And One More Thing...

www.oldmillcommunity.com

Here are some Christmas-y sentences for you all!


"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas; deck the halls!"

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow--I'm dreaming of a white Christmas."

"Baby, it's cold outside; but I'm dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh!"

"I'll be home for Christmas, and I'll have chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

"It was a silent night, but up on the housetop, I heard the bells on Christmas Day."


Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! God bless us, every one! Bah, humbug! And every other assorted, obligatory Christmas cliché ever concocted! This is Davis Lee, signing out for the last time! Goodbye, everybody!

Thank You, and Good Night!

www.fanpop.com

To everyone in ENG 109H,



Thanks for everything!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ



:)

To My Future Self (In Case Doc Brown Makes DeLoreans): The Grand Finale

www.quickmeme.com

Dear Future Me,

     This is you x days from the past (I don't know when you'll be reading this; just know that this was during the last few days of your first semester in college), and I don't know how you are doing whenever you are reading this. I wanted to write this letter to encourage you and to motivate you when the tough times come since, you know, we tend to mope a lot when they do come.

     Just know that, if you are struggling or barely keeping afloat in your homework or your grades, there is always a way in the end. The fact that you might be performing worse than you thought you would does not mean that you cannot find other alternatives to achieve your dreams. And even if you can't find any other way, that means that there must be something else that you were meant to do in the world. 

     Also, enjoy every moment you spend in college, including the bad ones. Going to college is a once-in-a-lifetime experience (unless you want to go back to college again, for some unknown reason), and many wish that they could have the chance to pursue higher education. Be motivated when you receive less-than-okay grades: that means you can improve. Be still motivated when you receive great grades: there's always higher! Whatever happens, do not be discouraged--that is the worst thing you can be.

     Last, keep doing your best, no matter the odds. The worst thing to do in college is knowing that you could have tried harder to obtain better grades. As long as you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you did everything in your power (and then some) to get what you have, then you can continue with no regrets.

     You can do it! 

www.reddit.com

Sincerely,

Your Old Self

To My Past Self (In Case Time Travel Becomes Possible)

tristanbuttle.wordpress.com

Dear Younger Me,

     This is you approximately 101 days into the future. No doubt you must be wondering how your college classes are going to be, and you must be trying to figure out if it is going to be just like high school. You also must be wondering how the English class you enrolled in is. Trust me, I know this stuff. I am YOU, after all. (Then again, I suppose it cannot be helped--over-stressing and pessimism were always a huge flaw in our personality.)

     Well, I'm just writing to give you some heads-up advice and to confirm some speculations that you might have in case man ever finds a way to "Saitama" Einstein's theory of relativity sky-high (look him up, and you'll know what I mean).

     First, regarding the English class, it is going to be challenging; but it is also going to be incredible fun! You will learn how to create blogs, structure public arguments, analyze controversies, study videos, and even return to familiar things like rhetorical analyses. You'll learn that the many news articles you read online, the forums debating about topics, the videos on YouTube, and even photo blogs all have specific relevance to SOAPSTone and are presented in such a way to achieve the maximum amount of effectiveness to their audiences. If you think about it, even conversations are conducted as such: we analyze our situation, our environment, the person that we are talking to, the tone of voice, and the words spoken to generate the correct responses! And all of this--ALL of this--you will learn in ENG 109H.

     Second, I want to give you an essential piece of advice that I wish I knew before: you must be aware that there is no such thing as an audience of the "general public." Everything you write--letters, reports, essays, texts, Tweets--always has a specific target audience, and every argument you make will influence certain people more than others. I know you think there is always a way to have the general public as your audience, but it will degrade the effectiveness of your writing because you are too busy trying to appeal to everyone when you could focus on one group of people. There will be a project that will require you to be very mindful of what I told you. Analyze everything--logos, pathos, and ethos--and be sure to include every single one of them into your writing.

     Finally, on the subject of writing, remember your high school grammar, but forget high school writing. This be college, foo! It's another league entirely; so do not be surprised if you find that you might not be doing as well as you initially thought you would do. However, keeping good grammar is an excellent way to start college-level writing--without good grammar, you can't make good arguments, essays, paragraphs, or even sentences. Brush up on some diction rules and vocabulary, and you should be good to begin!

     Don't worry about the difficulty of college. With college, it's just a matter of growing and adapting, learning how to build your skills and go beyond your potential. You will find disappointment, long nights, and even longer homework assignments, but fight through them! Seek to learn from each challenge you face, and you will be rewarded with far more than just a letter grade!

Sincerely,

Your Older Self

Reflective Essay: Organizing Idea and Thesis

kitchentipsideas.blogspot.com

     For my reflective essay, there are five different organizing ideas and themes that I could use. Each one of them will change how my thesis is worded and, ultimately, what my essay becomes.

1. "Focus on a specific assignment, experience, or concept."

     

     Thesis: From opening a blog to searching for forums; from opening my first social media account to making a presentation of my argument in my blog not only to my classmates, but also to all of the Internet, I learned in this extensive project and now assert that, to make the optimal public argument for any topic, audience, argument, and occasion must all work hand-in-hand, lest the failures to align those three aspects will weaken the argument, muddle its purpose and significance, and even jeopardize the credibility of the arguer for his seeming incompetence in forming a coherent argument.

2. "Compare your experience writing in this course to past experiences."

