Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

Gage Skidmore "John Boehner" February 9, 2012 via Flickr
re-use with attribution

In this blog post I will analyse three rhetorical sources from my discipline (mechanical engineering) that apply to any of my research questions.

Sergio Marchionne on Electric Cars

Sergio Marchionne is the chief executive officer of Fiat-Chrysler Cars (FCA). He is very well known for being outspoken and brash about his opinions as this is a rare thing in the automotive industry. This article refers to some quite well known comments of his regarding electric cars.

Marchionne's direct audience is the attendees of the conference that he is speaking at. However, his more important audience, the indirect audience is the US Government. His message is that he dislikes mandates such as the California Zero Emissions mandates etc. He stated he would strongly prefer to simply be given goals and to have to meet them however he can.

The context for this discussion is the recent release of the Fiat 500e electric vehicle. Even though it sells for nearly double the price of the base Fiat 500 Pop at around $32,000 for the e, FCA looses more than $14,000 on each one they sell. Marchionne quite literally asks people not to buy them and says that as soon as he has sold as many as he needs to, no more will be available.

Michael Horn on VAG Diesel Scandal

Michael Horn is the President and CEO of Volkswagen America. He is a German executive who took over the reins at Volkswagen Group of America (VWGOA) in January of 2014.

Horn has many audiences in this speech. He is speaking directly to an assembly of reporters who are anxious to hear something about the enormous scandal that surrounds Volkswagen cheating on their emissions testing. He is also essentially offering an apology to the US government for Volkswagen's actions though he does nothing to actually explain why the company did this in the first place. His address is also the first step in contrition to the American public in order to slowly regain people's trust as people will not buy a vehicle from a brand that they don't trust. Finally, he is trying to be in the right place in regard to the Volkswagen supervisory board back in Germany as they surely want executive "heads to roll" and Horn surely does not want to be fired.

The context of Horn's address is that three days earlier, the EPA and a group of independent researchers released data that Volkswagen had systematically cheated their emissions testing by writing a protocol that could recognize an emissions test based on things like locked-straight steering and traction control turned off and then drastically modifies the engine programming to lower the nitrous oxide emissions to legal levels.

Bob Lutz Volkswagen Comments

Bob Lutz is a retired auto industry executive. He has worked at Ford, Chrysler, BMW, and General Motors as well as a number of other companies. He is somewhat of a legend in the automotive world.

His audience in this rhetorical speech is mostly the media. Lutz describes how the severe culture at Volkswagen could have resulted in people simply cheating as they did instead of failing to meet the requirements. He also discusses how he asked his engineers at General Motors how it was possible for Volkswagen to produce such powerful diesel engines that still passed emissions. The could not explain it. Lutz' final comment is that the onerous rules for diesel cars are essentially legislating them out of existence while diesel trucks have essentially optional regulations.

The context of Lutz' comments to the media are the same emissions cheating scandal I discussed in the analysis of Michael Horn's presentation.


------

I read Evan and Swati's analyses of rhetorical sources. Both had very interesting topics and chose some very good topics (Evan's articles were about outsourcing and Swati's were about medical controversies). I think I worked very hard on my original post and that I certainly spent an appropriate amount of time composing it. However, I wish I had somewhat better rhetorical acts in the first place. I think Sergio Marchionne was the best I could find because it was a particularly surprising thing to see a high level auto executive say. Perhaps other interesting rhetorical acts could be things that have been said by Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer as he is also notoriously outspoken.

Developing a Research Question

Machine Project "Microscope wonder" November 9, 2010 via Flickr
non-commercial reuse with attribution

In this blog post I will examine various research questions that could be utilized for Project 2.

Is there a way to develop non-urea injection diesel engines that will pass American emissions testing?

I would be very interested in researching this question because it ties in strongly to the recent discovery that Volkswagen cheated it's nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions testing. By installing a sophisticated software algorithm, the cars thus equipped were able to detect when they were undergoing an emissions test and radically alter their engine programming to be able to pass the test. This cheating was probably in large part due to the almost insurmountable technical hurdles involved in creating a diesel engine that does not use AdBlue urea injection to clean it's exhaust that can pass US emissions criteria. That difficulty as well as Mazda's difficulty in overcoming a similar hurdle motivates my interest in this particular question.

What is the exact science behind Audi's work on the Fischer-Tropsch process?

It has recently been widely reported that Audi has developed a refinement of the Fischer Tropsch process that will allow the capture of atmospheric CO2 to be combined with brackish water and with a significant amount of solar power, they can create gas. This is a remarkable achievement because the process is actually carbon negative meaning that driving high performance non-economical cars could actually help the environment if run on this gas. The current cost of the process is approximately twice the cost of gas in Europe in order for Audi's process to make a profit. As this is not that unreasonably expensive and I have an affinity for fast cars, this iis of significant interest to me.

What are the environmental costs of developing batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles?

