This week, the class and I were assigned a couple of readings that would help us better our understanding of a topic that many of us didn’t have much knowledge of to begin with. Both of the texts regarding visual rhetoric, “Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing” and “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments”, were quite insightful. The first text was a comic with a lot of visual text, while the second reading was textually based. In the comic-style reading, I learned that many negative ideas surrounding the idea of rhetoric stem back to Ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Plato believed that the study and use of rhetoric was deceitful and only used to cover up any misinformation or lack of intellect that the speaker had. In other words, he regarded the use of rhetoric as superficial and unnecessary. His student Aristotle, on the other hand, was a strong proponent of rhetoric. He believed it was necessary in a democratic government to be able to successfully share and discuss ideas with your peers. He even came up with the three main components that a successful and effective communicator should possess: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos represents the credibility that a speaker should have when presenting a subject, Pathos is the degree to which a speaker appeals to empathy and understanding, and Logos is the evident amount of reasoning and logicality that a speaker has based on a topic. The text entitled “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments” was also quite educational on the (although not as amusing as the first text which included cartoons). It emphasizes the importance of visual rhetoric, especially those working in digital writing environments. The author states, “Interactive digital media have increasingly become part of what we analyze and teach when we teach writing.” This shows us that the purpose of the text is to inform readers on the value of staying up to date with new forms of writing and expression.
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