Rhetoric in Technical Writing

Report Examples

• Meeting the Need for Water in the Lower Colorado River by Diverting Water from the Mississippi River - A Practical Assessment of a Popular Proposal [PDF]
• Deep Water The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling [PDF]
• Noncitizen Coverage and Its Effects on U.S. Population Statistics [PDF]
• Assessing the 2020 Census: Final Report [PDF]

Class Activity

Almost every report has a message – a claim, backed up by reasons and supported by evidence, that conveys the importance of believing or acting upon an idea.

In a group of 2-3 people, pick a report and skim it to identify the claims, reasons, evidence, and warrants.

Some of these reports are hundreds of pages. I don’t expect you to read the whole report in less than an hour (or ever) - just skim through the report to get a sense of its structure and design, and read a few bits here and there to determine their relevance.

Then, evaluate your report using the following questions:

What is the basic argument that the report is making?
What rhetorical choices did the author(s) make when supporting their argument?
Is the argument convincing?

Discuss your answers in your group and be prepared to share with the rest of the class in the last 15 minutes of class.

A guided version of this activity is provided for Week 5’s 2nd lecture.