self-critique blog post

I have written many blogs in my first semester here at NC State but I have a best and a worst I believe. My best blog post is the propaganda blog post, I put everything I thought and felt into that blog post and even got to put up my own propaganda for everyone to see. My worst would be gender and bathrooms because it wasn't very easy to elaborate on. The signs represented themselves, making my blog post just repetitive. As a blogger I have learned to put my thoughts out there in a very self monitoring fashion, that is very important to me. After this course I do not believe I will blog anymore, my form of blogging is Facebook I believe. My relationship has grown fonder with blogging. I don't see it as a thing that just weird kids do anymore, it really means something to some people and its a good "out". I'm glad I got to experience it.

response essay blog post

I am going to respond to Lana Chiad's essay entitled "The Lord's Army". I am going to counter this argument by arguing that religion is not forced down the throats of American children. I do not believe that this is true, in turn for my first point I believe that children are taught the religion of their families and later on once they truly understand that religion, they can choose for themselves whether or not they believe it to be true. My second point I plan to argue is that religion is not taught to children to keep them from being psychotic murderer, it is taught to children because it is what their parents believe and it is important to them, therefore they teach it to them and hope they believe in it for the sake of believing in a higher power. My third point I plan to argue is that not every christian couple is going to brainwash their child into hysteria about God.

challenging media

I took the time to watch Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising's Image of Women because of the little side note Ms. Clark wrote about one of the images being a photoshopped picture of Gisele Bundchen claiming that it was a model with anorexia that had died in 2006, Ana Carolina Reston. You do not have to be a genius to figure out that the picture is of Gisele and if you have ever seen Gisele you would know that her body absolutely looks nothing like the body portrayed in the photo. This is another case of "lets make models look like starving victims of society and make everyone against them". Yes, the media, television, magazines and more often have skinny or fit women in their ads but this to me does not say "all women need to be this size" when women are put in ads so skinny they are often wearing something or near something that is trying to be sold. This to me says "if you wear this product you will look good just like these women". It is enforcing the product, not the model's body weight. I hope that Jean Kilbourne realizes that she has made a complete fool of herself by falsely advertising Gisele as an anorexic model. Everyone knows what Gisele looks like, if you have seen a show or a Victoria Secret ad, it is apparent who she is. I guess Jean Kilbourne thinks that everyone viewing this slideshow of hers is an idiot because not only did she use Gisele as an anorexic Ana Reston, but she used an ad in which Gisele was in earlier in the slide show with her REAL body. In one part of the slide show it was real Gisele, then a photoshopped Gisele saying that she was a different person. This woman, Jean Kilbourne, has completely false information and speaks only of her opinions of women and the images in the media. I trust nothing that this woman may say or do. If Jean Kilbourne told me the sky was blue I can honestly say I would have to go outside and look up. If she wants to be taken seriously in the fight against anorexia like she says she does then she should definitely not use false photos and should focus more on real life situations and if the images of women on tv affected them or not. But in anorexia, the false body image does not come from super models on tv, it comes from a distorted image of themselves in their own mind. I find it ridiculous that Jean Kilbourne thinks she can blame models and tv ads for anorexia in America because that simply is not true. I truly wish that Kilbourne would just do some research of her own for data, numbers, statistics, real life stories, ANYTHING to make her statements plausible. I completely do not agree with Jean Kilbourne in this matter and hope she learns to use real information some day.

dissenting voices

I do not completely agree with the article I read today, published on the front page of the New York Times. The article was entitled "Deep Rifts Divide Obama and Republicans", which spoke of the Republican win over the house and their gains in the senate. President Obama and the Republicans have vowed to work together toward great progress in the country but their divide in policy is making this harder than expected. When reading this article I was genuinely interested but something immediately caught my eye in the second paragraph of the article. I am accustomed to and I'm sure most people are that we call our President "President Obama". When I read the article, the writers Peter Baker and Carl Hulse refer to him as "Mr. Obama". I was appalled when I saw this. Not only does this take away his title as President but it makes him seem like an inconspicuous street walker that could be any man. This is THE President of the United States of America, this was a pretty bold move to strip him of his title in an article displayed on the front of the New York Times, perhaps the most popular news paper in the country. This was not just a preference of name calling by the writers or a "uh oh", this was an intentional attack and I am surprised and appalled that the editor of this article let it be published like this. I am not a huge fan of Obama, I am a Republican and also disagree with a lot of his policies but I feel that he deserves the respect to be called President, the title that he rightfully won. As I kept reading it became completely apparent to me that the writers were indeed attacking President Obama. They looked upon every word of our President and found something negative about it. They made it way too obvious that they are against him in policies. I thought that most news articles, especially front page articles, weren't supposed to be bias or controversial. When I read "More conciliatory than contrite, Mr. Obama used that phrase, “take responsibility,” six times but rejected the suggestion that his policies were moving the country in the wrong direction." I knew that it was a direct attack to the President and the article may not have anything to do with the Republicans and President Obama working together but having different opinions in policy but it was intentionally written and published due to their personal want to bash the President. Our Capitol is struggling and to be honest, fractured because of the differences between so many people running our country. Everyone is going to have to agree on something in the end, and negativity is not appreciated or helping at a time like this. The American people must come together in times like this.

