Blogging Reflection

            I feel that my best work on the blogs was done when we were doing the rhetorical analysis unit on advertisements. Although I feel that I did well on most of the ones done during that time, my best I feel was the one titled “Propaganda.” I wrote about the commercials with poor African children’s faces in them and how I disagreed with the propaganda being used on us today. I think I did my best on this because I felt strongly about it. I think that my worst blog was when we reflected on our first discussion forum. I know that this is my worst work with blogging because I did not participate in the forum as much as I should have; therefore, I did not have much helpful feedback and opinions that I could give.

            Even though we did a lot of blogging through the course of this semester, I still do not think it something I would be interested in continuing. I am not big on keeping journals or publishing my opinions on things. I would easily give my opinions if asked; however, I don’t like publishing it for no reason. I also do not think that the blog experience that I have had in this class is much like the blog I would choose to do on my own if I wanted to. If I was going to post a blog, for whatever reason, I would want to post it where more people would view it, like on Facebook or something similar to that. If I had a strong reason to post my opinions I would make sure it was seen. I also do not think that my relationship with writing publicly has changed with this class for the same reasons and because, although I do know that anyone could possibly read what I post, I do not think that anyone really outside our classroom reads what I have to say.

Disney

                Although I am not completely sure at this point what essay I am going to write about, I am more leaning towards responding to Racism in Disney’s Animated Films by Cristina Maldonado. This essay initially caught my attention because i personally do not believe that Disney is trying to ruin the way children think about White people being the dominant race and African Americans as people with a lesser value of life. I do agree that Disney could have defiantly been a lot more culturally sensitive to our growing society, I do not feel that the extremes that poeple bring Disney into are completely correct.

            Three points that I plan to bring in my paper I believe will counter what was said in Christina’s paper. The first will be that the Disney company is not set out to brain wash children into believing that White people are the dominan trace. The second point that I plan to counter act is that Asains in Disney’s films are either cats or  squinty eyed figures that have strong asian accents. Did anyone ever watch Mulan? She was a young Chinese woman who went to war and saved her country. I do not exactly see how that could be called racist. The third point that I want to make is an overall view of Disney’s movies that are not focused on White poeple. Although there are more movies that do center around White culture there are a lot more that have a broad cultural setting; and when I do bring up This specific point I plan to focus more on the movies that were released as I was growing up, not the ones that were just released like the Princess and the Frog.

            I’m not sure that This is exactly what I want to write about because I hate attacking other peoples papers. Also, I have not yet done the proper research to support the arguments I plan to make and that could change a lot of things in my paper. If I fail to find informaition from interviews and more well respected sources I will most likely pick another topic to write about.

**Sorry if my spelling is really bad and random words are capitalized. My Word is set to spanish for spell check and I don’t know why!

Disney and Women in Advertising

After watching this video I felt, for the most part, like it was completely ridiculous. Although I understood some of the points that the people being interviewed made about Disney, that does not mean that I agree with the fact that they were trying to make the Disney corporation look like a greedy company that is only mindful of the profit that they make.

            A lot of things about Disney have changed since it looks like this video was made. The biggest thing to me is the racism part about Disney. They recently have added a movie with a black princess. This helped Disney put out a lot of flame about them being racists. Although these things have changed, I do understand where the people being interviewed are coming from. When evaluated as a whole, all of Disney’s movies at the time were made up of predominantly white characters. I find this fact extremely interesting because, for myself, growing up as a white female, I never noticed anything out of place until I was older and could understand. These people are claiming that Disney is trying to shape children’s imaginations based on what they think is right. I do not find this statement right because although Disney did not prove to be diverse until the past 10 years, I do not believe that they could be trying to corrupt young children at such a high level as the people in the video seem to think.

            I do not believe that Disney is only a greedy company out to make money. They may have showed those in quotes at the end a person viewing it may never know if the statement is legitimate or not.

            After watching Disney I watched a second video on women in advertising and how degrading and sexist it can be. The video proved to have a lot of good points in it; however, I feel that some of the speaker’s arguments were too strong. I agree with all of her facts and thoughts on how the image of tiny models and skinny women have corrupted the minds of young girls into thinking that they need to be more like this. Once this image has been noticed by girls, it is hard to make them understand that that image is not the only form of beautiful, and that most men do not find that attractive anyway. All girls can understand the feeling she is talking about. We all still feel that way at every age.