This is also of interest to me as I do not like electric cars. I think they are a poor alternative to petrochemical fuels and while the vehicles do not emit damaging exhaust gasses themselves, they are still serious polluters due to the sources of most of the electrical energy in the United States. The other major source of pollution and environmental concern stems from battery production. Producing the high-tech lithium ion or nickel metal hydride batteries is a very energy intensive and environmentally destructive process. I would like to educate my dislike more so this would also be an interesting topic for me.

Reflection on Project 1

Eye-The world through my I's photostream "type" August 21, 2010 via Flickr
attribution non-commercial

In this blog post I am reflecting on my QRG based on the provided questions.

What challenges did you face during the Quick Reference Guide project and how did you deal with them?

I think my biggest challenge during this project was just sitting down and doing the work which is often a challenge for me. I have discovered that there is really only one solution to this and it is sitting down and putting your nose to the grindstone and holding it there via self-control. Which is exactly what I did.

What successes did you experience on the project and how did they happen?

I avidly read a number of automotive websites and in an alternate universe I would become an automotive journalist (particularly Jalopnik from Gawker Media and Car and Driver) so I was really pleased to discover that I could write something in a similar vein to what might appear on those websites. That success kind of pulled me through this project as it was the "light at the end of the tunnel."

What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most effective for your project? Why?

I found a more relatable style to be the most useful for me. I tried hard to organize and present everything in an easy to read, easy to understand manner. This was important because the goal of my Quick Reference Guide was in principle to help people understand why something that they may have written off as constant background jargon could have an important and direct impact on their lives and therefore why they should care.

What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find were not effective for your project? Why?

Conversely, I found that too stilted techniques and a more essay-ish style were less suited to my goals as writing like that can turn people off of reading something.

How was the writing process for this project similar to other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

The only substantive similarities between this piece and other writing experiences I have had in the past is that it required that I can explain and demonstrate knowledge about the topic that I am writing about.

How was the writing process for this project different from other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

This project has been different than past school writing projects for me in a number of important ways. First and foremost, as it is a different medium I was writing in for this project, there were significant differences in the conventions that applied to the genre. For example, I have never used such a casual tone in an essay before. I have never had to find and cite pictures and other media sources. Finally, I have rarely done such exhaustive research on a topic (with the exception of select research reports in a minority of classes).

Would any of the skills you practiced for this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?

I think the biggest takeaway from this project is what we learned in the clarity readings. For writing in my field (mechanical engineering), the overarching goal of everything you do is to quickly and effectively and clearly communicate your ideas in a manner that effectively describes the situation but as many people can understand as possible.

-----

I read Issak and Chloe's blog posts. Issak's post provided some insight on the actual aspects of writing that I both struggled and did well with. He mentioned passion about the subject as being important when constructing an argument as it makes it much easier to make a good one. He is 100% correct about this and this is something that definitely affected my QRG as well. Chloe mentioned how her ideas did really flow in a sequential manner that made it easy for her to compose her QRG which is something I experienced to a degree. She also had prior experience with reporting as a student reporter in high school and prior experience with class blogs; two qualities that I imagine would have been incredibly helpful for this project.

How Cars Crash Themselves: A Guide to Colossal Mismanagement

Phoenix2 "Cobalt SS and TC in Mountains" 24 March 2013 via Wikipedia
reuse with attribution 3.0 unported

During 2014, General Motors blew through the single-year records for automotive recalls by wide margins. With recalls for defective airbags that may explode, random stalling, excessive corrosion, power steering failure, headlamp failures, and a whole host of other problems, one issue in particular stands out: ignition switches that turn themselves off. If you’re wondering why this is a serious issue, read on.

Why is this a problem?

Cars are often sold with some issues. It is fairly common for a manufacturer to issue a recall in an abundance of caution for something like incorrect recommended tire pressures printed in the owner’s manual or cracking of the exhaust hangars in extreme cold temperatures. This, however, is something very different. The recall affecting the ignition switches in the Chevrolet Cobalts. Saturn Ions, and Pontiac G5s among others is an imminent safety concern.

What is the safety concern?

The ignition switches in a number of these GM models do not have a strong enough spring in them so that if they are accidentally jostled or have keys with some weight attached to them (read: any other keys at all), the switches can turn themselves (and therefore the cars) off.

Seth Mariscal "Arranca" July 20, 2008 via Flickr
non-commercial reuse with attribution

So what’s the problem with that?

If the affected cars turn off, some very critical functions of the vehicle no longer work such as the airbags, the power steering, the power brakes, and stability control. If this occurs at a high speed, this can lead to a rapid change in the control situation of a vehicle and send it dangerously out of control.

So GM is fixing it, right?

Well that’s complicated. GM is currently fixing the problem for free at your dealer. However, parts may not be available for your vehicle for as long as a year, perhaps more, as the suppliers are extremely backordered trying to supply the roughly 16.3 million vehicles that have been recalled for this. GM has also created a compensation fund managed by attorney Kenneth Feinberg to reimburse anyone injured by the defective vehicles. All of this would, however, never have been necessary if GM had just dealt with this when they first discovered it.