Online Interaction Blog Post

Blog posts were a different experience for me. I do not feel that blog posts are an effective extension of conversation outside of the physical class room. Since we have prompts and specific questions (which I like because it gives me something specific and an outline to write on) but it does not follow the same structure of a flowing conversation that we might have with one another in class. Also, when commenting, we are communicating back to other students but I don't feel as if anyones comments aregenuine, I feel like the comments are just something that is thrown out there because we have to do them. Blog posts sometimes feel pointless but at other times help us engage with the material you want us to read and learn about. But when it comes to blogs acting in place of conversation that might take place in class, it is not the same whatsoever. Comments are not serving as a good way to start an interesting conversation. As I said before, I do not think the comments are genuine, I just believe they are something that is merely said because it is required of us. Plus, I'm pretty sure like half the class forgets to comment because it is hard to remember. I'd much rather do blog posts than forum discussions mainly because of the format of the forum discussions. They are extremely confusing and hard to figure out where to put text and it was just difficult and frustrating for me. To improve the blog posts (if your goal is to make it more like a conversation that you might have in the class room) I would make the blog posts more opinion based instead of just, answer this question, then answer this one. Make it like how do you feel about this, what do you think about this. That is how a conversation goes anyway. Structure it around the way a normal conversation would be structured. Blog posts are creative and a great way to engage in the material to be learned but the information would probably settle more in our minds if the posts were discussed in class and the information was revisited.

qualitative research concerns

I can't lie, I am more worried about this paper than the rest that we have had so far. I am worried about writing open-ended questions. It was hard enough to do in class with two friends about a simple movie and now I am going to have to do it by myself and incorporate those questions into my paper about a story of my own choice. This scares me! Open-ended questions are not easy to write or to answer in my opinion. I feel it may be hard to stay away from quantitative methods because they are simple and truly easier than qualitative methods. It is much easier to report numbers and simple data and facts than to have to report feelings and thoughts and answers to difficult questions. On the other hand, conducting qualitative research is a very eye opening experience and will show people like me how other people feel about a story being changed from one medium to another. I will also be conducting this qualitative research in many different ways like conducting interviews, observing and reading data. This is will give me a much more broad perspective of the data and what people think about the story I am conducting research on. Qualitative research goes in much more depth than quantitative research does. It shows the thought processes of the people being interviewed, how they feel and what they think when all that quantitative research shows are statistics, numbers, and data that must be interpreted to be understood. I expect to encounter many challenges and obstacles when writing this paper as I anticipate it to be very work intensive and probably give me a few headaches. I expect to be stuck deciding which story to pick to conduct my research on. There are tons of stories that have been converted from one medium to another and I am very indecisive, which is not a good combination at all. Also, coming up with open-ended questions is very difficult for me, I even had trouble in class with it when I had friends to help me come up with some questions. I expect that conducting the research itself is going to a pain in the butt! There is so much that goes into this paper that I know I must be very organized with all of my information and even my thoughts. Writing is difficult for me, and organizing the information in my paper I know will be very difficult for me, to figure out what goes where. I know that once this research paper is done and over with I will be proud of myself because it is going to be a lot of work but I also know that because it is a lot of work I am going to want to procrastinate a ton just to put all of the work off. I am going to work very hard, however, to not procrastinate. This is a paper that can't be put together in two days and will take a lot of time to conduct the research, put it all in its place and write the paper with sophistication and style. I am going to have to put everything aside for a little while and focus purely on this paper because to me, it is a big deal since it proposes so many challenges.

