WP1: Statement of Purpose

The main purpose of my project is to find insight in the argument of “Sitting on Rail” and to share the insight that I have found. Not only should the project share what was found, it should also explain how I found that and why I see the certain arguments in the photo. While describing the rhetorical techniques and appeals in the photo, I will need to use rhetorical techniques and appeals in my project, for my argument. This will keep my audience interested and my argument moving.

The project will be posted online, on this blog. That means the people who see it will be looking at it online. This is good because it is easier to use multimedia elements which can add to my argument as another way of displaying the ideas or concepts. It also means that I need to be sure to have good paragraph breaking so all the words do not run together on the screen.

By having this project online it opens up my audience. My main audience will be my teacher and classmates. But also, my audience should include future classmates and anyone who stumbles on the blog via Google or casual browsing. Fellow classmates and future classmates would be working on similar projects while reading through mine. I need to have unique ideas, to keep them interested in it, and need to explain my ideas clearly. This will give them ideas for their own project and to understand mine as well. My teacher will be reading this in the midst of reading multiple similar projects. To keep him interested I need to again be unique like stated before, but show thorough insight into the photographs argument. I have to be confident in what I see as the argument in “Sitting on Rail” and in describing why that is the argument of the photo.

The broad audience of anyone with access to the internet will be more difficult to keep in mind. Most likely if they find the project by a search engine, they are looking for a topic that I am covering in my paper. This means they most likely will be interested, but they will not know what we discuss in class or read in the book. Keeping this in mind, I need to describe these things clearly, or provide links that offer a description. My responsibilities to all of my audience is to teach them the argumentation of “Sitting on Rail”, explain the techniques and conclusions of the argument, and to brainstorm many ideas that different people could have about the argument and address them, to make the whole audience feel included.

The worries I need to keep in mind when constructing this project include being too general, speaking like monotone, making assumptions, and getting off topic. To avoid being too general I need to focus on explaining every idea I have, and showing where and how it came about. In order to avoid speaking like monotone, I need to remember to keep the voice professional, but to add my own voice as well. I do not want to make assumptions about what the audience does or does not know when speaking about photography and argumentation techniques. Although I will not want to describe all the techniques thoroughly, by using contexts that give clear ideas of what they could be or providing links to information would be ideal. While writing the project, I should keep in mind the main purpose I stated above and continuously check to see if what I am writing is supporting my main purpose.

The best possible outcome of this project would be to inspire the audience. That could be to inspire them to take photographs to capture arguments they want to make. Or it could be to inspire them to look at photographs and find arguments in them. It could even be to inspire them to find an additional argument in the photograph I have chosen. If this is accomplished I would be proud of the project and the knowledge I have shared with my audience. It will also make me proud if I can expand this photographs recognition, because it is a special photograph with an important argument to make.