     Thesis: When I wrote in high school, I always thought that it was possible to write to a general audience--that everyone can be affected (if not immediately, then eventually) by any arguable or influential topic; but in college, however, I learned that that was a mistake: for every argument, there is always a target audience, never a "general public." By holding on to that principle, I discovered that my writing became more focused, more precise, and more impactful than it ever was before.

3. "Reflect on strengths and weaknesses."

     Thesis: Over the three months that I have delved into unique genres of writing and confronted their individual sets of problems to solve, I realized that I may be skilled in forming grammatically sound, well-structured paragraphs with smooth transitions, in synthesizing outside information within my own rhetoric, and in creating logical arguments based on data and facts; but all of those mean nothing if I cannot overcome my greatest weaknesses: neglecting and forgetting who my audience is and why that audience should mold how I write.

4. "Focus on course objectives."

     Thesis: Because of this English course, I discovered that rhetorical analysis and awareness can do more than give insight into an author's eccentricities and nuances in writing: it can extend beyond the book and stretch into the real world in work and in everyday conversation, and it can very well determine whether or not your argument or your viewpoint will successfully reach out to others or fall prostrate in the dirt, as I found out in my public argument.

5. "Focus on your writing process/self-perception as a writer."

     Thesis: After working on three major projects, all of them placing me and my classmates in unique rhetorical situations, and after writing multiple papers and essays before in high school as well, I realized that my tendency to act as a "heavy planner" may be great for the short term, but crumbles in the long term; therefore, for this class, I sought to break away from that tendency and to begin embracing attributes of the "heavy reviser" to counter my planning proclivity and to reduce my "burnout" for correcting the mistakes in my first draft.

   

hgstones.com

     I believe that the third thesis would be the most effective, interesting way to organize my essay because it deals with a problem that I had and still have. It is something that seems easy to ignore and to cast aside, thinking that you can get away with having the "general public" as the audience; but, if you and I do that, it actually muddles our arguments and makes our purposes unclear. Since I, the speaker, have that problem, I can make authoritative statements for others who may have that same problem or even other problems that they are struggling to eliminate. For my audiences (my professor and my classmates), this topic is very relatable: certainly my professor has seen this problem again and again in her many years of teaching English, and my classmates know the struggle of trying to correct their faults, even if it is not the same as mine. Therefore, by complementing those facts with a conversational tone, I can fulfill my purpose to prove that yes, I did improve my writing and actively sought to identify and be constantly aware of my audience, but also to show that that problem still persists in my writing and that I am still trying to improve more and more everyday. It is a message for the everyman in writing.


Note: I commented on Michael's and Cati's blogs. 

Audience and Invention for Reflective Essay

www.flickr.com

Now that I discussed a little bit about how my writing process has changed over the semester, it is time to start working on a bit of pre-writing. This should help me keep in mind what I should cover in my essay and how I should tailor my tone and evidences for it.

1. What topic do I want to discuss with my readers? What do I want them to understand about the topic?

     The topic for this self-reflection in English 109H is, believe it or not, my experiences of writing in English 109H! I want to discuss how my writing style has changed from being a stalwart "heavy planner" to being a combination of both the "heavy planner" and the "heavy reviser," how I did this, and why I thought that this was the best way to change my writing style. By explaining these things to my readers, I want them to understand overall how I overcame some of the looming struggles of my writing that I have had for the past several years and how I have grown not only in linguistic skill, but also in character.

2. Who is my primary audience? Who is my secondary audience?

     The primary audience for this essay will be my instructor Dr. Bell. She has seen and graded every single one of my projects and will be the one most aware of any changes that she may have seen in me. My secondary audience will be my classmates--although they may not be as aware of my changes as Dr. Bell will, our interactions within our blogs will, I hope, convey some evidence that I have grown during the semester.

3. What do my audiences already know or believe about the topic?

     As I mentioned before, my instructor will know how much of this is true from the essays and projects that she graded from me, and my classmates will know by the blogs that I posted. How much they saw or detected, however--that, I do not know.

4. How will I organize and develop my ideas to make them convincing to these readers?

     To develop my ideas, I have to show my audience how using the "heavy reviser" approach in conjunction with my "heavy planner" proclivity greatly improved my writing. Therefore, I will have to use my drafts from the three projects I did over the semester and create comparisons and contrasts between certain selections within those drafts. I could even explain my own personal process of combining the two for my public argument and how doing so proved to be an essential part in making the argument clear and effective.

5. How will I establish my ethos (relationship and tone) with my readers?

     I need to be aware that I am working with two audiences: my instructor and my classmates. My instructor would want some formality in my writing, but my classmates would prefer a more conversationalist approach more likely than an uber-serious approach. Thus, I would need to use a semi-formal tone--not too casual, yet not too grandiloquent. Also, I would have to tell some relatable stories that apply to both my professor and my classmates to maximize my connection with my readers. Perhaps stories of the pains of revising will work the best, since both audiences have experienced revising papers before.

Discovering My Writing Process (Or, Rethinking My Semester)

www.instagram24.com

     After finishing Project 3 last week, I have now made it to the final project for ENG 109H: the self-reflection. For this project, I will be looking back on the three to four months that I have attended this English class and will consider how I have grown from all of the projects that I have done so far. Thus, to begin, I will observe how my writing process changed over time.  

