One characteristic that I always believed to have that set me aside from my peers is my speech giving, orating, and presenting skills. In high school I used to knock that kind of stuff out the park. I gave huge speeches as Student Body VP, I made the best Power Points for class, and I never had a hard time in front of the camera.

First RCL project is a presentation. Thats it? Easy A. I could do it with my hands behind my back. At least, that was my thought process up until 5 minutes before I presented. I hate those 5 minutes. Right before you have to get up. The adrenaline kicks in – its fight, flight, or speak. You second guess yourself and the option to panic presents itself. I usually stay calm in these situations though. But Tuesday was just not my day.

I noticed two things right before I presented: 1. I’m in college now, the big leagues, I had to step up my game. And to make matters worse, this was an Honors course. Every little detail was being observed.  2. I was among a group of students that are just as good, if not better than me, at speaking – a situation I’ve never truly been in before. So, I panicked.

I’ve never been a fan of note cards or well rehearsed speeches. I’ve always felt that I can sound more genuine when I speak as I go along, and let it come from the heart. However this leaves me at a disadvantage – that if I don’t have an idea of what to say at certain cues, I have to make it up on the spot. And that is MUCH harder to do when you’re panicking. I noticed it immediately. “uhhs” and “yeeaahhss” are used as fillers. I repeat what I just said 15 seconds ago. So as a snowball gets bigger as it rolls down hill, the realization that I’m sucking in the middle of my speech only causes for more panic.

To make matters worse, my secret weapon completely failed me: humor. When you have a light, easy going approach to speeches like mine, I find it can be easy to be funny, or at least be entertaining. I took a page out of Stephen Colbert’s book and tried to replicate the kind of humor he gets when he does his “The Word” segment. The part of his show where he narrates, and a visual edit drops in a slide that provides humorous dry commentary. I should’ve seen this from the first day of presentations: It was a tough crowd. No one REALLY was listening to all 30 some speeches, most of us were tired, and so there was little crowd reaction to just about anything the previous presenters had said or done. It was just a wall of blank faces. That’s more than enough to make a decent presenter stumble a bit.

So what? I tripped a little bit. Certainly not the first time it happened, and at at least I wasn’t choking or freezing. I just have to get better for the next time. Perhaps prepare what should specifically said at certain cues a bit better, instead of free-balling off of the speaking points. Maybe I’ll try another approach to the humor thing, or maybe just kill it all together. I guess I’ll just wait to see what suggestions Ben has for me.

Also, Ben, if you’re reading this, thanks for being the only one who actually chuckled at the jokes I threw in the power point. It gave me the slightest relief that I wasn’t completely tanking.

It’s late, I’ve had a long day, I have PT in 4 hours, and I feel like doing a classic this time – John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address from 1961. “Ask not what your country to do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. It doesn’t get much more Rhetorical than that. So lets break it down and check out why its really such an important piece of Rhetoric so I can go to bed so I can get a good grade in this class.

Quick! Watch this YouTube video of the speech so I don’t have to write the whole thing out for you!

And if you live in a third world country, Canada, or for whatever reason you have no idea how to use YouTube, check out this mp3 of the speech.

Alright, down to it. JFK is definitely in my top 5 list for favorite U.S. Presidents, but there’s always one thing that bothered me about him: his orating skills. WHAT?, JFK GAVE AWESOME SPEECHES! I know he did, relax. All of his speeches are written very well, but his delivery is evident of an era well before the age of teleprompters. Also, I’ve never been able to get over his thick Massachusetts accent. For god sakes he pronounces it Amewicah. Non the less, he doesn’t let this get in the way of pumping up the crowd.

While his orating skills might irk me, there’s no doubt that every one of his speeches was incredibly well written. Most speeches we get from politicians today are initiated with a strong opener, fluffed with fillers, and one-liners sprinkled in here, there, and at the end. JFK’s speeches are just chalk full of them. And not only are they full of good ones, they actually carry meaning. We’ve all heard it before “ask not what your country can do for you…”, “We choose to go the moon”, …”to assure the survival and success of Liberty”. The list goes on. And while we hear these statements over and over again, as we read them in our history books and upon the walls of monuments, we stop thinking about what they actually mean.

However, JFK’s delivery (per the build up in the writing, not his vocal tone), when we actually hear or watch the speech, brings us back in time. I thought of the threat of the Soviet Union, of nuclear fallout, the space race, and civil rights – and then thought to myself “what the heck CAN I do for my country?”. Of course, this question is also purely rhetorical, but if I thought it, and anyone else thought it, then he did his job. The message is there in your head to ponder about for the next 50 years.

One of the interesting analytical points of this speech is that there’s a special kind of pattern we see over again. The “What, can, not; what, can, do” pattern – most evident in the famous one liner that is titling this post. Some examples from the adress –

“the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

“We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom”

“Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.”

and

“My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

Over and over again this pattern presents itself – roughly every few paragraphs. Most likely, someone much smarter and much more knowledgable about Rhetoric and the art of speech giving than I probably wrote some ridiculously large paper on this small detail already – so this will be my 2:00 AM speculation. The writer of this speech wrote it almost as poetry. It has a flow to it. It rises and flattens. It gives the speech an older, classical feel. Which is possibly why we hold it in such high regard to this day.