writing about learning

I can always tell when I've learned something from an experience. I usually end up learning things the hard way and that is through experience. So if I learn not to do something from a bad experience then I won't do that thing again or if something turns out great I may do it again. I always realize when I have learned something from a course that I am in. Later on in the course or in a different course I can always look back on things I know and have learned and use them in whatever I am doing at that time. I often use what I have learned when I am talking to my friends about school or about their assignments and I can use what I know to help my friends. The evidence I look at to answer those questions are whether I can use what I learn in everyday life and even when I move on from that course or that experience, I still know what I learned and can use it to my advantage. I think that when we learn things that transform our beliefs and alter our lives then they are more often remembered and used in the future. I remember my senior year in english class I had a teacher that made us talk about religion. I fought for what I believe in and so did the people in my class. My beliefs weren't altered because I believe what I always have but it made my beliefs stronger as well as gave me a chance to see what other people believed. Growing up in my family and in the church I never heard much of other people's beliefs and what they are willing to fight for and that conversation in my english class and learning what I did has stuck with me. I remember everything that was said that day. When I learn things that don't have such an impact on me I still remember them, just not as vividly as if something did alter the way I feel. But most of the time I prefer to learn just on the surface because I can't handle having my world rocked every time I learn something new. I think the way I learn is very comparable to how other people learn in and outside of my classroom. The information that I do retain is always very easily relayed to others and I hope that information retained by others can be relayed to me. I don't know if others judge the way I learn the way I do but I think that an experience in the course can especially help learning and keep students retaining information.

stereotypical news article blog post

Just by looking at how the news article is laid out with all of the short paragraphs, it looks exactly like the popular article I used for my paper. The entire article consisted of tiny paragraphs of a sentence or two and this is actually addressed in the news article in the second short paragraph. Everything that is being addressed within this news article that is making fun of a general news article I saw within my popular article that I used for my second major paper. I did not realize that all articles written for a general or popular audience are all written the same. There is obviously a stereotype for all popular articles written for a popular audience and I feel like it degrades popular audiences, they make it seem like popular audiences are too stupid or incompetent to understand anything that isn't sugar coated and wrote out very precisely. While reading this article I have noticed many of the things that we have talked about in class. In one paragraph it says that it will provide the name of the journal that the research was published in but it won't bother to cite it because they don't want to bother with it, they don't want to link to the article, and that the copy right has expired by this time and there is no use. We learned that any information that is not yours must be cited so this baffles me to be truthful. Yet, in the next paragraph the author will provide a quote by someone from a university and the author will give them credit, there in citing that source. This is not very consistent and confuses me. Something else I noticed that I remember from the article I used for my paper is that they will use a bold subtitle to start another section about more research and other information, this happened three or four times in the article I used. This entire article is shocking to me, I never knew things like this existed.

scholarly blog article

About: My articles are about the impact that oil spills have. This includes impacts on the environment, animals, people, and money.

Overview of scholarly article:
In my scholarly article, the topic discussed is the impact that oil spills have on the earth and the environment. Some of the main points in the article include impacts on aquatic environments. The article points out that no oil spill is harmless and there are acute impacts like reduced reproduction, altered development, decreased defense from disease and impaired feeding mechanisms. The article states that there are often long-term chronic exposures due to continuous oil spills that serious effects on the species and the ecosystem. There are also different kinds of impacts like the economic costs of oil spills. The clean up costs of an oil spill can be small or very very great, depending on the size, location, type of oil, and how much oil is spilled. Not only are species hurt or killed by oil spills btu natural resources are damaged due to oil spills. When natural resources are damaged or ruined there are many costs like restoring the resources or replacing ruined resources. Wildlife is especially highlighted in the article as being impacted by an oil spill.

I am more nervous about this paper than I was about the first paper we wrote for English 101. I am nervous because I do not know much about the subject of which I am writing about and it is hard for me to grasp the idea of something that I have not been educated about. The research to find the two articles was not very hard and I am very pleased with the articles I found. Researching how the articles address different audiences and how they cater to their different audiences is going to be much more of a struggle I know. I am confident in the peer reviews however because I know that my classmates will give me positive feedback to push my paper in the direction of which it needs to go. The peer reviews were very helpful in the first paper and I hope that the reviews give me the confidence I need to do a great job on this paper. I plan on  dissecting each part of each article and asking myself "how does this apply to the intended audience?" then I can elaborate on each part of the article. I am worried that I will run out of things to say or become too redundant trying to reach the six page requirement. I was too redundant in my last paper and I do not want to do that again. Through writing this paper I am excited to learn more about the topic at hand and start to realize how each kind of audience should be addressed.

