I wanted to start this blog off right. Which is to say, I want this blog to start. I’ve read through now thousands of blogs in the months of starting my job at LexBlog and have seen dozens of “typical” first posts. They all have a few genre-like qualities by spewing out platitudes of hope and gratitude. I don’t plan on doing anything unique or different. This post is meant to express my motivation for this blog and to extend an outreached hand to my community of rhetoricians, academics, and wannabe-scholars. I myself long to be a full-time scholar someday, but I need to explore more.

When I graduated with my master’s in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, I had a goal of wanting to start a blog. I wanted to bring tech comm into the eyes of regular people to show them that they have tools at their fingertips. I had no idea how to reach, let alone join, a community of peers. No matter how many resume’s I sent out, I couldn’t get an interview at a technical writer. Without much support and limited funds, I quickly abandoned the non-built ship of Tech Comm Corner (the would be name of my failed blog). I didn’t want a blog in a community that I couldn’t join. Sure, I’ve done technical writing work at several jobs, but I was never titled “Technical Writer”. At some point I had to say to myself, “it is just not meant to be”.

While the rocky undertakings of a blog seemed impossible, the idea didn’t take form until my start at LexBlog. Really, I have them to thank for this blog and I’m very grateful. They have shown me very simple ways for me to find and reach a community of my own. I just needed to brainstorm what community I wanted to join. I looked back at my time in non-profits, Microsoft, academia, and so forth. What I found was my love for ideas. I not only love thinking, diving into new schools of thought, but love trying to explain them and to persuade others of the novelty in those ideas. The most satisfying feeling is getting someone excited about your excitement. That primary feeling is all I need for me to jump headlong into Rhetoric Studies.

If you were paying attention to the last two paragraphs, then you would get the motivation of Every Day Rhetoric. I believe that everyone deserves access to academic concepts and I believe that academic concepts have a “real world” application. By the way, as much as I hate the words “practical” or “real world”, they are a driving force. They are in the back of my head constantly stating, “that idea is cool, but so what?”. For me, it’s just not enough to explore an idea anymore; I need to share. On a side note, I also enjoy helping people. I have a need to feel needed. So, practical application just makes sense.

As for hopes with this blog, I have many. I want to jump headlong into the world of Rhetoric. I want to find connections in text and meet others who share my interests. I want to argue until I’m blue in the face with another scholar, but I doubt that will happen. So far, I’ve only experienced support from the Rhetoric Community. They are a wonderful group of people that have managed to connect rhetoric to just about everything. I’m more than impressed by the work I have found. I will see if I can’t add my two cents on a topic or two.

As a genre, a blog in and of itself is wide ranging. I’ll explore my voice as time goes on, but I’ll try to be consistent enough. If you enjoy later posts enough to come back to this post, thank you. Let me know what you thought. I’ll do my best to get back to you.