Since PWR2 is concerned explicitly with encouraging students to examine the rhetorical distinctions among "presentations" in various forms (i.e., written, oral, and multimedia), for this assignment, you will convert your written project proposal into a 5 minute oral/multimedia presentation. As you produce your text, be sure to consider the five canons of rhetoric -- invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery -- and the way in which your use of these canons might change across media. Also keep in mind the rhetorical situation of your presentation: you'll need to attend to your audience -- making your point and keeping their interest -- as well as to your text and to your own ethos as an author.

• Invention: Your presentation may or may not be similiar in form, content, or voice to your proposal. Use creativity to select the approach and structure most appropriate to your purpose and rhetorical situation. Your presentation may be an overview of your formal proposal -- or you may use a single example to provide a groundwork for your argument. Also consider creative frameworks for your presentation -- structuring it as a movie trailer, a behind-the-scenes look at your project in progress, or even an expose.
• Arrangement: You need to consider how you will arrange, organize, and structure your talk. This means both outlining your presentation and, if you are using slides, considering the most appropriate use of audio and/or visual materials. The presentation should have a clear beginning, middle and end.
• Style: You need to decide on the voice of your presentation, as well as your own persona as a rhetor. Will you invite audience participation? Will you hold allow audience comments only at the end? Will you approach your audience as a peer? As an expert in your subject? Will you be formal or informal in approach? All these questions are starting points for thinking about the style of your presentation.
• Memory: This canon has as much to do with improvisation (i.e., being able to read your audience and adapt your presentation to suite their current needs) as it does with memorization or a level of comfort with your material.
• Delivery: You will need to decide on the method by which you will deliver your material. This involves considering whether you will use audio or visual aids as well as embodied rhetorics, such as the way you comport yourself, dress, or project your voice while presenting.

For your presentation, you must clearly convey your topic to your audience -- such as it is currently defined -- as well as your working hypothesis, and you must do so within 5 minutes. Keep in mind that all presentations will be on works in progress so that no one will expect you to have arrived at definitive conclusions or to have completed your research. However, your presentation, like your proposal, should nevertheless offer the audience a well-developed understanding of the topic you're addressing, your approach to it, and your research methodology.

Resources

For your proposal, you may choose to read chapter 7 of Envision (Alfano & O'Brien, forthcoming 2004); you should also read Lunsford & Ruszkiewicz, "Spoken Arguments."

Questions about this assignment? E-mail me, or bring them up in class.