Scholarly Article: (2010). Impact of Oil Spills. Congressional Digest, 89 (6), 167-192.

http://web.ebscohost.com.www.lib.ncsu.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=14&hid=109&sid=ab7ee169-0493-4762-a914-081e145e4f3b%40sessionmgr111

Popular Article: Gillis, J. & Kaufman L. (2010). After Oil Spills, Hidden Damages Can Last for Years. The New York Times, A1.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/science/earth/18enviro.html?_r=1

Discussion Forum Blog Post

The discussion forum for Communicating with Public Audiences was engaging and useful for me. I got to write a short and descriptive response about what we read about communicating with public audiences and receive feedback from my classmates. I also got to give feedback to my classmates about what I thought about their responses. Even though the article we read did not directly relate to us because we are not science writers, it helped us to understand what it takes to reach a public audience. In our life time, at some point, we will most likely be faced with a situation where we must speak or write to a public or popular audience. We could look back at this article and the examples in it and put it all together to make one amazing speech or article. The discussion forum was very confusing at first but once we got the hang of it, it was not so bad. I think the discussion forums are a good thing but only if the articles relate directly to us and could help us in any way for writing. If we are given an article that does not relate to us or we are not interested in it then we will do very poorly on the discussion forum and it would ultimately be a waste of our time as well as the instructor since the instructor would have to read all of the discussions. I liked it but in ways it seemed kind of pointless. I learned from reading the article but would have rather done a blog about it considering it is practically the same thing as a discussion forum. We posted what we thought, answered questions, and commented just as we would in a blog. Blogs are just less confusing and time consuming since we already know how to do them and have experience using them. For the discussion forum to be improved I say that it should just be moved to a blog post completely. Forums are great for moodle for questions and things of that sort but it just made it one complicated mess for the students to try to figure out what we were supposed to do. Since all instructions were online, they helped somewhat but not as much as one would have liked. The article itself was very helpful if I would ever have to write or speak for a public or popular audience but I personally like when we have questions to answer in a blog post. The questions we are asked to answer in each blog post let me reflect and learn even more about what I have read and it settles deeper in my mind so I retain the information and can use it for future reference. Blog posts are also easier to access and find to go back and look at the information incase I do actually one day have to write or speak for a popular audience. It is a public accessible internet website, and much more accessible than a course website which I must be enrolled in to view. So, after I finish my English 101 course I could no longer go back and look at forum discussions that I did during my time in that class. Using this information in a blog post seems like an all around better idea.

Entering the Conversation Blog Post

While reading the blog post of the University Pennsylvania professor Mark Liberman, I was shocked at just how open and honest he was but I suppose that is the point of a blog to begin with. Many things can be taken and learned from Liberman's article. I learned that many people who are writing about science for the popular audience are often very bad at what they do. It seems to me that the writers are manipulating material so they can tell the audience in mind what they think they want to hear. But when the writers do this, they are giving the popular audience false information and just plain bad writing and not helping the audience at all. To support the argument that the writers are just plain bad and need serious improvement Liberman gave an example of an article called "Fish oil helps school children to concentrate: US academics discover high doses of omega-3 fish oil combat hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder". In this article the writer, Denis Campbell, is a professional science writer for a leading newspaper. What Campbell wrote was that children will concentrate better in school if they take omega-3 fish oil. What the actual scientific study said was that there were no significant group differences for percentage correct, commission errors, discriminability or reaction time when taking the omega-3 fish oil. They also said that taking the omega-3 fish oil had no effect on any measure of performance. How could a professional science writer for a stand up newspaper give such careless and just wrong information? The evidence is very effective and very helpful. Before reading this I had no idea that things like this were actually taking place and I wonder how anyone who writes like that could even be employed by a newspaper? I think that this is a huge problem and that there should be no way that any false or manipulative information should ever be released to a public and popular audience. My solution for this problem is very different from Liberman's solution but I believe it would be very effective. My solution for this problem would be to hire someone for each department to proof read and make sure material is actually correct before letting it go to be released to the public. Each writer would be required to submit their work or article to this proof reader before it could be released and if that article used information from anywhere else (which most do) then a copy of the source from which you got the information must also be submitted with your article. Each department would have their own person for this so that they are specialized in that department. Their job would be to entirely proof read the article. They would check for spelling and grammar, make sure all the facts are correct and are correctly cited and approve the overall article. If the work is not up to par, the proof reader would return it to the writer and require the writer to fix it and be reprimanded in some small way so that the error does not happen again.  I believe this would work and prevent people like us from having to read phony information.

