I had trouble with and where my project might be heading.

Raak, Jens "Books, Science, Shelf, Library, Book, Read, Education" uploaded 3 November 2009 via pixabay.com. Public Domain.

In Matthew Francis's article "Quantum and Consciousness Often Mean Nonsense", Francis relies almost entirely on his credibility through use of his expertise in the field and providing links to further reading, to convey to his rather educated audience that cross-disciplinary research should be a cautious pursuit. While he does rely heavily on his character, his logic strategies hinder his argument due to the lack of persistent use of logical arguments.

• This thesis, while I think is not as strong as I'd hope it'd be does have everything that I want to talk about. My main struggle with this thesis was that the wording of my thoughts about the article was hard to put into a readable statement. Using this thesis, I would probably continue by heavily analyzing his use of ethos then continue to show why his logical argument falls short.

Although Matthew Francis does use some logical strategies to convey his argument that cross disciplinary research should be done with caution, they hinder rather than help his argument while his use of his character, such as his expertise and use of outside information, is what propels the article forward to convey his message to his rather educated audience.

• I think this is the stronger of the two theses because it seems more condensed and seems to carry more power behind it as a result. From this thesis, I would continue by discussing his logical argument, then explaining how his ethical argument is disguised as a logical argument and the concluding by discussing in detail why this article uses ethos so much.

Analyzing My Audience

In this post I will be discussing the audience I am addressing. Specifically I will be analyzing them using a list of questions from A Student's Guide.

Unsplash, "Audience, Crowd, People, Persons, Concert, Event, Music" uploaded 17 May 2015 via pixabay.com. Public Domain

Who am I writing for? What are the audience's beliefs and assumptions?

• I am writing for a new student to my field who has no clue how to write a public opinion article in my field. Some of the assumptions about them is that they are interested in the subject but have no clue how to write any form of opinion article.

What position might they take on the issue? How will I need to respond to this position?

• The audience will most likely agree that the writer of the article does use a lot of logical strategies however I will need to respond to this by showing that the author isn't using logic that much but is more heavily relying upon his character.

What will they want to know?

• The audience will want to know how the argument the author of the article is presenting is conveyed. In other word they will want to know how the author argues his 

How might they react to my argument?

• I think they will be somewhat confused about how the dependence on ethos overtakes any other form of rhetorical strategies.

How am I trying to relate or connect with my audience?

• I will try to establish a form of character and authority as a person who has some form of hidden knowledge about the text and how it works that I am bestowing upon the audience.

Are there any specific words, idea, or modes of presentations that will help me relate to them?

• By using words that convey a deeper understanding of the text and background knowledge in the field I will be able to convey a sense that I know what I am talking about and not entirely BSing this essay.

Cluster of Quantum Consciousness

For this post I created a Coggle outline of my rhetorical analysis and how to put it together. I will be discussing what I did and why it is important.

Kisiel, Elliot, "Screenshot of My Coggle outline", taken 7 October 2015 via coggle.com

In the outline above, I essentially broke down the questions into three different branch and from there broke those branches down into the important details. Each of the branches covers one of the major topics in my paper and as such are split into those groups allowing for easy access to the information and implementation.

Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in My Text

In this post I will be analyzing several different rhetorical approaches in my text. I will be analyzing the ethical, logical and emotional arguments in my text. In each of the of the rhetorical arguments I will be answering several questions associated with them.

Tomisti, "Aristotle in Nuremberg Chronicle" uploaded 27 October 2005 via wikipedia.com, Public Domain.

