Chapter 6 Public Documents: Codifying Beliefs and Practices

Chapter 6

Public Documents: Codifying Beliefs

and Practices

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Overview

• Explores the genre, which includes the public documents that are a part of our daily lives

• They “articulate the principles and procedures that organize and guide” the lives of a group of people (171).

• Examples include marriage vows, contracts, wills, codes of conduct, the constitution, and mission statements.


What is the Call toWrite Public Documents?

• Our need to establish institutions (such as schools and churches)

• Our need to create social order (in our legal system)

• Our need for interaction

• These documents also serve to promote social change.


Readings

• Abraham Verghese, from My Own Country

• Ellen Cushman, from The Struggle and the Tools


Manifestos

• Declaration of Independence


Petitions

• Call for the Human Rights in Russia

• Jason Pierce, Tiger Woods-Stand up for Equality-Augusta National Golf Club


Policy Statements

• WPA Outcomes Statement for theFirst-Year Composition


Writing in a Digital World

• A memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales Counsel to the President on torture was posted by the Washington Post.


Visual Design

• Paula Scher, Defective Equipment: The Palm Beach County Ballot


Writing assignment

• See page 196 for four options: writing an analysis of encounters with public documents as literacy events, doing a rhetorical analysis, or writing a manifesto or petition.

• Your instructor will let you know whether your class will be doing this particular assignment, and provide you with additional guidelines.


Clarifying Purpose and Genre

• See pages 197-198 for two questions that will help you determine what genre to use.

• Background research may need to do some research to clarify the rhetorical situation.


Readability and Design

• See pages 198-200 for a list of eight things to keep in mind.

• Features that add readability include: title, logo, white space, headings, bullets, and font styles.

• There is also a reference to Chapter 19, which gives more information about design.


Tone and Rhetorical Distance

• Tone establishes relationship to readers.

• Informal—first person, addresses readersas “you.”

• Standard—fairly formal, plain.

• Official—creates the greatest sense ofdistance with its legalistic style.


Student Companion Website

• Go to the student side of the Web site for exercises, chapter overviews, and links to writing resources for this chapter:

http://college.hmco.com/pic/trimbur4e