08 crafting the message_reflections

8/3/2019 08 Crafting the Message_reflections

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Response to Eckhouse Introduction and Chapter 1

David Owens-Hill

The basic notion underlying classical rhetoric is that any act of verbal communication

between human beings comprises four components: (1) a speaker or writer, (2) listeners

or readers, (3) a message or text, and (4) a reality or universe that the message or text is

talking about. All four of those components play a part in business or professional

communications; but of those four, the one that gets primary consideration is audience

that is, the listeners or readers

-Edward P. J. Corbett

When writing a reflection for class based on reading, I follow a pretty simple

format for choosing on which (of the undoubtedly many) topics in the reading I will

respond. I use a pen to mark the things in the book that I find relevant and useful, and the

items that are fervently circled, underlined, or starred get more attention in the reflection

than the items that are not. Its basic prioritization; nothing fancy. In the introduction of

the Eckhouse text, I circledtwicethe passage above in which Eckhouse cited Corbetts

model of basic classical rhetoric. For a great long time I have known the gist of rhetoric,

but it was not until I read the above passage that I understood the basic formula for

determining the rhetorical validity of a communicative act. I may put this passage on my

fridge, where I sometimes stick index cards with passages that I come across that make

me feel like I can relive an aha! moment.


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Chapter one had fewer violent circles and underlines, but no fewer aha!

moments. Its a little known fact that, before going to art school and embarking on a

career focusing on brand-management, I briefly went to architecture school to try my

hand at that profession. It was a difficult program, and I was successful, but I didnt buy

the hype that the profession professed. I understand, after reading the case study

presented in Chapter one, that I was rebelling against the non-rhetorical nature of the

profession and slipped naturally into a profession that is based entirely in rhetoric.

I was happy to learn from the case study, which Eckhouse correctly identified as

applicable to any industry or profession, that my role as a brand-manager is rhetorical and

that the strategies I implement, many of which I was never formally taught, were centered

on emphasizing the client in communication and maintaining the relationship between

communicator and audience. For example, in a previous role at a nonprofit organization,

part of my responsibilities included internal communication strategy for a loosely

affiliated audience closely comparable to a transient staff. Because this audience was

only loosely tied to our organization, I worked to refine our strategyand our expected

outcomesas related to this group. Instead of expecting immediate buy in, I worked with

this group to ensure a comprehensive understanding of our institutional philosophy and

buy-in on our messaging. If I sensed resistance, I worked with the audience to explain our

position, or looked for ways to reflexively change the message, either in substance or in

mechanism, to accommodate the needs of the audience.

Point (4) in Corbetts quotes that a reality or universe that a message is talking

about is necessary in classic rhetorical study. I want this to be my take-away from this

reading. In order to achieve classical rhetorical study, I believe that you have to


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acknowledge the moment-in-time nature of complete communicative acts. Maybe that

will join the quote in its entirety on the index card on my fridge.


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Response to Eckhouse Chapters 4, 5, & 6

David Owens-Hill

Though chapters 4, 5, and 6 covered a range of important topicsespecially as we

explored ethics and fallacies in chapter 6I think it safe to say the most important take-

away from these chapters is the presentation of an argument visually in a proofline,

which translates into a model for argumentative writing.

Being a professional message-crafter I work with the notion of presenting

arguments each day, but much of what I did relied on what felt right. Now, after

reading about Toulmins proofline and working on one for class I understand the notion

of presenting arguments in a specific way to ensure effectiveness. My career roles have

always been in shaping visualmessages, so the notion of translating a proofline to a

written memo is completely foreign; the notion of translating a proofline to a content

map, however, feels very natural. I would call this an aha moment in my understanding

of argumentative communication.

The rules of argumentative writing as outlined in our reading tend to be fairly

rigid. I learned (probably because I went to art school and not communication school)

that the key to crafting a message was in a sound reasoning structure. We would often

draft mind-mapsthough that term was not yet coined, Im struggling to remember what

we called themwith our primary mission in a circle on the middle of a whiteboard or a

huge sheet of paper. This mission would ideally have a supporting creative brief from

which you could pull salient details about the direction of travel upon which you were

about to creatively embark. If the clients brief indicated a traditional approach, you


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would begin to outline ways to make the argument visually using reserved colors and

classical type treatments. You may tape or pin-up samples from inspiration piles or

sketches that you quickly hammered out with pen and paper (no computers!) Some

students and professionals would pull Pantone chips to indicate color choices,

occasionally FPO images would be used to set tone. From the center point, you would

begin to work outward until you had defined the various components of a design

campaign. Ultimately this mind-map (what the heck were they called back then?!) would

be transferred to a mockup board and covered with trace so that it could be presented to

the client, a professor, or a review team. I was often in the habit of using a double layer of

tracethe one that laid directly on top of my proposal would have notes that I made

anticipating questions from the reviewer and the top layer was reserved for their notes.

