We did the engagement activity with Professor Lagman

Part 1: Proposal

For my research question, I would like to find out what type of writing attorneys do the most in their job, as well as in what ways they need to write for their writing to be the most effective and persuasive. I would like to know what all goes into being an attorney, starting with questions a bit closer to home, such as law school. I would like to know how one goes about gaining apprenticeship experience while attending school, since law school teaches specifically a way of thinking rather than firsthand work experience. Since one of my interviewees is a UW-Madison Law School graduate, I can ask him specific things, such as avoiding the bar exam, and how that affected his career.

The course materials have made me think about economics and writing in a different way, specifically that it either is or is becoming the main source of knowledge and revenue in today’s economy. When people are able to divert their attention to that specific piece of writing, then the writer has the reader captivated and is able to teach and educate the reader. That is the current economy, and writing is highly prized skill.

The best methods to the collect data on this research question will be interviewing people who use writing very heavily in their careers. This is what I plan to do with my interviews, looking at certain people with attorney training, and observing them at work. I could see, firsthand, their writing process and how they think. Another good source to look at would be the people who these attorneys write to directly. If I can track down who the attorney wrote to, I could specifically ask the addressee how they felt about the piece of writing, and if they were persuaded by it, and why or why not.

Part 2: Protocols and Scripts

Interview Protocol

1. What are your day-to-day tasks?
2. What kinds of writing are required for your line of work?
3. What process do you use to write the most persuasively?
4. Are you compensated for your writing separately or is it included in your regular salary?
5. How has UW-Madison Law School limited/expanded your options?

Recruitment Script

Dear Mr./Mrs. Interviewee,

I would like your permission to interview and record you for a class project, dealing with the responsibility of writing in your career. Your identity will be kept anonymous, unless you wish otherwise. 

Thank you, 

Jakob Michaelis

My interest is to interview two attorney’s on their activities and effectiveness of their writing.

Interview question:

How much persuasive writing does your career require, if any? What do you find is the most effective way to persuade audiences with your writing?

Lisa Nakamura opens the article by bringing up a critical point in the class: the move from material to immaterial in today’s society and economy. She poses the question of how to measure such success under this immaterial system. Such things as “likes” are the new type of currency on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram.

She transitions this line of thinking into bringing up one of the main sources of labor that powers the engine of the internet: female labor. Women are being forced to work in horrible conditions around the world. Certain places in East Asia are forcing women of color to work in electronic factories. In New Mexico, Navajo women are working for less than the U.S. minimum wage.

Nakamura also brings up the oppression of certain sexual minorities in the work force, such as that of gay people or members of the transgender community. She compares these workers who retweet and post things dealing with discrimination to that of venture laborers. 

A large portion of this article reminded me that Lanham’s attention economy point. Many of these workers, some successful, others not, attempt to bring said attention to their conditions and mistreatment in the workplace. Many of these instances will go to other websites that will specifically use counter speech to keep the discriminated classes safe in the workplace. None of this could be done without the attention given to social media.

1. I would like to begin by asking my interviewee what kind of writing he/she does. From there, I would like to know how greatly they feel their writing makes a difference. For example, if I were to interview a criminal lawyer, to what extent he/she believes that his/her writing affected the outcome of the case, if at all. I would also like to touch on the topic of how much writing actually comes into play in their work, and if they think that the world is changing a certain way that places more stock and importance in the ability to write effectively and convincingly.
2. Possible research question: how is the writing for attorneys changing in today’s economy, and how does economy affect the type of writing demanded of your career?
3. Interviews would be the easiest form of primary research, giving the ability to sit down with and talk directly to the person, ideally one-on-one. The face-to-face method you be excellent, though might hamper interviewers who buckle under pressure when needing to ask tough questions. Observations give the observer the ability to see the worker in their work environment being natural. The limitations come in when the observer is not able to stop and ask questions, for that would violate the idea of being a passive observer. Finally, text analysis would give the reader the ability to view the writing, possibly being able to learn something about the writer through their writing. The limitations would come in when the reader is not able to actually see or talk to the writer.

