Description

The Rhetorical Situation

• Appears to be written at a casual pace
• Relationship between writers appears to be friendly/casual
• Messages are written in response to previously written messages

Header Elements

• Subject alludes to the fact that there were previous messages (re:)
• No cc or bcc shown

Features of the Genre

• Casual greetings and salutations, conversational sounding

Lexicon

• Use of abbreviations (re:, CFP, AC, MN, SCSU, etc.)
• Informal and friendly tone/language

Sentences

• Generally simple sentences
• Vary in length - mostly shorter sentences

Use of Punctuation

• Punctuation usage is sound
• Dashes are used, but they are used where periods could have gone

Degree of Editing

• Fairly tightly edited throughout
• Noted one omitted word (accidental, not intentional)

Paralinguistic Cues

• One "smiley" used for effect: "50's era detective style. :)"

Length of Message

• Message not over-wordy, casual and conversational
• Enough information given to convey the message, and enough

friendly information exchanged to discern that the e-mail senders and recipients are most likely friends

Embedded Material

• N/A

Paragraphs

• Although broken into more than one paragraph, Matt's first

paragraph is a collaboration of several subjects

• Block format

Overall Organization/Arrangement of the Message

• Seemingly chronological re: messages conveyed
• A narrative feel to Matt's e-mail

Use of Headings, Lists, Tables

• Little shown in regards to lists, tables, etc., but

Matt's original message has the heading, "Call For Papers"

Images

• N/A

Typing Adaptations for the E-Mail Form

• Not too many drastic typing adaptations, mostly standard print and formatting

Use of Rhetorical Figures

• Phrases/Terms:

 The office looks retro 
 50's era detective style
 new writing media
 wired society

Analysis

There are many things that stand out in any given message when you break it down for analysis. These e-mail messages, when clipped into more digestible parts, spoke volumes about their respective authors.

For starters, the short sentence structure and quick jumping from topic to topic reveals that the two corresponding people know each other, have spoken before about the subjects presented, and speak to each other often enough to limit the amount of background information needed to "catch each other up" on what is going on in their lives.

There is also a certain casualness to the sentence structure and word choices that lend to the belief that even though certain work-related elements (in particular, the book project) are mentioned, it is not a formal matter regarding how it is spoken of and desribed.

All in all, by taking what was written in these e-mails and examining the manner in which it was constructed, one can gather a lot of information from the seemingly simple interpersonal communications and messages contained within the exchanges.

Interpretation

There seems to be unspoken understanding between the messangers that they don't need to elaborate on because the information was intended to be between them, not written for an audience. For example, in Matt's e-mail, he refers to his move, but he doesn't say where he moved from--it is assumed, then, that Mike knew where Matt moved from.

Mike makes mention of a "passible office" and a "shiny new computer classroom," and this allows a couple of interpretations to be made: First, it shows that Mike can relate to coming to a new place to teach and knows the challenges of a new endeavor such as finding your niche in a new school: second, it is a way (whether indirectly or subconsciously) for Mike to remind Matt to check up on his teaching situation and not just assume everything will be ready to go for him...perhaps brought up in the first place because Mike went through a similar experience (I'm reaching here, I know).

Also, we can interpret that each individual has knowledge of what a "wiki" is because each mentions the term, but we can interpret that each person has their own way of working with wikis because Matt states that he is not sure what Mike means by "wiki writing text."

If one were to continue to claw and scratch, perhaps other inferences could be discovered, but the danger in reading too closely may be in reading too much into something insignificant while looking right past something obvious and meaningful. Our minds can be too creative at times and pull things out of thin air, or make connections that just don't hold water.