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Yuanxu Liu(Abby)

Professor C.Pierson

ENC 1101

08 November 2017

Rhetorical Analysis Paper

Section 1 introduction to community

(This new chapter is something about rhetoric. For this chapter, we through group study

and discussion to know what is rhetoric and what can we learn about rhetoric. There are some

concepts of rhetoric. For example, kairos, rhetorical ecology, narratives, the three rhetorical

appeals(ethos, pathos, logos) and embodied rhetoric. )

Simply community is a social group which can share common things. And a Discourse is

a sort of identity kit which comes complete with the appropriate costume and institutions on

how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize.(p.

278) In Johnss article we can clearly know discourse communities. Discourse communities

focus on text and language, which are the genres that allow members maintain their goals,

membership, and communicate effectively (she lists several criteria for a Discourse community).

According to the meaning and the six defining characteristics of a Discourse community, the

Adventure Time Fanfiction community is belong to a Discourse community. The first

characteristic is a Discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. The

public goal of the Adventure Time fanfiction community is to let more and more people to watch

season 7. The second is that there is intercommunication among its members.(such as newsletters

or journals). The members of this community they communicate each other through website, like

someone post an article in the website and the other reviewers will make comments on this
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article. Of course, the website also is a literacy sponsor for this community. Third, the

community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of

its aims. The members of the community through writing short stories as well as activities like

story reviews, blog posts, choose colorful pictures, and episode summaries to accomplish the

goals. However those individual activities have different functions, they all improve the goals.

Fourth, it is uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.

For example, when one writer wants to write another article about the Adventure Time and other

reviewers will provide source material to help the writer finish the article. The fifth is similar to

the last one. The community has acquired some specific lexis and also has a threshold level of

members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise. In this community,

there are some technical terms and professional knowledge. In my opinion, I think the members

of this community they are all like writing and sharing. The value of this community is the

members can through this community to share their opinion, discuss and work together to let

more people join in.

Section 2 Introduction to text

For this research, Our group choose an article from website, this article is about an

animation and it's called The Top 8 Possible Story Arcs for Adventure Time, Season 7. As we

all know, Adventure Time is an popular animation in America. The article basically is a blog

post predicting the events of the next season of Adventure Time. Go through the rhetorical

situation with this text, the audience for this text would be fans. This text was written June 9,

2015. This text was written between season 6 and season 7 of Adventure Time. This text was

written for fans of Adventure Time who were considering not watching season 7. Because most

of fans think this series have no more interesting stories left and are not worth watching.
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Indicated in paragraph two of the text. Its important to note that for the Adventure Time

fanfiction community and all other fanfiction communities. Once the series ends the popularity

of the fanfiction community decreases or All of these will dissolve into nothingness. And the

exigence would be why the author write this text, also can consider the purpose of this text. The

purpose of this text is to describe stories that the author feels are worth watching in season 7.

This text is about what story are left to be seen in the upcoming season. This also gives the

members of the Adventure Time fanfiction communities topics to write about and research. The

important theme is why fans should continue watching this animation and to show there are more

stories left for the series to explore. The rhetoric of this text would be the author. This text was

posted online with some colorful pictures. Online is where all activities for the Adventure Time

fanfiction community take place. This ensures that it will be seen by a greater number than if it

were a print source. No doubt it is a smart way to let more people to read this article. The

constraints of this text would be it is hard to find the original material which means the author

must watched this series and thinking what story will readers be interested in. Go back to our

writing, we also need give priority to rhetorical situation.

Section 3 Methods

In this individual essay, I choose embodied rhetoric as a research object. I think the

embodied rhetoric is one of the important concept of rhetoric. Go back the process that I

researched, I began use our textbook and online translate to understand this phrase. That means a

physical experience, the way in which a writers experience is shaped and how places interact

with people. Rhetoric begins with this very basic element of sentient embodiment.(Downs, 461)

After I understand this phrase, I start to find some articles by searching for the individual article

about this topic. And I found an article from our textbook is called Document Design and Social
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Justice. In this article, the Universal Design for Document (UDD) provides seven principles

(and requisite definitions of each principle). The seven principles are equitable use, flexibility in

use, simple and intuitive, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, size

and space for approach for use. (Jones and Wheeler, 664) I choose 3 of those principles to start

research embodied rhetoric. The three principles are equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and

intuitive. I took some notes in this article and try to find some sentences refer to the community

that I researched.

Section 4 Analysis & Findings

First, this text was post on the website and it is about an animation. Everyone can read this

text on website, especially for younger generation or who was interested in Adventure Time.

This is refer to the application of equitable use. The text available for almost universal audiences.

Second, this text actually is a blog not an online article, it is only has one format. So this text will

not available in a variety of formats. Third, this text is a English blog by a fan and it is about

what story are left to be seen in the upcoming season. For me, this text is not that hard to read

and understand, but some words I still need online translate. For most part of this text, the author

uses more easy words rather than use complex words to write. But for some part, he uses the

professional words that was appeared in the Adventure Time. If you are a fan for the Adventure

Time or you are an adult, this text will be easy for you to read. If you are a middle school

student, I think this text will be a little bit hard for you to read. And this text has many colorful

pictures and lists, you can clearly know what story are left to be seen in the upcoming season

from those lists. There were 8 subtitles on the list, the readers are easy to read with those

subtitles and they also can choose subtitle which they were interested in. This is a good idea on a
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blog. Many readers would not like to read long articles, because they need spend long time to

read long articles.

Section 5 Discussion & Meaning

According to the analysis and findings, we can come to the conclusion that utilizing the

Universal Design for Documents principles (UDD) research shows that the The Top 8 Possible

Story Arcs for Adventure Time, Season 7 article is accessible to all possible readers. This text is

a fanfiction and the important theme is why fans should continue watching this animation and to

show there are more stories left for the series to explore. After the readers read this blog and they

will interested those stories and also will watch this upcoming season. The value of this text is let

more people join in the fan community. This is also a advantage for writing study, after you

become a member of the fan community you will share options with each other in your

community. In a word, this paper is all about rhetoric, rhetoric is both a topic and a tool which

helps us to understand writing and reading. There is no doubt that we study the rhetoric and use

rhetoric correctly in writing.

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Work Cited

Downs, D.. (2011). Rhetoric: making sense of human interaction and meaning-making. In E.

Wardle & D. Downs(Eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp.457-480).

Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

Johns, A. M. (1997). Discourse communities and communities of practice. In E. Wardle & D.

Downs(Eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp.319-339). Boston: Bedford/St.

Martins.

Jones, N. N. & Wheeler, S. K.. (201). Document design and social justice. In E. Wardle & D.

Downs(Eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp. 654-671). Boston:

Bedford/St. Martins.

Tran, Andrew. The Top 8 Possible Story Arcs for Adventure Time, Season 7. Overmental,

Andrew Tran, 11 June 2015, overmental.com/content/the-top-9-possible-story-arcs-for-

adventure-time-season-7-24942.
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