Robot Revolution
Webpage
Context
During my internship at the Franklin Institute, I would frequently work with content surrounding upcoming exhibits. Over the summer, the museum was preparing promotional and marketing material for their upcoming Robot Revolution exhibit. During this preparation, I was given the task of reviewing the content of the Robot Revolution homepage and revise for specific content issues. Because the exhibit was approaching soon, the museum wanted to ensure that the online presence of the homepage contained language that was both professional and informative while still being persuasive.
Rhetorical Decisions
Below are images of the original Robot Revolution webpage content:
The original content contains a lot of passive voice that takes away from the effectiveness of the language. The passivity is especially noticeable in the text accompanying the pictures. While passive voice is appropriate in some contexts, active voice is preferred when discussing the potential benefits of an upcoming exhibit in a persuasive way. Because of this, the main issue was the style of the original text. In looking at style as one of Cicero's canons of rhetoric, I used the concepts of reader benefits to revise the text into a more active style and voice. Likewise, it was clear to me that the passivity of the original text hinders the webpage's ability to achieve its rhetorical purpose of persuading the audience to visit the upcoming exhibit in the future. An active voice better communicates the benefits of the exhibit to the audience, which in turn persuades the audience to attend because of the clearly stated benefits of doing so. Below are images of my revised Robot Revolution webpage content that was posted and continues to be used online.
Aside from revising the voice of the content from passive to active, I made more generalized revisions to the overall articulation of the upcoming exhibit. In doing this, I kept in mind Aristotle's idea of deliberative rhetoric. While this type of rhetoric is usually seen in courtrooms and assemblies, because the Robot Revolution webpage is promoting an upcoming event and discussing the different courses of action that could be taken by museum visitors, the webpage represents a modern interpretation of deliberative rhetoric. In my generalized revisions, I focused on adding specific details to the content that would highlight the different courses of action, aspects and interactions with the exhibit, that the audience could take. Specifically, I researched and added more information about each robot and highlighted the benefits each would bring to museum visitors.
Reflection
Because the details of this project were on the simplistic side, I was able to focus more on the textual revisions rather than juggling content and design together. This project served as a great exercise in knowing and understanding the importance of active versus passive voice. Likewise, this project taught me the different variances and interpretations that the forms of rhetoric can take.