Ethical

• What are some devices the author uses?
• Expertise- "I hold degrees in physics and have spent a lot of time learning and teaching quantum mechanics."
• Reliable Resources: The author utilizes hyperlinks so the reader can be directed to more information on the subjects.
• Counterarguments- "I’ll hedge my bets: Maybe there’s room for some small quantum effects in the brain, but I sincerely doubt those will be directly relevant for consciousness."
• How and why would the author use these?
• The author uses the three devices above because overall it strengthens his argument. The author uses his expertise by stating that he has taught quantum physics and has a PhD in physics to show that he knows about quantum mechanics. The use of reliable sources shows that he draws his information from sources that don't provide "crackpot" information. Finally the acknowledgement of the counterargument shows that he knows about the other peoples opinions and can put them down in a logical manner.
• How do these affect the audience's view of the author's credibility?
• All of the above device add to the author;s credibility because it makes the audience think that he knows what he is talking about because he has a science background and provides information about the things hes talking about so the audience knows that hes not making up complete bullshit.
• How do these strategies affect the overall message of the text?
• The above strategies overall reinforce the credibility of the article. In doing so the author is reinforcing the message the article by providing less opportunities for the reader to poke holes in his argument.
• Does the author have biases that affect his credibility?
• Yes the author has a bias against people who are not as intelligent. For example, when the author says, "We don’t know exactly how some things in quantum physics work, we don’t know exactly how to go from the brain to consciousness, so maybe consciousness is quantum." which, while seems unbiased, actually has a somewhat condescending tone about it which takes away from the credibility of the author.

Emotional

• What are some devices the author uses? 
• Images:The author has a comic which breaks the text half way through to give the reader a break from reading
• Humor: The comic the author uses has a somewhat dark, yet still relevant humor to it.
• Tone of Voice: "We don’t know exactly how some things in quantum physics work, we don’t know exactly how to go from the brain to consciousness, so maybe consciousness is quantum." This is an example of a somewhat condescending tone of voice.
• What emotional responses is the author trying to create?
• The author is attempting to make the whole idea that is being criticized in the article seem like it is a funny idea that doesn't actually make much sense. This however at some times fails because he comes off sounding pretentious and condescending.
• What is the actual results?
• The actual results from the attempts to make the situation sound funny can come off as sounding slightly preachy. However he does succeed in making the opposing view point sound far fetched and funny.
• Are these strategies effective?
• In this specific situation I think that the strategies are effective because the intended audience is more of an educated audience who knows a little to a lot about quantum mechanics and related physics fields. Even though it may sound condescending, the author's use of it is not directed at the audience but rather people who don't know a lot about physics in general and buy bogus ideals which makes it effective for the audience he is speaking to.
• How does this affect the credibility of the author?
• The credibility of the author seems to be strengthened by using these emotional appeals because it shows that he knows 1) what he is talking about and able to use the humor and comic properly and 2) he knows who his audience is how he should speak to them.

Logical

• What strategies does the author employ?
• Logical tranisitions between sections: Each one of his paragraphs has a main point which ends with a connection to the following main idea.
• Expert opinion: The author uses both hyperlinks and his own expert opinion to help with the logical reasoning.
• Arrangement of text/images: The author breaks the text halfway through with a relevant comic which both ties his ideas together visually and breaks the text for amusement.
• What response is the author attempting to employ?
• The author is attempting to create a logical argument back by his credibility to relate to his audience. His audience is a generally educated audience which means that they relate heavily to the logical argument. This is why it is so important for the article to be logically structured and heavily based on logical arguments.
• What is the acutal result?
• The actual result is that the author produces a logically structured article that is more based off of his credibility and knowledge of the subject. This in turn makes the author's logical argument fall flat while the structure holds the logic together.
• Are these effective?
• To the audience he is talking to I think the effectiveness is not as effective as it could be. The audience, being generally educated, rely on strong logical arguments, which while its present in the article is not the strongest argument.

Analyzing Message in My Text

In this post I will be talking abut the specific as to how the message of my text is delivered to the audience and how that affects the overall message of the text.  I will be doing this by addressing several questions posed by reading.

Settergren, "Message in a Bottle, Post, Bottle, Sand, Beach, Glass" uploaded 8 August 2014 via pixabay.com, Public Domain

Three most useful bullet points?

I found that the three most useful bullet points to use while evaluating the message of the text were,

• What contemporary events may have shaped the author's view and the audience's responses
• What medium is used to deliver the message? What "rules" or conventions are typical to the medium?
• What social or historical movements are related to the topic?

I found that these were most effective because 

1) The way in which this article is published (online) means that the targeted audience is a lot smaller and fit a younger demographic making his article specifically tailored to them and not a general audience.

2) There must have been something that sparked this sudden outrage against the idea of quantum consciousness which means that the events surrounding this article are important to look at.

