WRiTing youRsElF inTo ACAdEmiC ConvERsATions 53WRiting yoURself into academic conVeRsations
Sherry Turkle laments the erosion of conversation in our culture, blaming
technology that encourages broad and shallow connection without real
face-to-face engagement. But much academic conversation occurs on the
page or screen, involving the exchange of ideas through writing. The phi-
losopher Kenneth Burke uses his metaphor of an ongoing parlor conversa-
tion to capture the spirit of academic writing:
Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have
long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too
heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discus-
sion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present
is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for
a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then
you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your
defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or
gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assis-
tance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must
depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.*
As this passage describes, every argument you make is connected to other
arguments. Think of how Eugene F. Provenzo Jr. responds to aspects of
E. D. Hirsh’s arguments about education earlier in this chapter, and the
position he takes.
Now that you have learned how to use the tools of rhetorical analysis,
we present a series of steps using those tools to write yourself into aca-
demic conversations of ideas. Every time you write an argument, the way
you position yourself will depend on three things:• which previously stated arguments you share;
• which previously stated argument you want to refute; and
• what new opinions and supporting information you are going to bring
to the conversation.
*Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1941), pp. 110–111.Group 3: Analyze the writer’s purpose. Then evaluate: Do you
believe Turkle achieves her purpose in this essay? Why or
why not?
Then, as a class, share your observations:- To what extent does the author’s ability as a conversation alist —
that is, her ability to enter into a conversation with other
authors and her audience — affect your evaluation of whether
she achieves her purpose in this essay? - If you were to meet this writer, what suggestions or advice
would you give her for making her argument more persuasive?
02_GRE_5344_Ch2_029_054.indd 53 11/19/14 4:03 PM