     Even during my years in high school, I always was a heavy planner when it came to writing. I always spent excessive amounts of time looking for the perfect sources and examples to use for my papers, spent even more hours thinking about how I was going to outline my points and my evidences for them, spent EVEN MORE hours writing each sentence down and making sure that each sentence and paragraph flowed smoothly, and spent usually one more hour proofreading to ensure quality. Therefore, because I already poured so much time into preparing that one draft, hoping that, for my second and third drafts, I did not need to make too many revisions, I would often tire of looking at my draft when I do have to revise it; and I often do not want to make another draft, lest I repeat the same process as before. 

     To counteract this tendency of mine, I tried to combine my attributes as a heavy planner with the attributes of a heavy reviser to find the right balance in my writing. Especially in my most recent project, I looked back at my blog posts and figured out which paragraphs were too weak, erased them, and rewrote them while keeping aware of the errors I made before. I was willing to hear advice from my peers and worked with the advice, making the necessary alterations, no matter how drastic. I was going to revise my things sooner or later; so why not now? By combining both attributes, I was able to see the mistakes I made in my first draft, the draft that I often think is perfect the way it is, and correct them; and I also gained the patience to go a little bit further when it came to revising. 

     I would dare say that Project 2 definitely changed how I approached writing rhetorical analyses. With many of my writings, I always wrote as if I was referring to the general public. However, after learning that even the most "general" things have a certain audience, I had to completely change my perspective on things. Especially with Project 2, I had to analyze how a certain commercial appealed to its target audience and why exactly the commercial appealed to them instead of assuming that everyone would be affected by it. I also had to dig deeper into the strategies that were used in the commercials--in other words, I had to draw not only observations, but also inferences. I could not just identify the logos; I needed to also find the pathos and the ethos of the argument as well. In a sense, you could say that my approach to writing was simultaneously narrowed and broadened. 

     My writing process is still mostly the same today as it was before: begin with sources, generally outline the paper, find evidence for those points in the sources, consider how I was going to mold those evidences into a coherent paper, and write the first draft, making sure to stay grammatically correct. Today, though, I now include revising during and after writing the first draft to ensure quality in each paragraph and a little pre-writing as well. I follow the same strategy, regardless of what paper it is. 

     Over the course of the semester, there were two things that helped me a lot while writing: the observations-inferences chart (to help with looking for the deeper meaning or reason for a certain rhetorical strategy's presence in a medium) and the cluster graph (to make connections concerning who is speaking about a topic, what they are saying about that topic, how they are saying whatever they wanted to say, and why they chose to say what they said). I will definitely try to implement these two pre-writing tools in other papers that I may have in the future. 

Rhetorical Analysis of Political Cartoon

stop-the-oligarchy.tumblr.com

     In the above political cartoon, the artist depicts the Pilgrims of the 1600s attempting to land in North America to start their colonies. However, the Native Americans, who already inhabited the continent long ago, refuse to allow the Pilgrims to enter the land, claiming that they are not accepting refugees. This is a satire on modern Americans, of whom some wish to keep immigration under tight regulation out of fear for possible refugees' being terrorists in disguise (in recent developments, Syrian refugees believed to be agents of ISIS). Obviously, this artist is poking fun at those who want to tighten immigration laws and regulations to keep fleeing refugees away from America (most likely the Republicans) and seeks to show them the absurdity of increasing immigration control by making them wonder what would have happened to America if the Indians did the same to the Pilgrims. Therefore, to achieve that purpose, he or she declares a strong message--if you drive out people that could make a country stronger for fear that they will blow up buildings or slaughter people, you may not reap the benefits of extending compassion to those who were given none; to advance society, you must forgive and forget and give refugees a chance to integrate with society. Although many know the story of Pilgrims and Indians, to fully appreciate the comic, it is recommended that a person (a) be aware of the current immigration crisis (which is, honestly, very hard to miss) and (b) be aware that, after 1492, when Christopher Columbus discovered North America, he began a massive conquest for Spain for about a decade, treating Indians as his slaves, introducing them to new diseases (syphilis, for example) that decimated a large number of Indians, and forcing them to search for gold and valuables to bring back to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, his sponsors for the journey. The second point especially enhances the viewers' understanding of the comic since they are aware of why the Indian is intent on shooing away the Pilgrims from his land.

Thesis Statement for Project 3 Rhetorical Analysis

It took a while, but here is my thesis statement for "Is Television Dying? A Look at the On-Demand Culture of the Social Millennials":

To bring awareness to millennials who use social media and online streaming that the new culture of instant gratification brought about by such new entertainment innovations led to a manipulated viewpoint wrought by impatience, which could lead to exploitation in the future if not corrected, I proved that TV is dying because of man's tendencies to look for more convenience and control in information, found in the changes to entertainment technology and exacerbated by social media and online streaming, and subsequently related that argument to our "on-demand" culture. Based on the nature of this positional argument; its reliance on quick, yet viable logic; the target audience itself (the "tech-savvy" millennials); and my authority as a fellow millennial, I argue that using a blog advertised in social media was "the best available means of persuasion in my chosen rhetorical situation."

api.ning.com

Link to My Project 3 for Friday, Nov. 20, Presentation

Here is a link.

http://theevolutionofentertainment.blogspot.com

You know you want to click it.

Click it.



It be blue.

Venn Diagram for Project 3

Here is a Venn Diagram of my argument concerning TV and its place in today's entertainment.