3) Along with 2, the common misconceptions by the public about what physic topics means has produced a lot of controversies over the years and is key to understanding why this topic came about.

Which bullet points do not seem relevant?

I found that the date of publication and the the physical materials surround the article to be less important because the date of publication was so close to current events that there is not much difference in the culture between then and now. In addition to this the fact that this was published on slate.com does not have much of an effect on the context of the article due to the fact that this article does not carry much political bias.

Are there layers to the message?

I think that there are definitely key layers to the message the author is trying to convey. For one the article's title is about "Quantum Consciousness" however the author spends a good majority of the article discussing two separate things: language in science and cross discipline research.  To the audience it may seem as though these are all connected and they are, but they are layers to the deeper message being put across: that the misinterpretation of science leads to misinformed public and lack of understanding of how science actually works and functions.

Analyzing My Own Assumptions

In this passage I will be analyzing my own assumptions I have about both the text and the culture surrounding the text. To evaluate my own assumptions I will be answering a series of 4 questions from the Writing Public Lives reading.

Swearingen, Johnathan, "Quantum-Physics" uploaded 22 February 2008 via deviantart.com. Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License.

1) What cultural values do we share?

I believe that I share values with the culture that is present in the text that a lot of the language in physics is misused and misleading. I also think that I share a somewhat similar view to what the idea of consciousness means to the rest of the pubic. Not only consciousness but I also think I share a connection to what the purpose of science is and that these are fundamental questions to ask.

2) What cultural values do I not share?

I think that one of the main difference between what I assume about the culture and how the cultural context actually is is that for me I have more of a knowledge base in physics so this article is written in a context with which I am familiar with and therefore have a greater connection. In addition to this I don't think that I share the same kinds of ideas of what it means to be conscious as the context that the author is putting this article in, instead I have a more philosophical approach to the consciousness question and not so much a technical question.

3) What is the difference between my culture and the culture surrounding the text?

To me the difference between the culture I was raised in as opposed to the culture of the text was that the author is writing this topic from an east coast perspective. With that said, there isn't much difference in the science however the way in which he portrays people who have no clue what he is talking about is a more condescending and demeaning tone as well as a lot more technical use of language and scientific terms.  This is vastly from the culture I grew up in where people tend to be respectful of other's lack of knowledge and people still understand what term you mean through context and not the requirement of using as technical language.

4) What is the historical difference between the culture then as opposed to now? 

Since this article was written under a year ago the culture has not changed that much however within that year the focus of science has become a much more key issue. Climate change science has become much more critical of humans and is therefore has a much larger array of people commenting on the science claims as opposed to just climate scientists.

Analyzing My Text's Cultural Setting

In this post I have determined when and where and in what time reference the author is writing in. Knowing these thing I will then answer three questions related to analyzing the cultural values that arise from this setting.

N, Andreas, "Clock, Alarm Clock, Bell, Dial" uploaded 24 December 2014 via pixabay.com. Public Domain.

• What values, ideas, norms etc. play an important role in the text? 

Certain questions like what the purpose of science is, and what is consciousness play a key role in this article. Along with these questions just the concept and ideas of science and consciousness play a huge role in this article. People tend to take what science says as 100% truth which is why it is so dangerous for people in science to make huge claims that cross multiple disciplines and make some assumptions about the nature of us or the universe that is not backed up by other people research into the topic.

• Does the text address these cultural ideas and such directly or indirectly?

The author of this addresses these ideas both in a direct way and indirect way. For one, the common misconceptions about science and physics he addresses directly along with the cross discipline writings of professors. The author indirectly interacts with the deep ideas surrounding this topic by talking about things tangential to the deep questions like what is consciousness but never actually addressing the question directly.

• How does the text interact with these elements?

The author of this article is critical of both the scientific papers and books publish across disciplines as well as the misconceptions about quantum physics and physics in general. The author also goes on to talk about the problems of naming and words in science that mean something vastly different to people in the public domain. He addresses this issue and hopes to clarify misleading terms.