This processwhich at the time felt like a gigantic waste of timeforced me to

understand the importance of looking at the solution to a problem as the culminating

result of the answers to hundreds of design-questions. The extra layer of trace allowed me

to plan for rebuttals. Reflectively, I wish I had appreciated more the value of so

thoroughly understanding a project before beginning it. I do understand now the parallels

between that level of preparedness and the measure of preparedness offered by a

proofline.

Chapters 4 and 5 were all about the prooflineand it is no-doubt important and

usefulbut the list of fallacies in chapters 6 may be the most useful listing of information

in the book. Though knowing the formal names of the types of fallacies is an interesting

party trick, the real value is in recognizing them in the wild. I feel certain that this list is a

collection of information that I will turn to again when I struggle to figure out why


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something doesnt feel right which is how I traditionally uncovered ethics violations in

life and in academia. Im pleased that Im now armed with a set of fallacies upon which I

can build diagnostic criteria and further explore.


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Response to Eckhouse Chapters 7

David Owens-Hill

I will confess that I struggled with chapter 7. Maybe I was hungry, maybe the

wind was blowing the wrong way, but for whatever reason I just wasnt getting ethos. I

looked up the definition (the moral element in dramatic literature or rhetoric that

determines a characters action rather than his or her thought or emotion) and thought

hard about a contemporary counterpart, but nothing clicked. Until I read, of all things, the

Related Reading footnotes at the end of the chapter. The author suggests we read The

Harper & Row Rhetoric: Writing as Thinking/Thinking as Writing, and explains that this

work contains a discussion of a writers persona. Boom; there was the word I needed to

bring it all home.

In my academic studies and in my professional roles, I have consistently

gravitated towards experiential storytelling. Ive been drawn to roles marketing

organizations that represent not a product, not exactly a service, but a lifestyle. In the

nonprofit sector I worked to explain the value of arts in our community. In the higher

education sector I encourage external audiences to understand the importance of a liberal

arts education in a world that seems counter to the very notion.

Carl Jung defined persona as a complicated system of relations between

individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the

one had to make an impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of

the individual (1928, p. 305). I like to believe that Jungs definition casts the least

positive light possible on the term, and think that in reality it lives in a space more akin to


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the performers on Habermas stage. Its what we choose to show; where we choose to

live.

Having worked in marketing, I understand the importance of crafting a message

an activity that is bandied about pretty fast-and-loosewith little understanding of the

realities of the necessity of revision and channel selection. I was pleased to see the

section in the chapter that explains the lengths that John Gage spent on crafting one short

sentence on George Louis Leclerc. Though the time necessary to perform this analysis on

each message presented in the professional world would is a luxury afforded to few, it is

nevertheless an important skill to understand and master. I like to think of this ability to

review and edit on the fly in much the same way that I think of our evolving skill in

reflecting on the fly. Its less than ideal, but necessary in our modern business world.

Im struck by something else as I think back over the chapter the ability to

successfully channel ethos into your rational argument seems naturalat least to some.

There are people in this world who so seamlessly integrate their persona and their

argument that youd never know they were employing this tent-post of rhetoric. I wonder

if these people are truly effective communicators or if they are blessed with the innate

ability to understand efficacy in a way that cant be taught. I dont have an answer for

that, but think its an interesting question. Something to ponder for the next reflection.


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Reflection on Production Programs for Crafting the Message

David Owens-Hill

Fulldisclosure:IwritethisreflectioninpartwhilethinkingaboutDr.Neales

presentationonusingGarageBandtocreatepodcastmediapresentations.