Pretty circles...

Background Research

www.youtube.com

     Here is some background research for my upcoming argument entitled "Like, Tweet, Comment, and Subscribe: Why Television Is Slowly Dying."

     Enjoy, ladies and gents. 

Note: I commented on Kat's and Dee's research. Excellent work, you two.

Note 2: I thought it would be good if I posted a revised draft of my background research--I made some alterations concerning the sources from which I used information.

The Five Types of Public Argument

 

38north.org

     For my own argument that I will be presenting in a couple of weeks, I am thinking about making a position (pro/con) argument. What is a position argument, you may ask, and are there any other types of argument out there? Yes, there are--five, to be exact.

     The first is, as I mentioned, the position argument. This is the bread-and-butter of all arguments; you simply take a topic, weigh the benefits and the consequences of the topic, and determine the better position based on the data provided. Therefore, I would analyze my topic, find out if I can extract the pros and cons of said topic, elaborate on both, and implement them to defend my position (which will be on the pro side or the con side).

     The second is the causal argument, in which you take a topic and argue what specifically caused that topic to arise. For instance, if I were to argue about the causes for alcohol addiction, I could argue that addiction comes from a sense of lingering desire, a feeling of loneliness or emptiness, or an effect of very bad choices. My goal, then, would be to prove that those are the primary causes for alcohol addiction by bringing information, most likely from psychology related sources.

     The third is the evaluative argument. This certain argument focuses on a course of action taken for or against a topic. The goal is not to evaluate the topic itself, although it still is open to commentary; instead, the goal is to analyze the actions taken and determine if they were effective or not. In this case, following the alcohol example, I could argue that Prohibition was not as effective as the U.S. government initially intended, and I would then bring evidence to support my claim.

     The fourth is the proposal argument. A cousin of the evaluative argument, this argument encourages a person to create his own actions toward a topic instead of analyzing another's actions toward that same topic. To successfully use this style, I would have to study the "surroundings" of the topic: who was involved, what was happening, what alternatives were present, etc. Afterward, based on what I learned, I would concoct my own plan to solve that situation and defend why my plan is the best plan for it.

Yeah...sorry, Captain Kirk.
www.everseradio.com

     The fifth and final one is the refutation argument. A cousin of the position argument, this is the one that many will find in debates or even normal conversations. For this argument, one has to take a particular stance on a certain topic (usually "for" or "against") and draw up evidence to disprove the possibility of the antithesis's being correct. For example, if I wanted to prove that Star Wars is a million times better than Star Trek (and I do think that the Force and lightsabers can beat phasers, any day), I would bring evidence to support my own claim while to also further convince my audience by listing all of the things that Star Trek does worse than Star Wars.

     Because each argument has its own subtle eccentricities, each one will appeal to different aspects. If I wanted to use the position argument, I would probably resort to using a PowerPoint presentation to make it easier for my audience to see the pros and the cons or to making a short video to get the points across in the most efficient yet effective way possible. Continuing with the Star Wars/Star Trek debate, both the PowerPoint presentation and the video will interest Star Wars and Star Trek fans alike (and maybe even some Battlestar: Galactica fans who would want to say that that show is better than the two "Stars" shows/movies); however, the PowerPoint presentation may be more suitable for an older audience, and the video will appeal more to the younger ones, since the younger ones cannot easily digest a PowerPoint presentation as well as the older generation. In regard to appeals, this argument will heavily rely on logos--this argument is a constant stream of information tailored to convince the audience by using factual evidence that may or may not be somewhat biased (depending on how reliable the source is). In that case, ethos will also be vital to prove that the information provided is valid.
   

Initial Thoughts about the Audience for My Argument

     Let me ask you guys a question: do you believe that what you are writing can apply to EVERYONE possible? Sounds quite impossible, no? Don't worry--it is. For there to be an argument or a piece of writing that applies to "the general public," all of the public must have some connection with the topic given. However, all topics cannot possibly relate to everyone in the world because everyone's situations and environments are totally unique--finding a way to make everyone "homogeneous" would be the only way to make the general public the audience for a topic.

cliparts.co

     With that in mind, let's see what my audience for my rhetorical analysis should then be. For instance, continuing with my previous example of child psychology and technology, people who might be interested in the issue would mostly consist of any parent with children, those attending elementary or high school, and those who live in technologically advanced countries. However, psychologists themselves can have an interest in and be a significant influence on the formulation of my argument. Based on my argument, the most opposed to it will be the people who believe that technology is detrimental to the mental development of children because they are quick to accuse technology as the primary culprit in juvenile delinquency instead of personal choices.

     Considering that technology became increasingly advanced over the last hundred years, many will be familiar with the concept of technology and children, especially since many have heard news about the "corrupting evils" of video games and movies. Therefore, even regular TV watchers who could have no interest in video games or movies might encounter something about those two things with (as they seem to be most associated with, nowadays) public shootings and become interested about child psychology, and those who want to assess the learning abilities of children could come across the topics of technology in childhood. The extent of basic information required for this argument will be extensive: they must know what video games, television, movies, and child mentality are. And that is it. Seriously.