Option 2:

After my undergraduate, I hope to continue on to law school. After that I hope to find a job as an attorney in a law firm. Brandt’s writing really resonated with me not only because of her talking about the lawyers she interviewed for her writing, but also the smaller details.

There was much emphasis put on effective writing, and that being used as a way to spread knowledge. Knowledge is the highest from of currency in the changing economy, which directly leads to the creation of wealth.

The likely writing that I will do as an attorney are many. Some of these include case files, affidavits, and other documents in a predictive legal wiring format. My goal is to learn how to write effectively and persuasively so I find success in this hopeful career.

Deborah Brandt opens the reading by stating that knowledge is a new, upcoming, and important part of the economy. It has the possibility of being more important than any type of material good, possibly even money itself. She connects the ability to read and write effectively with knowledge, and recognizing that, while they are not one and the same, they go very closely together to complement one another. Writing is one of the most popular ways that information is spread from one person to the next, and it is also the most effective way to accumulate wealth.

The author continues to expand one the writing economy, citing that people with a job that is defined as “writing intensive” write for at least 30% of their work day. Brandt goes on to talk about her experiences with interviewing several people who use writing daily in their work. These include attorneys, scientists, editors, and mortgage brokers.

People who hold careers that are writing-heavy are intensely important to today’s knowledge economy. Brandt said as much, stating that writing is more and more associated with economic productivity. Connecting back to our last class discussion, the author mentions that the more focused on writing our economy becomes, the more stress is placed on innovation and productivity. 

“The Big Short” was the artifact of interest in this project. We aimed to analyze this film through a lense tinted with theory and thought. Our goal was to break down this film, clearly and concisely laying out the terms the theories used. The movie was directed towards the average American, aiming to educate and inform about the causes of the housing crash with accentuation on how to avoid something like this happening again.

The main purpose of our analysis is to help inform the viewer of the true value and takeaways of what they watched in “The Big Short”. Our analysis will help mediate the problem of people only seeing the movie for its entertainment value, and not its educational and informative value.

We chose a podcast for the very reason of ease of accessibility. A podcast will be easy to listen to while mobile or sedentary, and one can arguably listen rather than read more easily in today’s more technologically advanced world. With our intended audience being people who have viewed “The Big Short”, we felt that this would be a preferred medium, rather than an academic paper or article. We described and elaborated on terms used throughout the movie, allowing nearly anyone to understand it.

The most helpful supplemental materials in our work were the side readings that greatly expanded and layed out the ideologies with which we subscribed. Lanham, Bitzer, Selzer, and Bourdieu were excellent additions and gave us multiple thoughts, economics/social/capital systems, and different versions of rhetoric to consider during the project.

The central point of our analysis is to bring to light the messages given in the movie the Big Short. The message in the movie is an informative breakdown of the 2007 housing market crash which ended up leading to the 2008 recession. The main problem was that corporations were using confusing language to market what they were selling, which were not very good products. The movie attempts to inform people of what let up to the crash in hopes to avoid it.

The problem our analysis is attempting to mediate is the problem of too little information. Ian and I are laying out the terms in the movie in a much more obvious approach that will be accessible to the average American, as the movie was.

Tolentino wrote in her article about the imbalance of power between men and women, and how the movement meant to bring attention to sexual victims has been twisted and received by powerful men. She uses Brett Kavanaugh as an example, highlighting his emotional outburst in contrast with Dr. Ford’s measured speech, even under questioning.

The author uses her rhetoric to bring to light the imbalance of power between men and women. She presents Kavanaugh’s outburst as an emotional reaction to him understanding that the institutional power of men is being threatened.

The author’s article brings attention to this issue, and this will hopefully set relations on a more equal path. Tolentino is fighting for a society where no one is afraid to speak out and all are held accountable for their actions.