The 4 readings materials assigned for this week made me wonder about every single public blog post I have ever published in my few semesters of grad school. Michael Carter’s points of cognitive rhetoric vs. social rhetoric brings up an interesting relationship between general and local knowledge. It seems to me that one cannot be without the other. Carter mentions: “Beyond the level of competence, it is impossible to talk of improvement in writing without focusing on local knowledge” (282). We as creative students are always acquiring new forms of knowledge, especially through our peers and educators. But Carter made an interesting point that perhaps our academic studies would be more effective if we used local knowledge. This ultimately means that we would use our own findings, without the help of our instructors to figure out what piece of knowledge would be effective for us as students, and one day as educators. Furthermore, this brings me to another interesting epiphany I acquired. Cognitive rhetoric is overall the study of how writers process their information as they write, which brings me to John Duffy’s piece about ethical responsibilities within the realm of writing. As a writer, I have the ethical responsibility to thoroughly process the words I am putting down, whether its on paper, or worse… online. I found myself thinking about the responsive blog posts I created over the past years about academic articles. I have the ability to shape a reader’s beliefs through writing and that can be either beneficial for myself or harmful to another individual. It is simply not just writing with a pen and paper, there is crucial cognitive rhetoric behind it all. Just as we are taught, think before we speak, we need the mindset of, think before we write. Similarly, social rhetoric also involves an audience aka, the readers as well as our peers. Whether you are trying to stay in academia or take a creative route, your audience interaction is crucial. The content I produce provides a sense of satisfaction to the community I am trying to reach. With that being said, through a writing-based community, you are always learning something new, and majority of the time it will be “Words” that are always evolving. Dylan B. Dyers explained that the meaning of words change, depending on context, its situational. Especially now in a digital world, new approaches, new forms of knowledge, and new words are always developing. Finally, social rhetoric also brings us into the concept of language. A word in our language will most definitely not be the same in another country. It is not universally correct to think that the word we have for “Soda” is the same word in another country that doesn’t speak English. It is devastating to think that there are people out there who think writing is just a prompt, pen, and paper. When in reality it’s a wormhole of rhetoric.
Cognitive versus Social Rhetoric
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