Open Writing

Things become very complicated and lines become blurred when it comes to writing in the openness of an online accessible blog as we have been doing in class. There are very many consequences to writing in the openness of online. One thing about writing online is that anyone who has access to the internet can access it and read/comment on what you have written about. There is really no way to protect your blog from being read or commented on by outsiders. There is no fool prove way or guaranteed way of being all of your blogs private. Another consequence of writing online is that it never goes away. There will always be a permanent record of what you have written, when you wrote it, and who commented on it. You can delete it all you want to but it will never be completely gone, that is impossible in this day and age. Another thing is that not everyone that reads what you have written agrees with you. Therefore other people may feel the need to say mean or hurtful things to you on your blog that you may neither want or appreciate. It comes with the nature of an online blog and it is something we must all deal with. The benefits of publishing a blog on open, accessible internet are definitely present as well. Presenting your thoughts and ideas on such a public forum is a great way to receive positive and constructive feedback from classmates and other followers. This is a great resource that most will appreciate when writing a blog. Some of the comments received on blogs will make your day and some will even help you improve your argument or statement on a certain topic. You also receive different aspects of the topic at hand and get to see how other people view the same thing. A little variety never hurt anyone. In class, I believe we are fully exploiting the benefits of posting on an open, accessible internet website. We all have complete access to each of our classmates blogs and can comment as much as we like on each other's as well. It really brings the class together to see what their classmates think about the same topic and each blog shows the personality of the person writing it. It is always a day brightener to get a really helpful or complimenting comment from a fellow classmate. It feels good to know that you are not alone in your opinion of a certain topic. The challenges that come with the openness of an online blog are having to monitor and edit what you say because it is very much open to the public and it is at the discretion of the reader how they take the things you are writing. It is very hard to include context when writing in a blog so things may be taken in ways you didn't intend them to be taken. These challenges can best be addressed by proof reading and self editing every blog post you create and realizing that not only you but many many others will be reading what you have just written.

Feedback & Critique Blog Post

I would like to think that I am good at giving criticism of other's work. I am never mean nor too happy and nice. I give advice as I would like to receive it even though I have never been good at getting criticism in any way. That is just how I am. For some reason I always feel personally attacked even though I know it has nothing to do with me as a person. Good criticism in my opinion looks like a "how to" or a to do list for your paper. Good criticism tells you exactly what they think you did wrong and what you should do to fix it or they tell you what they liked and should be kept in your paper. Good criticism is something that your teacher or a good friend will give you. Criticism can be given about many things, not just a paper or something due in class. Over my life time I have received criticism about my school work, my cheerleading, my speaking skills, my life style, my friends and boyfriend, it is extremely common for people to want to give you their opinion, which is part of criticism. Good criticism does not offend you in any way but gives you the guidelines, help, encouragement, and push to do better in many ways. From what I know, I believe I can produce good and constructive criticism. I'm sure that I could always give better criticism the more that I give it. Some people, like my dad, say that there is no such thing as constructive criticism because someones true feelings always come out, I agree somewhat and hope that when I do give criticism that I can control all of my feelings, if any. Personally, the most helpful critique I think is telling someone what they did wrong and exactly how to fix it. Telling someone what they did wrong and only what they did wrong will not help them at all, you must also tell them what they need to do to fix it or the criticism is worthless. Another helpful criticism is to tell someone what they did that was good but also something they can do to improve what they did. It is always the point of criticism to improve someone and not to hurt them or make them worse in any way. When I critique someone, which I personally hate doing because it is just not in my personality, but when I do I always try to tell them what was wrong in their paper, something that obviously needs to be fixed and how to fix it. I give criticism the way I would want to get it if I absolutely had to. I think that giving feedback always helps and is a very useful resource to help better your paper or piece of work being critiqued. I appreciate the fact that my peers and classmates have taken their time to critique and criticize my paper and give me the tools that I need to make it better. I think that peer review is a great idea and something that should be used to help others with the ideas of people their own age.