            I feel that the speaker took the arguments too far when she began to compare all of this to violence and dehumanizing.  I feel that violence is really one of the last things modeling is when looked at as a whole. If she was specifically talking about eating disorders I would be able to understand more; however, she seemed to be discussing modeling as a whole and made it all sound violent, which I do not agree with. Also, after seeing the fake pictures that this speaker tried to use, I feel that she is no different than the people promoting these photos because she edited them herself anyways. The speaker seems to be taking some of the things to extreme levels because she seems to be trying to connect with women and young girls on a deeper level that she can only seem to do by making matters in the media seem worse than they actually are in some cases.

            I think that these two videos have a lot in common based on the fact that they are trying to make things in the media look a lot worse than they are in reality. Although both of these large corporations have some issues to sort out, they should not be defamed on such extrme levels. We pay for the Disney movies and watch them, and we also pay for the magazines that carry these ads. So how much worse are we than the people that produce them? We, as the audience, control what is put out for us to view because if we don’t like it, we will not buy it. So I feel that instead of all of these people complaining about how children’s imaginations and the appropriate image a woman is being destroyed, they need to find a way to do something about it for themselves.

Drug Testing at Work

I recently read a blog post about drug testing in places where people work. Following this blog post I saw another one posting against it and why everyone had the right to their own privacy. Although I could find reasons to not agree with both, I have more of a personal reason to say that every place has a right to make sure their employees are not doing anything they are not supposed to be doing. If a person is chosen for a specific job and they are serious about what he or she does, he or she should have no reason to not cooperate with drug testing. I understand that everyone has the right to privacy; however, certain substances are illegal for a reason. Therefore, there should be no trouble when an employer wants to know if his or her employees are obeying those rules. If an employee is on drugs then that would make them more prone to absences in work and it could make them less efficient in the work that they do for that company. The employer should always have the right to find out if there is a reason that they should keep an employee or hire someone based on these tests. If there is another applicant that is clean then they would obviously rather choose him or her then someone who might have a problem. If a person is clean at the time when they are hired and find that they cannot handle the stress of the job that they have and turn to drugs to help them cope, this is another reason for more drug testing. If an employee cannot handle it then they should not have the right to have the job. Being stressed is one thing, but dealing with that stress by using drugs is another. One example of a job that would be high stress like that is being a doctor. I have a personal event that took place involving a doctor that abused drugs, and it ended up taking a life.

A very close family friend of mine was expecting her first child when she found out that the baby was having some issues that I am unsure of. They told her that surgery would have to be done while she was pregnancy. The surgery did not end up going well and baby did not live. Soon after this my friend found out that during the operation on her and her baby the doctor was drunk and high on pills and he was the reason for the death of the baby. It was horrible event in all of our lives, especially her life, because it could have been easily avoided and she could have that little girl with her today.

This event has made me strongly agree with drug testing in the working environment, especially hospitals. Anyone with the power to do what doctors do should always be clean of any substance. Anyone who is a professional should have no reason to feel that they need to turn to drugs. Life can get stressful, but that’s life. Employers should always have the right to make sure that their employees are not doing anything illegal. It is illegal for a reason.

Online Interaction

I feel that the blog posts are very effective for our class. However, I do not believe that they are necessarily physical conversations outside the classroom. I would assume that if no one was required to write blog comments that they would not occur very often. Although I am glad that we are required to do them because of their helpfulness, they still do not seem to strike any real conversation. Personally, when I comment on blog posts I do it so that I can receive the credit and to give my peers in the class good compliments on their writing and my own opinion on what they say. I do not mind giving comments either although I do not believe that they serve as a good way to start an interesting conversation. I feel that the blog comments are only really statements that we make to each other complementing our work. A conversation could possibly be started, I guess; however, I do not think that that happens very often. Most of us state what we need to then just let it be. We write a few compliments and constructive sentences and are done. I usually write what I agree with that the writher of the blog said then tell them that they did a great job because everyone always does. Personally, I do not really ever converse with others that have made comments on my blog or other peoples blog. When I have to do my comments, I pick two people at random, read their blogs and then comment on what I took from reading what they thought. Although I do not believe that blogs start conversation, I do find them very helpful because it is nice to see what people have to say, and I feel like they are very honest in their opinions and give good compliments. I also like to see what other people have written for the same topic.

