botheration [childishly edited as if an undergraduate rhetoric paper]
Sunday 13 April 2008 | 5 cookies in the jar
First, my apologies for searching out your website to find your email address [? why do it then? as a reader I immediately find myself questioning your ethos]. My intention wasn’t invasiveness [? not a word]. I’ve tried to offer all the space I imagined you might need or want [the writer presumes it is his to provide or withhold?]. But monthly or so I run through the pain of not having a contact with you that’s whole [so the writer operates from an assumption that other people can ameliorate and/or are responsible for relieving his discomfort, imagining this will appeal to the reader’s emotion? see below]. It’s finally spring. It [what’s “it”? as a reader this is unclear to me] makes me hope for renewal. Trite, perhaps [? then omit?], but I want to repair what’s between us [implies a shared understanding/agreement/loci commune that something does exist between writer/reader, though logos has not yet established that—unsupported claim], what I’ve done, if not for a future friendship, then at least to address what could be healed.
[While this certainly isn’t a bad draft of your exordium, and it does contain a clear statement of the argument—”I want to repair what’s between us”—I suspect you probably have a stronger, more creative introduction in you! This one comes across from the first sentence as distinctly defensive; while ostensibly working to rebut unstated accusations (”trite,” invasive, etc.), the writer’s tone actually implants them in the reader’s mind. What if the paper opened instead with genuine pathos—that is, appealing to shared emotions? How can the writer best locate the values held in common with the reader?]
If this [? what’s “this”? vague] isn’t desired or possible [passive voice destroys reader’s agency here], that’s okay [? of course it’s okay!]. There’s no need to respond [writer’s tone is unfortunately condescending here…not I think intentionally, but the language could potentially exclude a sensitive/predisposed reader]. I promise never to email you again. But please know you have an open invitation to make contact with me. I trust the wisdom of our having met, that it’s a connection too important to treat the way I did. [In this sentence, it’s as if the first person places himself in contrast to the second—while I trust this, can you? again potentially alienating to any already resistant reader.] I sorely regret not understanding how dear you are [? were] to me. You’re a good and beautiful person [I’d leave out the praise here—it sounds suspiciously like rhetorical flattery in the previous faintly condescending tone. What do you think the paper would be like without the writer’s evaluation of the reader? How does this assessment actually further your argument that the reader should accept your request, not offer, for renewed contact?]. I’d like one day to have the honor of knowing who you’re becoming, how you are. Also, I apologize for whatever negative disruption this email may cause [which again begs the question undesirably—then why have initiated the contact? your argument’s ethos wavers here].
I don’t hear anything from anyone about you. I don’t know anyone from then. But I have a wish for you to be happy and strong [this move may not appeal to emotion at all if happiness and strength are not values held by the reader!]. I imagine you in the desert. At the empty labyrinth we found in the arroyo on a hot day. [fragment] It’s so nice to see you. Warmly and with love.
[Again it seems that the writer is hoping to persuade the reader with pathos—an appeal to shared experience—but this kind of appeal is most effective when bracketing an argument already thoroughly saturated, in its body paragraphs, with strong logos. Where is your argument here? I don’t see any support for the initial claim other than “because I want you to,” which breaks down under interrogation.
I think the paper could come much closer to fulfilling the assignment by including some citations, evidence/proof for the undefended assertions, and a more energetic use of logos, which will follow with better organization. Remember: one idea per paragraph! Each claim should be supported by at least one credible source to maintain ethos, which right now is weakened by the lack of outside sources—such as the primary resource of the reader’s thoughts/feelings/opinions. Let me know if you want me to read a second draft, or if you have any questions—and have fun revising!]
5 cookies in the jar
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You know, there could be a small internet business in providing such comments — we had a note left on our car at the airport thanking us (sarcastically, it is presumed!) for scratches and dings on somebody else’s car that we didn’t actually do, and I would really find it satisfying to have it gleefully edited, along with a handful of various mean notes from girls in high school and college that I’d be handed and open all innocently and then feel like I was punched in the stomach, semi-literate break-up notes, and so on.
You’re so right! And, you know, those terrible student evals which are just merciless and yet so badly spelled that you just pray the dean won’t take them seriously: “This professor is terrible I didn’t lern anything about english,” wrote one disgrunted pupil, self-evidently.
It’s 1:30 am. I am grading papers. Can I send some over to you?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No. Absolutely not.
:o)
1. “Invasiveness” is indeed a word; and
2. I have the emotional maturity of a two-year-old.
That is all.