What?! You’re saying GM has known about this for a long time?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

Disappointingly, that is correct. GM has known there might be an issue since the vehicles in question were in early design stages in 1999 as the ignition switch became a notorious engineering problem during development. GM has even been accused of “bullying” a supplier into building a substandard part. Furthermore, there is evidence that engineers made changes to the ignition switch parts in 2005; evidence that they knew about the problems even then and did not issue a recall. There were numerous reports from automotive journalists and even company testers during the initial testing and release period; they were not handled in a coordinated manner and were assigned very low importance levels. Finally, documents from Delphi Mechatronics (the supplier of the ignition switch components) indicated that executives at General Motors placed orders for 500,000 new ignition switches more than a month before the recall was announced to the public.

Wait a minute, people were injured? Or killed?

People were killed; General Motors recognizes 87 deaths due to the recall. However, this number is highly disputed; Reuters has posited that the death toll is at least 74 and later revised that toll to over 100. All of these numbers are significantly higher than the 13 deaths that GM initially acknowledged.

However, all of these numbers are likely low as they only include deaths from crashes where the front airbags failed. Deaths from other crashes where power steering failure or power brake failure resulted in a car becoming out of control and crashing, do not contribute to either the Reuters or the General Motors tallies.

399 total claims have been issued by Feinberg's reimbursement fund equating to somewhere over 300 injury claims being accepted. Also important to note is that approximately 90% of claims that General Motors received were not accepted and therefore received not restitution.

Who was in charge of this?

There are many people who have some blame for this disaster but as can be expected, there is always a scapegoat. His name is Ray DeGiorgio. According to the widely read automotive magazine Car and Driver (2014), Ray DeGiorgio, the engineer most directly responsible for the GM Ignition Switch Crisis, recently stated:

“It’s very emotional, ... I’m getting very emotional about it right now.” Yet at the same time he was defensive and defiant. “All I can say is that I did my job, … I didn’t lie, cheat, or steal. I did my job the best I could.”

These were his first words to the press since he was fired from General Motors by CEO Mary Barra along with 14 other employees implicated in the ignition switch fiasco.

Others, however, tend to have a much more scathing estimation of DeGirogio’s performance of his job. In her academic look at the staggering recalls of 2014 (Still) “Unsafe at any Speed” (2015) published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review, Rena Steizor describes DeGirogio as:

“...a GM engineer ..., who was responsible for switch design in the Cobalt, [who] had sufficient advance notice of this problem prior to production of the car to have insisted on a re-design. In fact, [he] signed an e-mail to a colleague with the ostensibly wry appellation  "Ray (tired of the switch from hell) DeGiorgio." But he said nothing as the new car went into production probably because of internal pressure not to interfere with its 2004 launch date.”

Steizor incisively pinpoints the issue. Perhaps DeGiorgio didn’t see himself as having done anything wrong due to a culture of acceptance at General Motors at the time. But that is precisely the problem. Though the issue was surely not solely DeGiorgio’s fault, he was a primary participant in an engineering culture where okay was in fact good enough.

Senator Claire McCatskill "GM Recall: McCaskill Slams 'culture of cover-up' at Consumer Protection Hearing" April 2, 2014 via Flickr
reuse with attribution

So are they’re being fined or something, right?

General Motors is receiving heavy fines. Reform in what can be paid out in criminal settlements, also known as tort reform, however, has limited fines paid to the government at $35 million per recall which has angered many. Mary Barra, the recently appointed CEO of General Motors, was called to testify before the Congressional Sub-Committee on Consumer Protection. Though she displayed some contrition as demonstrated by reporting by CNN (2014):

"Numerous individuals did not accept any responsibility to drive our organization to understand what was truly happening. The report highlights a company that operated in silos, with a number of individuals seemingly looking for reasons not to act, instead of finding ways to protect our customers."

In another quote from CNN (2014), Barra was considerably more defensive defending the company against allegations that other news channels have made:

"The Valukas report (concluded) that there was no conspiracy found and there was no employee that made a trade off between safety and cost."

Based on this testimony, Congress desperately tried to improve the process of automotive recalls by deliberating acts such as the RECALL Act as well as a number of others including some that raised possible fines on automakers who withhold recall information from the government.

US Government "NTSB Logo" via Wikipedia
public domain

Shouldn’t the government protect us from this?

Yes, that is most definitely the case. The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (the NHTSA) is the agency responsible for investigating automotive safety in the United States. Grossly underfunded according to a recent scathing Congressional report, the agency did not investigate problems and complaints soon enough and well. Many observers blame this on regulatory capture and the deep impact of lobbying at the agency as many people who work there have held high ranking positions within the auto industry itself. Only after too many years and too many deaths did an investigation finally occur.

What’s the takeaway?

Automotive recalls can be critically important. Therefore, if the manufacturer of your car sends you a recall notice, it is very important that you bring your vehicle to the nearest dealer as soon as possible. If you want to be more proactive, the NHTSA has a very useful VIN check service on their website that will display any recalls on your car.

Clarity, Part 2

Kirk Teetzel "mirror" April 12, 2006 via Flickr
non-commercial reuse with attribution

In this blog post I will look at four more concepts from the clarity readings and reflect on them based on my QRG and the revisions I made to better reflect those topics.