Shitty First Drafts

While reading "Shitty First Drafts" I was actually shocked by all of what Lamott had to say. She explained that there is not a single writer, no matter how good that can sit down, relax themselves, stretch, feel amazing, and crank out a perfect story with perfect paragraphs and grammar. She explained that all writers write shitty first drafts then continuously revise them until it is what they want and imagine in their minds. Some of the practices that jumped out at me and really helped me are not to reign yourself in, to let yourself and your thoughts run free for as long as they can so that you get out everything you need to say as many times as you want to say it. Another one is that you should or can write twice as long as the paper originally was and leave any mistakes in the paper, just keep on writing until your thoughts run out. I also thought the practice of writing down everything you think was very helpful. I am not very good at controlling the voices in my head and the things that I feel so it was a relief to me when she pointed out that it was okay to say whatever you thought. Lamott goes on to say that after you write your first draft, you should sit down with a colored pen and mark out every possible thing that seems like it wouldn't work and then use what is left and take it in a different direction than what was in your first draft. This helps to get you to say what you want to say with the accuracy you need. These are good practices because they allow you to not put so much stress on yourself. They allow you to say what you want to say, in many many different ways and get it all out and in a solid place then you can weed out what you do and do not want. These practices make you feel more at ease and therefore able to use your imagination more and write more creatively and from the heart. The benefits from these practices are a free mind, a stress free feeling within yourself, the ability to say what you want to say how you want to say it, and keeping you open minded. Lamott helped calm my anxieties by saying that it is okay for me to feel like my first draft is awful and it is okay for it to actually be awful. She calmed me by saying to not reign yourself, but to let all the voices in your head and all of your feelings just run onto your page and keep going until you have no more thoughts or things you want to say. She said it was okay to write the paper twice as long as it needs to be, it can be however long you want it to be because it will be revised over and over again. I'm glad that I read this article because I now know that it is okay if I write the worst first draft ever.

What is it? Blog Post

From what I have learned from Ms. Clark, various articles, and essays is that rhetorical analysis is many things. Rhetorical analysis is using text (anything that makes an argument) to reach an audience through pathos, logos, and ethos. It is also picking apart a text and seeing what about that text appeals to those three things of a person. Pathos appeals to one's emotions and feelings, for example if the text makes them angry, sad, happy, or fearful. Logos appeals to one's logic and rational thinking, for example if the text has facts, statistics, or data. Ethos appeals to one's ethics or morals, for example if the text seems trustworthy, has authority, uses a public figure, or expresses one's morals. The purpose of rhetorical analysis is to use these things to reach people, make an argument, and persuade them for or against something. Things that need to go into a rhetorical analysis are a strong argument, a persuasive voice, an emotionally appealing statement or picture, facts and data to back up your argument, and something that gives your argument authority and makes it trust worthy. Without all of these elements the argument, or text, will be weak and will not persuade its readers to feel the way they want them to feel or believe what they want them to believe. Rhetorical analysis can either be perfectly organized or just laid out in a fashion with no real order. Either way, if the elements are there and they are appealing to the reader or audience then they should be effective. When writing my first paper assignment, I plan on organizing my rhetorical analysis very strategically. Organized or not, it will be effective. By organizing it I will  know what I am trying to appeal to and therefore be more successful in my argument because I will be able to focus on the one point I am appealing to. In my paper, I plan to appeal to the ethos first by making the argument that PETA is a legitimate organization but also work against them by describing their ads so it also discounts their authority and trustworthiness. I then plan to appeal to logos by providing facts and statistics working against PETA and their campaign. Lastly, in my organization I plan to appeal to pathos because their feelings will ultimately decide how they feel about the ad and about the argument I am presenting. I will include all sorts of information that all works against PETA as an organization and works towards me in getting the audience to feel the way I do. I will include information like the kind of ads and protests put on by PETA and how ridiculous they are. I will include numbers of animals actually saved by PETA and the exaggeration they make to the public. I will also show how the ad of which my paper is about is hurtful to the general public in various ways. I believe my argument will be the strongest if I organize it in the order of ethos, logos, then pathos as stated previously.