My Proposed Public Argument

www.kateheddleston.com

     In the last post, I talked about a YouTube video as a public argument. Now, I will proceed to talk about my ideas for my own public argument. As of now, I am leaning toward more of a generalized social topic rather than a specialized, scientific argumentative paper (I have a feeling that I will be writing plenty of those in the future; so why not do something outside my major while I have the freedom to do that?). The audience will not only include my peers and my professor, but will also include those who may have a certain interest in that topic and want to hear either supporting arguments for their use or opposing arguments for training.

     Now that I think about it, if I wanted to make a proto-argumentative paper, I would probably do one on psychological development (maybe children and video games, a subject of which I can say I have much experience in). My purpose would then be to prove (if I were to use the children and video games topic) my message that video games bear little influence on the overall psychological development of children, and my audience would be parents, psychologists, and those with general interests in child psychology. On the other hand, if I wanted to pursue a general argument, I would choose a topic concerning higher education, making an argument that higher education should focus more on courses related to a person's major instead of general education courses. The audience, of course, would be students, teachers, college administrations, families with children in college, and potentially the Department of Education. Of course, both are simply examples; I am still trying to figure out what exactly I want to do.

Analysis of "Suffering in the Desert" YouTube Video (Sample Public Argument)

kansascity.legalexaminer.com

     After an incredibly long break, I have returned to begin the process of creating my own Public Argument, Paper #3 of ENG 109H. To begin, I decided to study another video, but not the #LikeAGirl commercials. This time, it is a YouTube video posted by a U of A student as an English project. Entitled "Suffering in the Desert," this particular video focused on the question of allowing undocumented immigrants to cross the U.S./Mexico border without problems. Within the video, there were traces of certain aspects that, like the #LAG commercials, both strengthened and weakened her argument, of which I will now elaborate.

     The tone for the video is extremely obvious: melancholy and almost forceful. In the very beginning, two scenes of text are shown. The first displays a quote from the organization "No More Deaths" that states, "Humanitarian aid is never a crime." The second issues a command for action: "Americans need to stop standing by while thousands die in our desert." Both statements contribute to the tone because (1) the statements imply that Americans are apathetic to the problems of undocumented immigrants, and (2) the second statement is making a claim that there are "thousands [who are] d[ying] in our desert." The visuals, the photographs used throughout the entire video, further intensify the depressing situation as viewers see photos of families with small children trying to flee; a body covered by a blanket, representing a failed attempt to escape to freedom; and immigrants laying their heads upon railroad tracks to sleep. However, the music, Coldplay's "Lost," was perhaps a weak point for the tone. It might just be me, but from a musical standpoint, I found the song to be, for lack of more proper vernacular, "cheesy." The lyrics convey a sense of a person struggling to find a way out of a sticky situation and knowing that he will someday conquer that problem, all of which fit nicely into the problem of immigration. But the melody of the piano and of lead singer Chris Martin do not correlate with the intended tone of the video at all and instead creates a rather goofy contrast between the "sad love song" tone of the melody and the morbid situation it tries to emphasize. Perhaps using a gentle piano and violin/cello combination with no lyrics would have suited the video more than a song from Coldplay.

Not from the video, but it gets the point across.
adeaconswife.com

     This video seems to focus heavily on the emotions of the audience. Constantly, facts about mortality rates and causes of immigrants and establishments to help those immigrants appear in small transitional scenes, and all of the photos show the heartbreaking plight of the immigrants. The music, although I did mention that it was a peculiar choice for the video, is meant to make a person thoughtful about the immigrants who want to desperately reach America and live better lives. By appealing to emotion, the creator hoped to sway her audience into agreeing with her argument about helping the undocumented immigrants reach American soil. To build her credibility in conjunction with her building emotional pressure and logical reasoning, at the end of the video, she presented a list of works cited, which reveals that she consulted books, documentaries, and news from the No More Deaths organization itself.

     Her primary method of conveying her argument is the transitional scenes, since those are the portions in which she includes text. From there, her argument is structured in the typical essay style: she gives some facts about the immigrants, their attackers, and the desert; some notes about the benevolent organizations that are helping the immigrants; and a plead to the audience to assist those organizations. The pictures do not exactly tell a different story; instead, they supplement the text by showing situations that she indicated in the transitions. However, looking at the photos alone can provide enough information to figure out what is happening, given the proper context. If the order of the photographs changed, it might have also affected how the textual argument was organized, potentially making it less effective.

Not from the video, and does not portray the point of the video.
So why did I use this photo? Because it's the desert, and those
squirrels are too cute.
en.wikipedia.org

     Because the video presents a persuasive argument, there are calls to action given to the audience. The first is located at the beginning of the video as the second transitional scene, when she states that Americans needed to start caring about the immigrants. The other most prominent call is found at the end of the video, when she encourages her audience to assist the humanitarian organizations in their efforts to help the immigrants. For the first call to action, the subsequent photos quickly show the audience a brief glimpse of immigrants running for their lives and the occasional deaths, providing reasons to the audience of her insistence. The pictures for the second call to action show the organizations distributing food and treating hurt immigrants, the sight of which draws empathy from the audience and encourages them to really try to assist the organizations.

     Overall, this video does an excellent job in persuading the audience that the immigration problem has to be solved benevolently. If I wanted to make a video, I would try to copy her style, but I would add some video clips from the documentaries and change the background music to something more thought-provoking--something a lot like this.

     Thus concludes the analysis. Go have fun, guys.