Active Verbs

This is about seeking the proper verb voice. Active verbs (voice) is a much more engaging thing as it is a direct action, an action where something actively occurs. This is much more interesting and engaging for readers so it is recommended wherever possible. I revised the following sentence to include a better use of active verbs:

During 2014, General Motors blew through the single-year records for automotive recalls by
wide margins.

In the sentence above, the verb blew was initially the passive verb phrase has blown.

Variety

It is important to include various different sentence structures and constructions in your writing as to avoid repetitive and boring simple sentences. By varying the ingredients such as the subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, object complement, verb complement, etc. you can write something that is a much better read. I revised the sentience below from being a complex sentence first to a compound sentence and then a compound-complex sentence:

Furthermore, there is evidence that engineers made changes to the ignition switch parts in 2005;
evidence that they knew about the problems even then and did not issue a recall.

Emphasis

It is very important for clear writing that your emphasis is in the right places. If your emphasis is not in the right places, readers will probably still understand the writing however it can be much harder to read a piece. In writing, a virtue is to be able to write exactly as much as necessary to get your point across: no more and no less.

Wordy Sentences

As I mentioned in the reflection on Emphasis, a virtue of writing is to write exactly as much as necessary and no more and no less. Therefore, I tried construct all of my sentences as parsimoniously as possible in order to make the reader's job as easy as possible.

Identifying Basic Grammar Patterns

Duncan Hull "'Grammar: It's the difference between knowing your sh*t & knowing you're sh*t' by someecards.com" July 16, 2012 via Flickr
Reuse with Attribution

In this blog post, I used the commenting feature in Google Docs to analyse the grammar of the longest paragraph in my QRG draft.

This exercise has taught me that my writing is not that varied normally and I need to revise for a more varied and interesting style. I had to revise for nearly all of the goals in this excercise.

My grammatical analysis of my longest paragraph can be found here.

Copy of Paragraph Analysis

Xose Castro Roig "Movable type galley" February 8, 2006 via Flickr
Non-commercial reuse with attribution

I made a copy of my working draft of my QRG and analyzed all of the paragraphs according to the guidelines from Rules for Writers,

I discovered that most of my paragraphs are not so bad according to my estimation however what I am really lacking is content. I need to find more multimedia sources as well as images and videos and embed them in my QRG. Additionally, I need to work on my clarity by expanding on some topics where I am well acquainted with the issue but where I left some gaps for readers.

Of course there are also some places where I need to work on my paragraph flow which I noted in my analysis. Of particular note is my difficulty with having a good conclusion which I will have to work on.

My Paragraph Analysis can be found here.

Reflection of Project 1 Draft

Nancy Waldman "Rough First Draft" September 30, 2006 via Flickr
Non-commercial reuse with attribution

I read an commented on two QRG drafts, Alex Segovia's draft and Michael Fischer's draft. In this blog post I will reflect on what I learned from those two drafts as well as answer the prescribed questions from Student's Guide.

Audience

Who, specifically is going to be reading this essay? Who am I trying to reach with my argument?

Our QRGs are obviously only going to be read by each other and Professor Bottai however I know that I am writing mine with the intended audience of American consumers particularly in regard to car owners (as my QRG is about automotive recalls).

What are their values and expectations? Am I adequately meeting those expectations?

My QRG has a has a twofold audience and therefore I have to meet two sets of expectations. The first audience group is that which owns the economy cars that are mostly in question in the spate of recalls. For this audience, my QRG should deliver the information about the recalls and explain why it is a serious issues and must be addressed as soon as possible.

The other subset of my audience is car enthusiasts. They, on the other hand, want to hear more about how this recall process could have been as botched as it was. In short, they would like to see a bit of finger pointing at General Motors for the company's failure to be forthright with a significant safety issue.

How much information do I need to give to my audience? How much background information or context should I provide for them without insulting their expertise?

For my audience, I need to give a more rather than less background information as my QRG involves serious issues and it is imperative that anyone who reads it and owns or knows someone who owns an affected vehicle deal with it as soon as possible. Additionally, many people don't have a good technical understanding of how cars work and therefore need a good deal of explanation to understand the technical problems.

What kind of language is suitable for this audience?

The language needs to be as easily understandable as possible but as this is a topic with some technical aspects, my final draft will include good explanations of every technical aspect that needs to be referenced in order that it may be easy to understand.

What tone should I use with my audience? Do I Use this tone consistently throughout my draft?

I am hereby acknowledging that my tone leans to the informal but I think appropriate tone in regard to this topic is seriousness mixed with some sarcastic and grim humor.

Content

What are the formatting requirements of the assignment? Do I meet them?

The formatting requirements for our QRGs is to write a QRG with pictures, a lead, and the other conventions of a QRG. So far, I meet them at a basic level but I want to exceed that.

What are the content requirements for the assignment? Do I meet them?

The conventions of a QRG include well spaced text, pictures and graphics, not too advanced diction, subheadings, and relevant hyperlinks as well as a number of other things. I do not meet all of these requirements at this time so this will have to be incorporated during the revision process.

Does my draft reflect knowledge or skills gained in class in addition to my own ideas and voice?