Propaganda Blog Post

While looking at the propaganda ads from World War II, I thought about how this propaganda is very straight forward, not trying to get anyone to think about what it says, just saying it flat out. During the era of World War II, rhetoric wasn't used a subtly as it is today. Everything was very straight forward but also played on people's emotions and logic.  In today's society, propaganda ads aren't as straight forward but instead use rhetoric subtly to influence the American people. Over time, propaganda has come a long way since the days of World War II. We have technology now like television, radio, internet, magazines, billboards, and many other things. When you turn on a television there is an ad of some sort, when you listen to the radio there is someone announcing a new product or talking about an issue in the world. If you get on the internet there are ads in every piece of open space on either side and top and bottom of the page. We don't really use posters anymore but instead use instruments that reach large amounts of people. For example, if we used posters they would only catch the attention of a passerby but if we put a propaganda advertisement on CNN news or in a commercial shown on ESPN then millions will see it. Today, propaganda is continued to be used by our government in many big issues. Some of the issues that propaganda is used for today are the war on Iraq, the BP oil spill in the gulf coast, women in the workforce, the mosque at ground zero, the elections and even hurricanes threatening to hit our coasts. For example, in the war on Iraq there are commercials, ads, and news casts about Iraq and 9/11 being connected, about Osama Binladin, and suicide bombers. These ads use rhetoric to try to get us to either be for or against the war in Iraq. One ad that would turn the American people against the war is one showing the debt our country has gone into fighting this war and the lives lost fighting this war. Another issue that is a target in propaganda today is the BP oil spill, there are t-shirts, bumper stickers, commercials, and so forth with BP signs that are half black, as if they had been covered with oil. I have seen a t-shirt that says "BP, bringing oil to American shores" this is negative propaganda against BP oil company. Propaganda is even used in coastal towns during times of threatening hurricanes. There are announcements and signs saying to evacuate the coast, how to board up their homes and how to be safe in a time like that. Because of propaganda, advertisements, and radio announcements the people of 2010 believe that they should fight either for the war (be a soldier) or against the war (be a civil activist), they believe they should be afraid of anyone wearing a turban because of propaganda from 9/11 and they feel threatened by the governments power to reform their healthcare. Here is one example of 2010 propaganda:

Preliminary Thoughts Blog Post

In my first paper assignment I thought I would tackle a controversial PETA ad, which is offensive to anyone who may consider themselves overweight or anyone is not a vegetarian. In this particular PETA ad, the back ground is a blue sky, sand, and water, which is of course the beach. To the right there is the back of a large white woman in a red polka dot bikini. In huge white letters the ad says "Save the Whales" and below that in red the ad states "Lose the Blubber: Go Vegetarian". I about fell off of my bed and onto the floor when I came upon this ad. Not only is it targeting overweight people, it is targeting people who aren't vegetarians and essentially saying "If you aren't vegetarian, you're fat and you need to lose weight by becoming a vegetarian". This, to me, is possibly the most ridiculous advertisement I've ever seen. In my head, I am wondering if PETA really thinks that this is going to work and I wonder if they realize it could potentially anger a large amount of people. In this advertisement, the rhetorical appeal represented in this piece of media is pathos. This ad appeals to one's emotions because self-image goes hand in hand with emotion. One's happiness is often determined by their positive or negative body image. One might think this ad would be very effective because if you are calling someone fat, and it hurts their feelings then ultimately they will change and become a vegetarian. But then again people use their own logic, and think "just because I'm not a vegetarian doesn't mean that I am fat". In a sense, this piece of media also appeals to logos but not intentionally. PETA didn't realize that this ad may rub people the wrong way, even offend them and push them away from being a vegetarian because PETA supports it. Accidentally, they appealed to the logic of the public and now have potentially ruined their own ad. Because this ad is so dramatic, so far fetched and flat out ridiculous it appeals to peoples logic by making them realize the ad is ridiculous and completely untrue. Yes, people may lose weight by being a vegetarian and vegetarians may be on average smaller or skinnier than people who aren't vegetarians, but that doesn't mean that if you aren't a vegetarian that you are automatically fat. Some of the roadblocks I must overcome between now and actually writing my first paper assignment are making a persuasive argument against PETA and their ridiculous ad, backing up my argument that PETA is wrong and hurtful in their ad, which is in the form of a HUGE billboard, and convincing the readers of my paper to feel the same way I do. In my opinion, no one could possibly agree with this ad but then again someone obviously agrees with it because the idea was thought up, drawn out, paid for, and put up for everyone to see. I guess this shows the many different people in this world but I plan to convince everyone to feel the same way I do.