Ihaveneverusedaudiotopresentanargument.Perhapsthisstemsfroma

lifelongdislikeofmyownvoiceoraperceivedinabilitytohearfinedetail.Idont

actuallythinkeitherofthosethingsaffectmyabilitytopresentamessageviaaudio,

butIcantthinkofotherreasonsthatIdontdoit.Ihaveusedprintmediaand

motiongraphics(bothweb,intereactivekiosk-style,andvideo)butneveraudio.

HeresthethingIdontknowthatIwantto.

Audioisapowerfulmedium.AllonehastodoistunetoThisAmericanLife

onNPRtounderstandtheimpactofcarefullyconsideredaudioandsoundtrack.But

Ifindthismodeofstorytellingbestlefttoaparticulartypeofprofessionalinthe

craft.Therearepeoplewhocanartfullyarticulateamessageinveryfewwordsand

withveryfewadditionalelements,andthentherearepeoplelikemewhocan

articulateamessage,butrelyonacollectionofpresentationmaterialstoaccomplish

thisgoal.DontmisunderstandIbelievethatlessismore,butIalsobelivethatIcan

notartfullytellastoryinanaudio-onlyformat.WhenItry,Ifindmywritingtobe

flatandmonosyllabic.Idontthinkinwords,Ithinkinpictures.Becauseofthis,

audiojustisntinmywheelhouse.


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Idontthinkthisisapersonalorprofessionallimitation.Ithinkitsvery

usefultounderstandonesstrengths,andIfeelminelieinvisualstorytelling.Ilook

forwardtopresentingvisualargumentsinclassusingavarietyofmediatopresenta

persuasivemessage.


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Reflection on Writing for the Ear

David Owens-Hill

I found the list of 13 tips for writing for the ear incredibly helpful. I decided to

reflect and write about why this list of simple to-do items is particularly helpful for

someone with my background.

I have said in reflection after reflection that I am a print-person and have no

background in spoken word or audio presentation, and I will say it one more time: I work

in print. We are fundamentally different creatures than those people who work in audio.

We wear headphones, but its usually so we can blast some form of indie, quasi-Hipster,

cooler-than-you music that you probably havent heard of without disrupting our

neighbors. Coincidentally, this environment of hyper-competitive music selection is

important to our work as it often guides the cadence of our thought and thus the tone of

our design.

I wrote down the list of 13 items (copied at the end of this reflection so I can

reference it later) and left it laying around the house for a couple of days. My roommate,

Marshall, picked up the list and one point and started chuckling. I had to know what he

was laughing about, and he said it was numbers 3, 5, and 7: keep sentences short, use

short words, and avoid parenthetical statements. I still didnt understand the laughing, so

he explained that he often thinks of my writing being read in the voice of an 18th century

English viceroy; lofty, highfalootin, unnecessarily verboseuhwordy. He said that I

was incapable of writing in the way the list of items on the kitchen counter told me I

should.


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I dont necessarily agree with Marshall, but I cede his point. I learned to tell a

story with words. A print-persons work is less temporal than an audio-persons work.

When I have a piece produced, the cost of doing business ensures that it will stay in the

world for a little while. An audio persons work is gone literally at the speed of sound.

They have one shot to make their piece work.

As a communication grad student that has no experience as a communication

undergrad, there are times when a professor will mention something that I should know

that I simply dont. In the piece on writing for the ear, you mentioned signposting as a

step in public-speaking. Though I should take public speaking classes to conquer a few of

doing it, I havent, so this phrase was foreign to me. I looked it up, and think that youre

referring to this definition:

Signpost: a very brief statement that indicates where a speaker is in the speech or

that focuses attention on key ideas.

Im amazed at the simplicity of this notion, and that I havent heard of it earlier. Its a key

characteristic of effective copywriting (most closely related to the idea of headers in an

academic paper.) The idea that there are glossaries out there that can contextualize my

knowledge of copywriting/advertising in the world of greater communication to add to

my cache is something that I plan to explore further. I characterize this as a mini-aha!

moment.


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Things to remember when writing for the ear:

1. Use conventional language2. Use active verbs3. Keep sentences short4. Prefer the present tense5. Use short words6. Use the personal & intimate forms you and I7. Avoid parenthetical statements8. Paraphrase more, quote less9. Round-off and verbalize statistics10.Spell out numbers11.Spell out abbreviations12.Make your structure clear13.Polish the introduction and conclusion

08 crafting the message_reflections

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