My draft reflects a lot of knowledge gained in class as I was not previously specifically aware of QRGs as a genre of writing and as such everything we have learned about proper conventions for a QRG has been something I have learned in class. I have also learned how to properly and legally cite images taken from the internet which is definitely a critical skill.

Have I addressed any grammatical issues that my teacher highlighted in class or in my previously-graded assignments?

I am not aware of any grammatical issues though throughout the multiple stage peer review process, I should be pretty well exposed to people who can help me isolate any of those issues.

Clarity, Part 1

Daniel Foster "Typing on a Laptop" August 29, 2014 via Flickr
Attribution non-commercial reuse

In this blog post, I will be examining four topics from Rules for Writers in regard to developing more clarity in my writing.

Parallelism

After reading this section, I began to remember some of the sentence structures that I learned about in high school English. If used sparingly (use them too much and you will seem like you're trying too hard), using complex sentence structures can make writing a lot smoother and easier to understand as it can help eliminate unnecessary articles and conjunctions etc that do not contribute more to the meaning of the sentence.

Needed Words

On the other hand, there are also times when I leave out necessary words. Sometimes if I'm not being careful, I have simply skimmed over a topic and written something that is basically unintelligible. This is in large part because when you write, you are writing down your own ideas so you know what they lead to and how they connect. Someone else reading the text you wrote probably doesn't have any of the same context you have so they may have no idea what you are talking about. Upon reflection, I really kind of turned this into a "needed words and phrases and whole ideas" sort of reflection rather than just about skipping necessary verbs etc.

Exact Words

Sometimes it really pays to use a Thesaurus. Using the exact word that best applies to what you are trying to describe can really make your writing a lot less wordy while being clearer. I think reading this section was really helpful for me because I realized that if I can't think of a word but can think of a close synonym, I can just type it into Google and probably have the word I was thinking of returned.

Appropriate Language

I think I sometimes (and also in relation to this project in particular), struggle with this section in two ways. As I know a lot about cars and how they function etc, I can easily launch into a technical explanation of precisely how something works or why something is a problem. On the other hand, usually when I'm writing, my Achilles heel is that I like to write in a conversational fun way as much as possible (as the more stilted my writing has to be, the more boring it is), often when this is not appropriate at all. So this is something I'll have to work on particularly hard.

-----

First off, I learned that using complex sentence structures is a rare thing for everyone. I guess that's not only a me problem. I could never really find someone who used it (though I did find some instances when it perhaps could have been applied).

Needed words is another thing that people often struggle with in the more indirect way that I described above where they don't fully describe an idea as they have a good idea of what they are trying to say themselves.

I found an excellent example of where an exact (a "perfect" word) could be applied however. In Michael Fischer's QRG draft, he writes:

"Regardless of opinions surrounding the tech company, Uber is thriving and aggressively expanding throughout the world, sweeping bad press under the rug as they go."

Perhaps a perfect substitution would be ruthlessly for aggressively.

Probably most encouraging was how often I read a passage or even whole drafts that used a completely appropriate voice for a QRG. I think Appropriate Language is the section in which people tend to do the best out of the four sections I chose,


Ultimately, I learned that everyone has trouble with the recommendations of the clarity readings. If people didn't have trouble with those suggestions, they wouldn't be necessary suggestions at all. Or they could be a professional writer in disguise. That is also possible.

Thoughts on Drafting

Fredrik Rubensson "diary writing" July 20,2013 via Flickr
License with attribution

As the Students' Guide is mostly intended for essay writing, some of the information it includes is helpful while some of it is not so helpful for what we are doing. In this blog post, I will look at some of the advice from the Students' Guide and sort it as either helpful or not.

• Drafting a Thesis Statement

The book's advice regarding how to draft a thesis statement is helpful in some respects. In a QRG, we still want to have a governing idea that ties the whole piece together and this should be present in the lead/introduction similar to a thesis statement though we probably will not have something as cut-and-dried as an essay thesis.

• Writing paragraphs in PIE format

Writing paragraphs in a PIE format will be less useful for us as we have a less analytical style with a QRG. Organization within subheadings probably most closely equates to this but it will probably also be less formal as with a "thesis" statement.

• Writing introductions

Writing introductions applies to our purposes much better. We can use the books advice for writing introduction in order to craft an explanatory lead that gives readers a good idea what our QRG will be about.

• Organizing information

Our goal should be to organize information as logically as possible as a QRG should be easily "skimmable" for readers. This is probably the most important bit of advice from the book as it may even be more important for a QRG than it is for an essay. Information should always be organized in a manner so that it makes sense when digested in a sequential order.

• Writing conclusions

While we probably don't need a formal conclusion, it could serve out purposes very well to effectively wrap up our QRG so this is probably somewhat useful though less. The more the author is trying to support a particular argument. the more important a solid conclusion is. As we are trying to write in an unbiased way, it is lower on our list. 

-----

I read Bri and Alex' blog posts about drafting. I think that reading both of their blogs as well as a couple of others about drafting, I realized that for me personally, all conventions basically exist to promote an organization that is beneficial to the particular genre of writing that those conventions exist for. And in a QRG, as organization is very important, I think that any of the suggestions discussed in the book can be adapted to a QRG and are therefore useful if they personally help you with your organization.

