WP2: Statement of Purpose

The main purpose of writing project two is to "rhetorically analyze a comic or comic strip". This means, in my final draft I will be showing my audience what the comic strip I have chosen is making an argument for and the rhetorical strategies it is using to make this argument. I will also need to make it clear to my audience why my project is important and what the comic strip accomplishes. On top of this, I would like to show what effect it has on the argument by using a comic strip as its media.

This project will be posted online as well. This is beneficial to obtaining a larger audience but also to enhancing the argument of the paper. By choosing relevant and important hyperlinks, I can make extra information available if the reader is interested, but can keep those extra details out of my actual writing. This allows me to cover the basic details that are important in supporting my argument, but to still provide the in depth details if the reader cares to understand it more fully.

Likewise, I can incorporate corresponding multimedia which also provides more support to my argument. Many people are visual learners and the photographs or videos I insert can enhance their interest and therefore what they take away from my paper. Even if a person is not a visual learner, having the visuals can help direct their thoughts about what I am saying or clarify in a new way what I am meaning.

My primary audience member is my teacher. On top of reading all the other students second projects at the same time he encounters mine, he has just seen all our first projects. Because of this, I need to be sure to make this project vary from the last one. This is a worry because the structure last time was very basic and this project could be set up similarly. But, if I keep this in mind and explore other arrangements such as comparisons or juxtapositions, hopefully I can avoid writing the same paper over a different topic.

Another concern I have for all my potential audience members is making my argument interesting. By using logos, pathos, and ethos, in my own argument this can be accomplished. On top of that, I need to make my writing style broad enough that most people can understand the points I am making and are not excluded by my choice of words or strategies. The peer-reviews should help me with this, because their feedback shows me how someone outside of my brain reads the points I am trying to make.

The best possible outcome of this writing project would show how the terms and points made in "Compose, Design, Advocate" and Scout McCloud's excerpt in "The Vocabulary of Comics" are reflected in the comic I have chosen. I can do this only if I use the terms provided in these two sources when speaking of the strategies used in my comic.
Also, if I can show my audience how the argument the comic makes is strengthened by using a comic strip as it's media, it could change the way they view or read comics in the future. It is always the goal of a writer to change how it's reader views or at least thinks about something, and that is what I would like to do too.