If only more politicians gave speeches like this these days.

On Tuesday September 17th, on my way to CAS 137H, I spotted a very curious object outside the HUB-Robeson Center. I could kick myself for not getting a picture of it so I’ll do my best to describe it verbally. It appeared to be a large rectangular stone, turned on its one corner, and appeared to come up out of the ground. As if a giant stone block had fallen from the sky and buried itself halfway into the sidewalk. It was about knee high, and appeared to be of similar design to the same stone blocks that serve as benches outside the HUB. There’s no way you could’ve missed it.

Upon further inspection there were words written on it in chalk that read something along the lines of “Does Federal Spending increase the quality of life?” Underneath this were other messages written on it with the chalk that lay on the ground next to it. Messages that went something like “No, federal spending does not increase the quality of life because blah blah blah…” Clearly these were opinions written by students.

What an odd, yet an extremely interesting piece of Rhetoric I’d found! Never before have I witnessed such an abstract invitation to political debate. It truly seems to be perfect in terms of a “Rhetorical artifact”. Its large and grabs attention, it invites people to civic engagement, it gets people debating and discussing the topic, and it its political.

Perhaps it’s just me still getting used to all the awesome things that happen on a college campus, but this is way too fascinating. Its refreshing to see an invitation for this kind of debate outside of the classroom, or a town hall, or state legislature, or (god forbid) a media channel debate show. To voice, and discuss your opinion in public in such a way is a beautiful concept. I wish it were that more people tended to be attracted to such tokens instead of driven away by such at the fear of confrontation ridicule. Debate shouldn’t be something that has a confrontational or negative tone – it should be enlightening and educational. Which as we’ve learned so far, is the very core or Rhetoric itself.

If it takes the abstract to produce this kind of engagement – then I’m all for it.

… Weird how deep you can get at 2:00 AM.

My first experience with Rhetoric was during my Junior year of High School in my AP English Composition and Language course. I was given a brief explanation of the concept and the Pathos, Logos, and Ethos arguments. Needless to say it came nowhere to close to sufficient to fully understanding the concept. Now, in the RCL course, I am beginning  to have a fuller understanding; but the process is slow.

I can describe Rhetoric with one very simple word: abstract. In no way is it clear cut or is there a universal definition – as learned early on in the course. There’s nothing wrong with abstract though – it just happens to be that some people can grasp abstract concepts more easily than others. This is no difficult task for me, however it should be noted that this is a concept that requires a “think outside the box” mentality.

I say that this concept is abstract because of its incredibly wide range of genre within literature. Just about anything that encompasses debate or communication of a personal idea can be considered Rhetoric. I think this is why it can be so difficult to nail down a precise definition for the term. More importantly, it makes it difficult to realize that we use it and interact with it on a daily basis.

Slowly but surely will I start to be able to recognize Rhetoric in the world. I think this Civic Life Talk is a good place to start. Something small, something simple, and then as time progresses I believe I’ll be overwhelmed by how often I’ll be identifying the use of Rhetoric.

Civic Life Talk

• Artifact: Advertisement for Seasonal Fitness information meeting hosted by University Health Services
• Thesis: Little details in wording and aesthetics have a huge impact on communicating or advertising a message
• How this poster relates to civic life: An invitation to get together with people to socialize and gather information on what could possibly be a common interest.
• Breakdown of the poster:
  • “We Are” – A PSU commonplace. Draws the attention of PSU students.
  • “FALLing into Fitness” – A solid pun for communicating that this is a seasonal event
  • “East Quad Friday 9/13” – Set aside in a noticeable spot, bold and large font, attention grabber to communicate important details. Also, a very convenient time for students.
  • “Stop by…”  – They’re just telling you straight up. What are you going to do? Say no?
  • “Snacks, giveaways” – Incentives to go. Because lets be honest, you weren’t going to go for the fitness information.
  • “Learn about Campus Resources” – The reason why you’re going to this thing, except not really.
  • “University Health Services” – communicating that this is a University event, and not something sketchy.
  • Images of leaves/ volleyball players – Provides an aesthetic value to the poster that emphasizes the key topic.
  • The color of the paper – Yes, even the color makes a difference. Because it’s not white, it stands out more on the wall. Even the little details count.
• Revisit thesis.
• Close.

1. A blog detailing the actions, heroics, and stories of U.S. Special Operations Forces around the world. Broken down for easy civilian reading. Interchangeable – the U.S. Army in general. Primary source and inspiration – SOFREP.com

2. A blog detailing the multiple martial arts I’ve studied and am interested in exploring. Discussing origins, differences, styles, techniques, key figures, etc. Kind of like the guys from Fight Quest.

3. An adventure blog. Yeah, simple as that. A blog chronicling the adventures I go on (and have gone on). From the simple and daily that occur around campus, to the crazy and adrenaline filled in the wilderness.

4. A spy blog. Would cover a range of topics concerning the intelligence communities around the world. Fiction and non-fiction. From Jason Bourne to Drones.