1. The first thing I need to work on is adapting the PIE sentence structure's guiding ideas so I can more effectively convey information quickly and clearly in my QRG.
2. The second thing that I need to do is more effectively apply visuals and to space them out more effectively.
3. I probably also need to have a more forceful thesis throughout my whole QRG as that will help guide my ideas and prevent me from writing in a distracting manner that could draw my readers off course.

Draft of Quick Reference Guide

I think that my draft of my QRG needs heavy revision. I think it should be as clear as possible of local errors however there are probably global issues. The major thing I would look for is gaps where things do not make sense when tied together as I have considerable outside knowledge of this topic and therefore can easily bridge any gaps. And. of course, the goal is always to look for aspects that make it a good QRG (it's still missing images, graphs, videos, and social media posts).


QRG Draft

Practicing Quoting

Screenshot from my computer on 9/12/15

Yellow - signal phrases
Green - establishing authority
Blue - Contextualization
Purple - ellipsis and brackets

QRGs: The Genre

In this blog post, I will be analyzing the important conventions that make Quick Reference Guides effective.

Screenshot from my computer of "Greece's Debt Crisis Explained" taken 9/12/2015

1.   What are the conventions of the Quick Reference Guide?

There are a number of conventions of a quick reference guide and therefore I will go through and briefly discuss each in an order roughly sequential to how you read a QRG. First off, you must have an interesting title that draws in readers to keep reading and explains what they will be reading about. Next, the QRG should have an informative lead. This consists of several sentences that should serve as an abstract for the QRG. Then, the article should be divided up with subheadings that cover subtopics of the issue (and are often phrased as questions that a reader might ask see the New York Times article about Grecian debt). Next, the writing should not be too dense or at too high a level so as to insure that the article can easily be skimmed and so that it will be easier to read quickly and gleam a maximum amount of information. Quick reference guides should also include visual aids in the form of pictures, charts and graphs, and possibly videos in order to make the content approachable in multiple ways for readers. Finally, hyperlinks to sources and other more in-depth articles are a critical component as these allow readers to further explore aspects of the topic that may interest them.

2.   How do the authors design choices impact the conventions of the QRG?

One of the biggest design elements that strongly impacts the conventions of a QRG is the use of pull quotes. Readers are drawn to reading the pull quotes first and thus will likely re-read them when they read the text. This allows the author to reinforce that particular message in particular. Similar in function are sidebars that highlight relevant information (as seen in the Vox E-cigarettes article). 

3.    What is the purpose of a QRG?

The purpose of a Quick Reference Guide is to provide an effective summary of a situation for readers that is easily skimmable so it may be understood "quickly" as the name implies. This aspect begins with a very brief overview provided by the lead and then the information provided becomes more in-depth as you read. Finally, the QRG provides external hyperlinks (such as the hyperlinks that litter the article about the Sochi Olympics from The Wire) that will allow interested readers to explore the topic even more if desired.

4.    What is the intended audience of the QRGs given as examples?

The intended audience of QRGs always tend not to have a lot of knowledge about a topic (though enough to be interested). However, there are numerous differences in the intended audiences of our examples. The audience of the Vox "E-cigarette" article seems to be aimed at people who may be considering using e-cigarettes. The Washington Post "Gamergate" seems to be aimed at people who don't know much about gamergate, probably aren't gamers, and don't really care too much. The New York Times article about Greek debt seems to be intended for people who may not be 100% up to date on the Debt Crisis but who are interested and concerned about the economics. The Wire article seems to be aimed at people who don't really care about watching the Olympic opening ceremony when it airs on NBC but want to keep abreast of the news. Finally, Vox' #BernieSoBlack article seems to be aimed at Sanders supporters who don't really understand why African American activists are disrupting Sanders events and are rather mad about it.

5.    How do QRGs use pictures and other visual aids?

 A quick reference guide should have plenty of visual aids in the form of pictures, charts and graphs, and perhaps videos in order to offer readers another way to understand the information (charts and graphs are particularly necessary when there is a significant amount of numerical data that is pertinent to the subject). Additionally, by including a variety of visual aids, it is easier to relate to a variety of people some of whom might be more analytical or less. Embedded social media (such as the Twitter posts in the #BernieSoBlack article) can also function as an effective visual as well as an interactive piece as this is something readers can further explore on their own.

-----

I read and commented on Michael Fischer's post, on Michael Beiley's blog, and on Swati's as well. Reading everyone else's take on QRGs was enlightening as it gave me a number of ideas on how to improve my own. Michael Fischer described the tone of a QRG very accurately as an equal blending between a blog post and a print news article and this is definitely something that I will try my best to apply in my QRG. Mike Beiley had some good thoughts about how to effectively use graphics in a WRG while Swati very perceptively pointed out that data and graphs and charts open up a QRG to a wider audience as they make it interesting for both people who are well acquainted with the subject and those who are not so much.