Rhetorical Analysis Post-Mortem

www.gifmania.co.uk

     Paper #2 is complete! Only two more of them remain! Before moving on to the next paper, I'd like to stop and take a look back on what happened with this paper.

     The rhetorical analysis paper is certainly not an unfamiliar one to me, but it was a challenge, nonetheless. Because for this paper, instead of analyzing the verbiage of a passage, I had to investigate the strategies used for a commercial! However, I learned that in order to completely understand and discover new concepts in the commercial, I had to look at parts where others may have missed and develop my own unique thoughts on parts where people may have been in agreement. It was a constant search of finding things that attracted/repulsed people, including me, and figuring out why it attracted/repulsed them/me. 

     I felt that I improved and wrote a better paper this time around, because this time, I took time to think about the audience. That was perhaps my greatest source of error in my last paper, the Controversy Analysis: ignoring the audience and only focusing on the subject matter. As a result, I delivered only the "what" of the analysis without taking into account the "how" and "why." This time around, I decided to focus more on the "how" and "why" of things, and I felt as if I made a more comprehensive paper in the end.

     I, however, realized that I may have made a mistake on one major thing. While I was writing, I made use of the pronoun "you" in the introduction, but I believe I did not use it for the rest of the paper. I do not know if this is a serious error or not, but it may be still an error. If I were to point out another thing I wished that I would have done, it would be for more research sources. I understand that the video should be the main source for argumentation, but in retrospect, I think adding a few more outside sources would have been great for my paper.

     Disregarding the boo-boos, I learned through this experience that there are more messages present in certain media besides the most obvious one; and even if the only message is the most obvious one, there are still those intricacies that make a fairly standard concept a powerful one to the audience. Even seemingly easy strategies such as tilting a camera to angle a picture or making a background as dull as possible can contribute to more impactful results, and we often do not realize them until we decide to look closer. This is a lesson that will definitely be useful in the scientific field, since the whole gist of science is looking for those intricacies that make one thing different from another. The difference between diseases could be a difference of one species of virus; between atoms, protons; between stones, molecular structures--the list is endless. But, like the rhetorical analysis, science goes beyond just identifying those differences--it includes knowing why those differences appear and how to use them to make something new or to fix what exists now. With this lesson, I have grown to appreciate both English and science more than before.

     And that concludes the Rhetorical Analysis, paper #2 of the 2015 ENG 109H-029 class. Coming up next...the Public Argument! This one is going to be utterly fantastic. Until then, this is Davis, signing off from the Rhetorical Analysis. See you all when the Public Argument begins!

First Draft of "Like a Girl" Commercial Analysis

Here is my very first draft of my rhetorical analysis! I do realize that it is a bit too extreme on the wordiness and the vocabulary; I'll be working on chopping that down for the other drafts. In the meantime, please feel free to comment or recommend or correct anything else on my paper; your help is greatly appreciated!

twitter.com

Note: I checked out Michael Gee's and Arrick Benson's papers and made some suggestions there. Both papers were pretty good!

Note 2: I consulted one of my siblings for more help with my paper. He said that it was good overall, but there are those instances in which I drone off, using huge words and long sentences that could be better if I just used simpler vocabulary and shorter sentences. I will be working on keeping wordiness to a minimum in my draft.

Thesis and Outline of "Like a Girl" Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    After multiple sessions of watching the "Like a Girl" commercial, I have finally decided on a suitable thesis statement for my essay! I must say that it was interesting to see my own viewpoint change as I researched this campaign more and more, and I bet you all will see it, too!


Thesis: By utilizing cinematographic strategies and personalized accounts in its "Like a Girl" Super Bowl XLIV commercial, the Always company crafts and establishes an empowering message for women who have been subjected to such stereotypes from others and an alert against stereotyping women for men to instigate change in a male-dominated society. However, although it is mostly effective in presenting its beliefs to its audience, the Always company's desire to advertise and associate themselves with the feminist movement does mar the message's delivery, bringing damning questions to the overall motive of the "Like a Girl" campaign.


     Here is a link to my preliminary outline for the analysis. Coming soon: the drafts of the analysis!

soundcloud.com

Pre-writing Activities for "Like a Girl" Commercial Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Soapstone
geology.com

    For this particular essay, I will be using SOAPStone and an "observation and inferences" chart for pre-writing. Using SOAPStone will allow me to stay constantly aware of key elements necessary to making an effective analysis and to remember to link my evidences and inferences with the six concepts found in SOAPStone. With an "observations and inferences" chart, I will be able to preemptively link SOAPStone observations with my own observations and answer some questions as to how and why something in the commercial is presented the way it is. Through the chart, I can smoothly integrate both into my analysis and easily elaborate on the inferences without worrying about trying to find inferences from my observations while I am writing.

Note: The prewriting is always a work of progress; so there will be regular changes to the "o v. i" chart as time goes by.

Note 2 (particularly for Dr. Bell): If you're trying to look for my second comment on prewriting activities, it is located in Kat's Google Drive document.

Note 3: I like threes.

Personal Response to "Like a Girl" Super Bowl XLIV Commercial

community.sparknotes.com

    For my rhetorical analysis essay, I have decided to focus on the "Like a Girl" commercials that played during Super Bowl XLIV earlier this year to discern how they effectively relay a message that many might have heard before using striking cinematographic strategies and personal thoughts and accounts that ultimately serve to alter the common beliefs of the definition of "being like a girl." These commercials especially piqued my own interest because, within a time limit of about one to two minutes and with a metaphysical limitation of many (including myself) having heard such messages before, they were able to make me ponder more about how I and other people viewed the female gender in the light of today's stereotypes of girls.