Gender & Bathrooms Blog Post

While reading the article "Go where?: Sex, Gender and Toilets" I was amazed and even in shock by all of the crazy symbols used to describe a man or a woman for men and women restrooms and the underlying meanings of those symbols. I have yet to read something as interesting and intriguing as this article or post because of some of the crazy and flat out ridiculous symbols and generalizations made about men and women. My jaw literally dropped as I scrolled down the page with my eyes glued to the screen. As Americans, or really anyone in the world, people assume that if you are a man, you have male genitals and if you are a woman then you have female genitals. What is sometimes confused is gender and sexuality. Gender refers to someones body but sexuality refers to whom or what sex the person is attracted to. Whether you are heterosexual or homosexual, you may use the restroom that signifies your gender as male or female. What isn't fair about this is that some people are born with birth deformities, or may have had a sex change due to the fact that they felt they didn't fit in with the gender they were born as. Also, in these symbols women are shown as wearing dresses or skirts and in society today, many woman do not dress this way. Some women may look more like a man than they do a woman due to their dress and style choices. Some men also dress like women, even though it isn't seen very often, it does happen and it may offend those men that the symbols are dressed masculinely. A bathroom sign, something simple and used merely as direction for the general public says so much more than just which door to walk into. When you see a bathroom sign for a women's restroom, you could assume by the sign which displays a girl in a skirt, a sign with female features or a sign with a woman sitting down to use the restroom, that the people who enter that room must dress like a woman, act like a woman, have features like a woman, and even use the bathroom like a woman. Which in society, excludes many people who are actually women. Just as well in men's restrooms, where the sign on the door is a male figure tall and strong, a figure with male features, or a man standing to use the bathroom, you could assume that the people who enter this restroom must be tall and strong, have male features, or stand to use the bathroom. This also excludes many people in society. There are often problematic signs used to symbolize men and women restrooms and this may in fact be solved by just using the words "men" and "women" on the restroom doors instead of symbols of genders. Even though, separating the restrooms by gender may always be confusing or discriminating due to people not considering themselves either or considering themselves both, there is no better way to separate public restrooms in my opinion.

Rhetorical Triangle

In this PETA ad, the element that appeals to logos is the proof that making or wearing a fur coat kills animals like this one. The element that appeals to ethos is that a dead animal is a life lost and that animal was essentially innocent. The element that appeals to pathos is that PETA is a legitimate authority or organization that does a lot of work for animal's rights. The strongest appeal within this ad is ethos because its an innocent, skinned, dead animal. The message of this ad is that making or wearing fur coats equals the skinning and killing of innocent animals. This ad is very effective because the dead/skinned animal is so extreme that it catches attention.

Say Nothing Blog Post

In the essay How to Say Nothing in 500 Words by Paul Roberts, I learned many things about writing that I didn't realize until they were brought to my attention. In my own writing I recognized many errors that I make that were mentioned in the essay. One error I noticed in my writing is that I use obvious content when making an argument. If I were to write a paper about texting I would oppose texting and use obvious content for an argument like it distracts students from their studies, it decreases face to face interaction, it causes wrecks due to distraction and it worsens grammar because words are typed in short lingo. Because I am using obvious content, I am not being unique in my writing which causes me to blend in with my class mates. Another error I noticed in my own writing is that I do not use "colorful" words to create a picture or emotion in my writing. This tends to make my boring to read and grade. Roberts' essay brought many things to my attention that I do when I write that I didn't necessarily recognize earlier. One of the things I realized is that I "pad" what I want to say to make my paper or assignment longer. For example, instead of saying "I love my mother" I would say "I truly love my dear beautiful mother". It pads what I am' actually saying. Another point brought to my attention through reading this essay is that I use "pat expressions" or as most people call them cliches. In my writing, I tend to use expressions known by people in the United States or the world. One cliche I might use in my writing is "don't judge a book by its cover". While reading this essay by Roberts, I found many things extremely interesting and these were things that I hadn't really heard of before and that I am going to put to use in my writing. One interesting point in the essay was that you shouldn't choose what most other people would choose because that could actually hurt your grade. Another interesting thing is that it helps you if you "take the unusual side", being different sets you apart and gives you a "fresh" outlook on things. One last interesting point in the essay was that you should "call a fool a fool", meaning that if you feel a certain way about someone or something that you should say it and don't hold back. I really enjoyed reading this essay, I feel that my writing will improve by learning these things.