Cluster of My Controversy

In this blog post, I have analysed the web that I created on Google Draw for my QRG about the General Motors Recall Crisis.

Wolf, Laurence "Cluster of My Controversy" created on my computer 9/11/2015

In order to create the above web of my controversy, I began with General Motors and brainstormed everything I could relate to the year of "Total Recall." The top half of the web is based around the ignition switch recalls as that is what most of my research is focused on. I tried to extrapolate that part of the web as much as possible based around the major figures and also the effects. The relations between two items are detailed by the text around the connecting lines if the connection is not otherwise abundantly obvious. The bottom half of the web, on the other hand, regards all of the other recalls that have affected General Motors this year. Finally, the middle bubbles are items and figures and entities that effect the whole issue rather than particular facets of it.

-----

I read and commented on Issak's and Elliot's post about their clusters. They both used Coggle which seems like a very well thought out program as it created beautiful webs for them. Ultimately I think we all used a similar method for organization (in which we began with the biggest topics and broke down each topic into sub-topics until we ran out of topics and then could branch off people and individual events). Reading theirs, however, helped me realize that I could break my topics down even further in some cases (Claire MacCatskill in particular is important from Congress).

Annotated Bibliography

Atkinson, David "Madbull RX7" February 11, 2012 via Flickr
Non-commercial reuse with attribution

What follows is an annotated bibliography in the ASME citation style for sources related to the General Motors ignition recall. The picture of Mad Mike's" Madbull" RX7 is simply here for your enjoyment.

Atiyeh, C., 2014, "GM Ignition Switch Engineer Speaks after Months of Silence: 'I did my job.'," Car and Driver
The purpose of this Car and Driver article is, as a part of a large series of articles on the recalls, to inform car enthusiast readers about the situation. The thesis of the article is that while Ray DeGiorgio may be an easy target for the press to crucify, he really just represents the entire attitude that was endemic at General Motors. The article describes DeGiorgio's role in designing the flawed ignition switch with a segway provided by his recent (at the time of press) comments to the media. The article neatly summarizes the occurrences of the recall controversy so far and ends upon the reflection that DeGiorgio likely ought to have a less dismissive attitude about his role in the failed design as it lead to numerous deaths.

Vlasic, B., 2014 "G.M. 'Bullied' Manufacturer Over Poorly Designed Part, Email Says," The New York Times, November 22, 2014, B1
The purpose of the New York Times article is to communicate information about the GM recall controversy to an audience of general readers. The thesis of this article was that General Motors bullied a outside manufacturer to create a part that everyone knew was sub-standard. The information in this article was gleaned from internal emails both between and within Delphi Mechatronics and General Motors that were released as the result of a federal investigation. The key ideas of this article are that General Motors knew all along that the parts were defective as did the supplier yet the General forced the supplier to produce them regardless.

Chao, G.H., Iravani, S.M.R., Savaskan, R.C., "Quality Improvement Incentives and Product Recall Cost Sharing Contracts," Management Science, 55, (7), pp. 1122-1138
The purpose of this article is to educate the reader on methods by which product recall costs may be shared between OEMs and outside suppliers. This article is written for an audience of technically experienced management professionals. The thesis of this article is that there should be different cost sharing agreements based on partial or complete root cause analysis. This is an academic and intellectual paper. This paper was written because the authors see an expansion of subcontracting certain jobs to outside companies in the current global economy and the need to ensure quality control as well as a fair way to deal with product recalls should they affect an outside supplier's products.

Steizor, R., "THE CONSUMER ALWAYS HAS RIGHTS: ENVISIONING A PROGRESSIVE FREE MARKET: (Still) "Unsafe at Any Speed: Why Not Jail for Auto Executives?," Harvard Law and Policy Review, 9, (443)
The purpose of this article is to describe the events that lead and were part of the damaging General Motors ignition switch recall for readers involved in law or the legal profession. The thesis of this article is that automotive executives were highly culpable in the process that lead to the failed and dangerous design so why should be not hold them responsible? This article was written based on information learned from in-depth sources such as the Valukas report etc. The article is best summarized as presenting a damning investigation of the ignition switch recall and then asking why we don't properly incriminate those at fault.

 D. Car, “GM Recall News: GM refuses 91% of faulty ignition switch claims,” Twitter, 2015. [Online]. Available at: https://twitter.com/deathtrapartcar/status/636283368577957888. [Accessed: Jun-2015].

The purpose of this post was to share a news article with @Deathtrap Art Car's Twitter followers. The attached article represents GM as being very callous as it is ignoring the issues of it's customers. That article gets its information from the Associated Press. Ultimately, if you read all of @Deathtrap Art Car's tweets, you would glean a lot of information about the GM recalls with a decidedly (but also well deserved) anti-General Motors spin.

 “@mtbarra answer this. What if 1 of the #GmRecall Crash victims was ur Son? Would u stand up and Lie/Coverup for #Gm? What? NO? Thn y u lie?,” Twitter, Sep-2015. [Online]. Available at: https://twitter.com/1984cdn/status/619279691090825216. [Accessed: Jun-2015].