Outline and Analysis of "Wanted: Emotional Response for the End of Sex-Trafficking" Essay

Benjamin Nolot's documentary
nefariousdocumentary.com

Note: For a quick look on how the essay is structured, here is a link to an outline that I made for the paper.

     Throughout the essay, Mikayla Gerdes-Morgan does a very good job on keeping her points connected with her thesis. First, she makes her thesis clear by placing it at the very end of her first paragraph: "Through the use of reenactments and cinematography, Nolot effectively illustrates the dire need for the cessation of human sex-trafficking and appeals to his viewers' emotions." Already, readers know that she will be focusing on how Nolot uses two things, reenactments and cinematic portrayals, to not only show the reasons for eliminating the trafficking industry, but also present how and why those two things appeal to the audience's emotions. From there, she ensures that her topic sentences relate to the thesis: in fact, three of the four topic sentences in the body of the essay include some derivative of the phrase "appeals to his viewers' emotions." By continuously connecting her topic sentences with emotional responses, Gerdes-Morgan creates a unified paper that is focused on narrow subjects, allowing her to truly explore the how's and the why's of her subjects.

      Although one may have excellent theses and topic sentences, both matter very little if they do not have viable pieces of evidence to support them; and Gerdes-Morgan appears to be very aware of that fact. Her one source of information is Nolot's documentary, from which she is basing her essay; but she draws out specific details within the documentary that prevent the evidence from sounding too generic or possibly fabricated. As she writes her essay, she is very cognitive on maintaining unity between the evidence and the thesis at hand--she chooses parts from the documentary that pertain to the emotional effects of being in the trafficking industry and interprets each one to reflect how they evoke an emotional response from the viewers themselves. For instance, in the fourth and fifth paragraphs (two of her strongest paragraphs in the essay), she mentions two scenes in the documentary that feature simulated moments of trafficking. One scene involved a man beating a woman, and another scene depicted a woman crying in her bedroom. Gerdes-Morgan pays particular attention to the camera frames in both scenes. For the first scene, she notes that the camera frame was from the woman's perspective and was gradually decreasing in size and fading into blackness, indicating (according to Gerdes-Morgan) that the victim was slowly disconnecting from her reality to cope with the trauma and relating the direct perspective of the scene with the audience's own visual perspective, which is the same as the victim's. For the second scene, Gerdes-Morgan points out how a circular frame was closing in on the woman while the image was becoming more distant and states that the circular frame is similar to an emotional tunnel in which the victim's hope becomes smaller and smaller over time. Also, she notes that the camera perspective is actually above the woman, a viewpoint that would create an urge to help the woman among the audience. Especially in these two paragraphs, not only does she choose effective pieces of evidence to support her topic sentences, but she also interprets each one in terms of cinematography and emotional appeal in the audience, the two primary subjects found in her thesis, making both paragraphs exceptionally strong and unified in purpose.

     However, not all of her paragraphs are of the same caliber as the other two. The third paragraph does present a piece of evidence, but it is the only one in the paragraph and suffers slightly from repetition in the two interpretations that Gredes-Morgan provides. This paragraph would be better if there was something cinematic that could serve to further elaborate the interpretation that the author provides. Besides that paragraph, the rest of the essay is a very good one. 

Observations and Inferences from HONY

Observations

Inferences

Speaker is Brandon Stanton Photos are for those who read his blog, social media sites, or books Purpose is to emphasize the uniqueness of every individual and to challenge man’s tendency to overlook such people Tone shifts from somber to lighthearted at intervals, often with juxtaposition First photograph on blog is photo of construction worker Six-month gap between first photo and second photo Subjects initially were about eccentric people in New York before evolving into more personal ones Most pictures are portraits instead of landscapes On Jan. 10, 2011, he begins to write small stories pertaining to pictures There are some pictures that do not feature the person’s face Photographs became extremely frequent by August 2011 Evidence of his hosting fundraisers People photographed range from the poor to the rich, the foot soldiers to the politicians, and from the joyous to the depressed Backgrounds vary from deserts to cities, from classrooms to alleys, and from parks to slums Pictures of Iran appear by Dec. 2012, but still remain on HONY blog site Stories and comments increase in size as time progresses Most recent photographs are of foreigners and refugees with personalized stories

First photograph and subsequent lack of photos for six months suggest that Stanton thought it was a trivial idea that would not proceed with much success. First few months of photographs reveal that the blog was initially a type of eye candy, focusing on the poor and the garish in New York while providing little context. The constant use of portrait format reinforce the purpose to individualize overlooked people in the world and to draw emphasis on the concept that every person is unique; if landscape was used, the focus of the photograph can be diverted to other points on the picture besides the person. The short stories contribute to the tone of the photograph, add personality to the face, and further capitalize on the individuality of people by introducing a short excerpt of their history. The lack of faces on some of the pictures could indicate that those people simply want privacy or desire anonymity to protect themselves from their enemies. The evidence of fundraisers display that the blog has become more than a product of a hobby and instead has become a social statement, exposing people to different ways of life in a new fashion. The various people photographed serve to fulfill particular demographics that may feel unrepresented, especially in today’s Internet-dominated society, but also build on the purpose of increasing the audience’s awareness of these kinds of people. The various backgrounds work in tandem with the photographed people--the location themselves convey a tone to the picture and can even be revealing toward a person’s character traits. The pictures from Iran are interesting--Stanton took those pictures on a little vacation but decided to keep those photos in his blog and other sites, suggesting that (a) he wanted to keep his audience informed about what he was doing, (b) he wanted to avoid making two separate blogs for these pictures, or (c) he wanted to make a statement that those people from Iran are no different from the people in New York and should be treated equally. The evolution of the blog from a hobby to a full-fledged passion project is apparent in the most recent photos, which feature refugees and foreigners, and imply that the speaker himself desires to explore more into humanity and into the lives of the humans not only in New York.

