Now that we have finished project 2, I will be continuing on to project 3. This will require more initial research and rhetorical analysis. Here, I begin that rhetorical analysis.
Author:
I finally declared a major: psychology! Which happens to be the field of study I focused on for the last project. I’ve found that I have a lot of excitement about psychology related things. Like, how different personalities of someone with dissociative personality disorder can have an allergy while others might not. What! How cool. Things like that are just so exciting to me. So, I’m going to try to find a controversy that is of similar excitement. At this point I would like to be a therapist - figuring out why people have the dysfunctions they do is also really fascinating to me.
I try to keep up with current events but my time is limited so it is usually limited to my roommate and I watching CNN while we do homework. I don’t think current events will have too much effect on my public argument because it would take a lot of front work to catch up on them in order to influence my thoughts.
My hobbies are mostly art related - I like music, painting, drawing, and dogs. Dogs are definitely a large part of my interests. I’ve played piano for fifteen years and spent a lot of time drawing and painting throughout my life. Global development and multicultural awareness are really important to me. I spent a couple months in Nicaragua and a shorter period of time in Panama and Costa Rica. Latin American culture is so beautiful. I love participating in it and learning about it.
My mom has a degree in psychology which has exposed me to a lot of different areas of psychology. She’s worked in hospitals, as a mediator, as well as welcomed the idea of therapy and self development. Therapy is hugely valued in our family. As a middle class family, we’ve had reasonable access to affordable therapy options.
Until I was eight, we lived in a small town in New York. There was a strong sense of community. We have tried to create that in Arizona as well through cohousing. This has helped me to develop a sense of understanding and general sensitivity.
I have lived a fairly privileged life - as a white, middle class, woman from an educated family I have had a lot of factors working to my advantage. This has resulted in a lot of cultural power. I feel like this may make my opinion more optimistic than is realistic.
Audience:
Depending on my controversy, I am either going to target an audience of psychologists or people who have no clue about anything in psychology. I want to either argue something that is up for debate between psychologists or something that is unknown to most people but still really important to understand.
This audience will either be completely oblivious or very very educated. I will either have to make a topic that could be of no interest to my audience very interesting or be educated enough on a subject to make it convincing enough to the people who already know loads about it. Either way, my audience may be hesitant to accept my argument - based on lack or interest or lack of belief in my credibility. This means I have to make my argument both interesting and educated.
Hopefully, my audience will be swayed to agree with my argument. In order to do this I will make my argument interesting by making it relatable and relevant - relating it to the author’s lives and interests and describing why it matters. I will also make my argument credible by doing research and educating myself.
If I were presenting this argument to my roommates, none of whom are psychology majors, I would have to make it appeal to all of them. It would need to be interesting and appeal to their diverse interests. It would need to be concise so that it doesn’t drag on and also help them to understand the situation enough to feel like they are educated enough to have an opinion.
Purpose/Message
I want to learn about a controversy in the field of psychology. I currently have no idea what controversies there are or even if there are any. So that will be task number one. After that I want to convince people of whatever side I take.
From what I understand, it is difficult to just get involved in the field of psychology without much previous education. So sparking the interest of my audience and motivating them to want to learn more and keep up with my issue.
There are some new breakthroughs in the debate of Nature vs. Nurture. The combined influence of both Nature and Nurture is an idea that is spreading with increasing speed. This is the idea that people should be educating themselves on or learning more about. I still need to understand the entirety of this aspect as only two of my sources reflect this. However, I am going to center my argument around the combined importance of nature and nurture.
Context
I was initially planning on doing a video essay for this project, but now I am thinking it will be more effective to do a standard college essay. This will lead the audience to expect a lot of supporting evidence - citations, sources, quotes, etc.
I have written tons of college style essays throughout high school and college. This is definitely the genre I am most comfortable in. This will make my project a little easier and less stressful because I won’t have to stress about figuring out the genre conventions.
I think quoting and citing sources is the most important convention of this genre. Because I don’t have much credibility based solely on my knowledge, I will have to demonstrate to my reader that I am knowledgeable through other people’s knowledge. After that, the structure will also be important. Catching the reader’s attention through the introduction will be what convinces my reader to keep reading. Then, continuing to prove my points throughout the rest of the paragraphs and then finally concluding the essay and wrapping my thoughts together will be helpful.
A large issue that has been a topic of contention for many people involved in the Nature vs. Nurture is mental illness. Parents were blamed for a long time but newer studies are beginning to suggest genetics. This has shaped the argument of Nature vs. Nurture.
Many different people have participated in this debate. An article on CNN in 2013 describes the effect of nature on school performance, arguing that first-born children perform better in school. An ABC News article describes a unique twin study in which the twins were accidentally separated yet maintained many developmental similarities, arguing the importance of nature over nurture. BBC explains the combined influence of nature and nurture on mental illness. NPR describes a highly unethical study done in secret over forty years ago in which identical twins were separated at birth. The results argue that both genetics and environment contribute - a little over half of a personality is attributed to genetics.
Some still believe that it is one or the other. A Times Higher Education article argues that genetics play a greater role. Similarly, an article published on The Wall Street Journal explains that genetics determine response to nature, so nature must be the dominant determiner. However, an article on Parents describes the overarching effects of nurture in parenting. Likewise, an article on Science Daily describes the important impact of nature in shaping personalities and other traits during childhood.
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