This post was clearly an attempt to vent anger and perhaps stir up the anger of others toward Mary Barra and General Motors. The likely audience for this post was drivers of General Motors cars and in particular those that have had friends and family injured or killed by the negligently designed parts. This post was in particular about the lies and half-truths and cover ups that General Motors has spewed.

Calamur, K., 2014 "Reports: GM Ordered 500,000 Ignition Switches Before the Recall Announcement," National Public Radio
The purpose of this article is to implicate General Motors in having prepared for a  recall regarding a deadly flaw before it was announced to the public. The article cites the Wall Street Journal's findings that the company ordered 500,000 ignition switches a significant time before the public was notified and that based on her previous position before she was CEO, Mary Barra should have known about this (which would contradict her previous deposition to Congress). I think this is a useful article to be able to pull from in the future.

Associated Press, 2015 "Judge Reverses Manslaughter Conviction Due to GM Ignition," New York Times
This article is intended to indicate how General Motors' negligence caused someone to be wrongly convicted of a serious crime and thus served jail time for an accident that she had little control over. The article quotes an attorney who is exasperated that GM did not release the recall information as soon as it was available which would have likely impacted the driver's guilty plea. I may use this article in the Quick Reference Guide but it is less likely.

Griswold, A., 2014 "GM Recalls Soar Past 20 Million. Why Don't Consumers Care?," Slate
This article laments consumers seeming lack of care about the stunning safety risks associated with the General Motors recalls because at the point that the article was written, GM was recalling more and more vehicles while year to year monthly sales were climbing month after month for the company. The only unique thing that this article really finds is the incredulous situation that has sales increasing as serious safety issues are uncovered. I think this article may have some use for my Quick Reference Guide though it may be limited.

2014 "Watch Jon Stewart Explain How GM's Recall Math Adds up to 'F**k it!'," Huffington Post
This article is about a video so I will focus in the video as well. Jon Stewart applies his usual satire to the disconcerting situation where General Motors decided that a 57 cent improvement wasn't worth it when it might have saved lives. Stewart used satire and humor to effectively explain the ridiculousness of the situation. I think that this video is very effective in describing the situation in a way that simple written text cannot and I think that therefore I most likely will use in in my QRG.

An example of an annotated biblography in the ASME style can be found here.
And now, because that took a lot of time, I'm going to post a much more uplifiting rally photo.

Millich, Jason "Andrew Hawkeswood, Audi Quattro" May 18, 2013 via Flickr
Reuse with attribution

-------

I was not able to find anyone who wrote citations in ASME. Namrata, however, wrote her annotated bibliography  in the IEEE style which is for Electrical Engineers but seems to also be an acceptable for Mechanical Engineers. Additionally, the citations seem to be identical. I also commented on Elliot's Annotate Bibliography. He used the American Institute of Physics (AIP) citations. From this, I realized that while there may be some strange semantic reasons to have different citation styles for different fields as different forms of media can have more or less importance, most work almost exactly the same and with a little bit of common sense, it is easy to find a source from any citation style.

Ideology in My Controversey

Kumm, Michael "General Motors" July 8, 2009 via Flickr
Attribution 2.0 Generic

Looking at the different ideologies present in this controversy can afford us more insight into both sides of the situation. So without much ado, let's dive right in...

• The two primary parties in the GM recall controversy are the company itself and it's customers. Secondary parties involved include the media, federal investigators, and Congress.
• The primary speakers for the owners are law firms like Morgan and Morgan and Hagens Berman. Kenneth Feinberg is the settlement negotiator for General Motors and thus is the point of contact for owners with GM. CEO Mary Barra is the primary speaker for GM with federal investigators and Congress which in turn are represented by the NHTSA and Special Investigator Anton Valukas on the investigative side while by Senators like Claire McCaskill on the legislative side.
• The General is one of the largest American corporations and thus wields enormous economic clout (enough to have been rescued from bankruptcy on the dollar of the US taxpayer). Meanwhile, the average car owner has little to no power but should be protected by the regulatory power of the NHTSA.
• The best resource available to both groups is the courts as that is where GM is seeking protection on the basis of a bankruptcy shield while that is where car owners are seeking settlements.
• General Motors simply seems to want to get out of this mess as easily as possible while owners are trying to get some sort of settlement for the injured and killed drivers and for having been exposed to the risk of their cars for years before GM started a recall. Ultimately owners just want to drive cars that are safe.
• There is essentially no evidence in question here as it is very clear that the cars in question are potentially unsafe and need to be fixed. What sort of settlement the owners should get is ultimately a legal question.
• There is a significant power differential between the two primary groups, the corporation and its customers. GM is a vastly powerful organization with money to pay lawyers and lobbyists whatever is necessary. Each car owner does not have anything near these resources though individuals do have a fairly good resource through class-action lawsuits filed by the companies mentioned earlier.
• The common ground between the two groups is limited to both the recall and some settlements but some owners are furious that tort reforms limit the amount of money GM is liable for.
• The groups listen to each other to a degree however they are still inherently antagonistic which leads General Motors to naturally fight new suits as they do not want to pay out money unless it would already be necessary under previous settlements.