Cultural analysis of Quantum Consciousness Often Means Nonsense

In this post I will be addressing several key words I found useful when analyzing "Quantum Consciousness Often Means Nonsense". I will also be discussing what the thesis for his article is. Finally I will conclude this post by answering several questions related to the culture behind the text.

Monniaux, David, "Meissner Effect" uploaded 13 October 2007 via wikipedia.com. Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Keywords

Three keywords that I found useful while analyzing this piece for cultural context were consciousness, science and quantum mechanics. 

The first keyword I chose because that is what the entire article is based off of. To the everyday person the idea of consciousness also conveys a lot of philosophical debate that a majority of people are more or less familiar with. 

Science falls in that same category. If you read my QRG on the debate going on over the scientific method, this will help inform you on what the word science conveys to a majority of people as well as scientists.

The word quantum mechanics I found to be just as central to the debate in this article as well as being one of the most misinformed about concept in physics. This produces both interesting interpretations as well as interesting connections between words.

Argument

The basic argument of this text is that scientist should not try to cross into other science fields unless there is a joint team that has specialists in both fields to correct the other fields when they get things wrong.

Connections

In the article one of the passage discusses how the public tends to view quantum mechanics. This paragraph seems to be slightly condescending to the reader because it makes it seem as though the reader is just another person from the public who has no understanding what quantum mechanics actually is. In connection with the thesis this paragraph seems to strengthen his argument because it makes it seem that while the person in reading the article may not know a thing about quantum mechanics it is safe to assume that the author knows a significant portion of the field.  This ties into the argument by showing that a person should not act as though they know everything about a field if he or she doesn't have someone there to correct them when they are wrong.

Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

In this post I have found three articles that I will be analyzing the author, audience and context using the guidelines in A Student's Guide reading.

Jordan, Brett, "Rhetorical (1 of 2)" uploaded 8 July 2011 via flickr.com. Attribution 2.0 Generic

Far Out, Man. But Is It Quantum Physics?

• Author: The author of this piece is a graduate from M.I.T with a degree in physics. This gives him credibility in the subject because this article is centered around the degree he has. In addition he has also written other pieces on quantum mechanics and other physics related topics. 

• Audience: This piece is directed at a somewhat intelligent, scientifically read audience. The other side of the audience is a group of people who believe in quantum mysticism and other such ideas about quantum theory.

• Context: This piece was written on the New York Times website in the science section.  It was written in 2006 when the movie "What the @#$% Do We Know" was very popular and created a somewhat cult following. This lead to the idea of quantum consciousness which is what the article is about.

Quantum Consciousness Often Means Nonsense.

• Author: The author of this article is a physicist and also a science writer.  In addition to his numerous science articles with Slate.com he also will sometimes critique the scientif community as well as the misunderstood public about their interpretations of physics. 

• Audience: The audience of this piece is somewhat complex. For one it is directed at people who know about quantum mechanics or are somewhat familiar with the idea of it. On the other hand it is directed at people who believe in the idea of quantum consciousness. For both of these audiences, the author has something to say about both sides tending to side with the former rather than the later.

• Context: This article was written on slate.com. Slate tends to be a more liberal news organization which means that this article will most likely have some form of liberal bias. Not only that but this was written last year which is around the time when the idea of quantum consciousness began to take off.

Can We do Without Relativity?

• Author: The author is an author of a blog about how science and scientific theories are wrong. He also is not a knowledgeable scientist and does not hold any degrees in physics. This contradicts the fact that he is talking about something that he does not have a solid understanding of the science behind it.

• Audience: This pieces focuses on a very conservative audience. The people who read this article tend to discredit science because of its wily and far fetched ideas. The audience is also a group of people who don't understand the complexity of relativity and how are scared of what it implies.

• Context: This was written in The American Spectator which is a libertarian and conservative news organization. This means that it is harsh on science and liberal, both of which relativity tends to be backed by.  The author also puts this in the context of his book Questioning Einstein. 

EDIT: After reading through Micheal's and Bri's rhetorical situations I decided to take another look over my own rhetorical situations and analysis. Looking through all of our analysis was fairly similar specifically looking at how the each of the elements above works with the the text to make the texts rhetorical. One thing that I realized I should do after reading through Bri's blog was go back and make sure people were able to visit my chosen rhetorical situations.