     Based on what I observed and inferred from simply looking through Stanton's blog "Humans of New York," I am really interested to look into how and why he wanted to explore the individual rather than the whole of humanity. He could have showed pictures relating to the concept of people joining hands and working together to make New York--the title "Humans of New York" do convey that sense in one way. However, he must have thought that there was something about every single person in New York (and, eventually, in other countries) that makes society the one we see today. It would be quite an insightful adventure to try to discover his reasons and the lessons he ultimately wants us--his viewers--to draw from his photographs.

SOAPStone of HONY

www.34st.com

For those who constantly look at his blog, his social media sites, or his books (audience), Brandon Stanton (speaker) provides a photographic journey through the eyes of many eccentric individuals from New York and beyond (subject), all of whom have different stories--some happy, some heartbreaking--that teach all who see or read it that although man is one specie in one small world, every person has some unseen story that sets them apart from others (purpose). What once began as a new hobby for this excellent photographer (occasion) became a worldwide sensation, sometimes somberly (tone) reminding people that not everyone has an ideal beginning and happily (tone) showing the joys, hopes, and aspirations of mankind as a whole.

SOAPStone of "#LikeAGirl" Super Bowl Commercial

circuitox.com

     In early 2015, Super Bowl XLIV commenced and brought along some captivating commercials with it (occasion)--Universal Studios presented a clip to promote their then-upcoming movie "Minions," Fox Films featured a trailer of "Kingsman: The Secret Service" (brilliantly fun movie, by the way), car companies showed off the features of their newest models, and WeatherTech decided to flaunt its high-quality floor mats. During halftime, however, a different kind of commercial presented by its sponsor Always (speaker), a Proctor and Gamble enterprise specializing in feminine hygiene products, came on the TV screen with the question of what it means to be "like a girl" (subject). The many men and women who were watching their TVs for the Super Bowl (audience) then viewed other adult men, adult women, and young boys moving in a very feminine fashion as they showed how they thought about acting like a girl. Then, in a tonal shift from parodical and humorous to pensive and thought-provoking (tone), the commercial displayed young girls moving in a "masculine" (by the terms of today's society) fashion, proudly declaring that acting like a girl meant "doing [their] best." For the viewers, two individualized purposes were fulfilled by the commercial: for women, it is a rallying cry to not be hassled by the modern definition of "girl" and to instill change for today; and for men, it is a wake-up call to let them see that women can stand equal to them and do not deserve to be looked down upon because of their supposed "weakness."

Revision of "Rhetorical Analysis Paragraph of 'Girl Culture'"

Note: Stick girl is back.

bikinisandsocks.wordpress.com

For the last post, I attempted to write my own rhetorical analysis paragraph on some pictures from Lauren Greenfield's photographic essay "Girl Culture." After studying my paragraph and a paragraph of similar topic from Joan Brumberg, who wrote on Greenfield's essay, I decided to add some alterations to my paragraph. Here is the new paragraph:

     The pictures presented by Lauren Greenfield reveal a disturbing fact in our society that has often been mistaken for cute naivety: that the young girls of our generation, allured by the beautiful models, both real and cartoonish, in magazines and in movies, have embraced an erotic disposition under the belief that the world sees a curvaceous body and a stunning face as the true symbols of femininity. Take, for instance, the photograph of a four to five-year-old girl, who, in what appears to be a princess-style makeover session, has posed in a seductive fashion with puckered lips and an arched lower back--things one might connect with the overly sexualized cartoon character Jessica Rabbit from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" However, the erotic embrace has not only wrapped around the young children, but also seized the teenagers as well, who have lived for well over a decade seeing and hearing of how the ideal woman should be. For four teenagers going to some type of social gathering, one girl, wishing to catch the attention of some boys, struck a pose not unlike the girl playing dress-up. With these two pictures, it becomes tragically clear that for today's society, outward beauty has overtaken inward beauty, and that the eyes have dominated over the heart.

I noticed something quite interesting when I wrote the revised paragraph above. In the previous post containing my original paragraph, I though that analysis was synthesizing observations: I took what I saw from the pictures, tied them together, and sprinkled my own viewpoints in between. However, after studying Brumberg's essay and my own paragraph, I realized that that was not the case. For analysis paragraphs, I did not necessarily need to spit out every single detail in the picture--the audience can do that very well on its own. I needed to draw out deeper meanings from those little details and present those meanings to the audience, only adding in details when they are necessary for clarity. For the clincher, I needed to take those smaller details and meanings from the pictures and use them to find the overarching purpose for the photographs. Using these tactics, I was able to make a paragraph that was more analytical than declarative.