If I had to choose between blogs and forum discussions, I would most defiantly choose blogs because I like them a whole lot better. They are more beneficial to me because I like to write and express my own knowledge; whereas, I feel like in forum discussions we are more asked to read and respond rather than tell what we think or know.  I am a great deal better at writing what I am thinking or giving my own insight on a subject than I am at reading comprehension and responding to texts.  The forum discussions are not very interactive to me and defiantly a lot less interactive than the blogs. Although it is possible to comment on people’s forum responses, not many people do that; thus, making the forums not very interactive.

Altogether, I think that the all of the online interaction we have had has been successful. Even though I do not think much has occurred other than what we are required, I think that everyone pays attention to what they read and works hard to give effective feedback.

Qualitative Research Concerns

            I feel that I might be somewhat more prepared to write this research paper because I have done one before. In my junior year of high school we had to a research paper using MLA format and it had to be at least six pages in length as well; however, we could pick whichever topic we wanted. I do not think that the open ended questions will be difficult to me because we had to do interviews for the paper I did in high school and I did very well with them. Another reason I think that I will have more of an easier time with the questions is because I was also in newspaper and yearbook in high school, and we had to do interviews almost every day. I think that it might be kind of hard for me to stay away from quantitative research because that is the most comfortable form of research for me; it’s not that I have done more of it I just think that it comes more naturally to me to do research that way. It is harder for me to think more in the aspect of understanding why we do the things we do and going in depth on that topic.

            In contrast, I think that I will do quite well on this research paper if I go ahead and get started on it and do not procrastinate. I like writing papers and doing research to support my arguments. I feel that there are endless resources that can be used, and that I need to start using them. I think the best aspects of writing qualitatively will be really grasping how to do it and, once I get into it, being able to go really far in depth in my research and reasoning why a novel was changed into a movie; I want to be able to learn how to research why we did this and learn how to interview to support what I find.

            The main challenge I except to face with this research paper is simply grasping what qualitative is and how I need to do it.  Sometimes it takes me more time to figure out what I am doing than it does actually doing the task. I want to make sure I have a complete understanding of this type of research before I start my paper so that I will not have to redo anything or lose points to a misunderstanding in the directions for this paper. Although I think that interviewing and writing questions will be easier for me, I also think that I may have trouble figuring out who to interview or where to find interviews pertaining to my topic of choice. I plan on doing the Twilight series and how it was put on the big screen because of how popular the books were. I am not sure if I should interview people around campus about the topic or just search the web. I think we should have a forum discussion on this!

Learning

I think that there are times when I can tell that I have learned from an experience and times where lessons were learned but I may not be able to explain it or know that it actually happened. It is more obvious to know when I have learned from a course because the factual knowledge is more comprehendible compared to life lessons. To know that I have learned a lesson, I look at the evidence from similar occurrences that happened post the event where a lesson was learned. In a simple example, after making plans with a friend and her bailing on me twice, I learned to not make plans with her again unless it’s more of a last minute thing. I do not think that it matters what type of learning is occurring as long as leaning does occur in an experience. I feel that on a basic level most of the lessons I learn from experiences in life do not alter my world view. I always learn something, but the lessons are more of something that would carry me through the next similar experience, not something that would completely change my world view. I have only had one experience that I thought would change my worldly view. I went to a Christian church cam in the mountains for a week over the summer and it made me have more of a religious outlook on life and that it made me think that I need to be a better person and give more back to society that I am taking; the feeling lasted for a little while after I left camp; however, after being back at home and getting back into my regular routine of working and being with my friends, who had not been at the camp, I soon went back to the same mindset that I always have had before I left for camp. I have been to this camp four times and have had the same experience every time. I do not know what it would take to make all of those new outlooks stick for me, but I know that it would have to be a lot of determination which I did not have at the times.

I think that similar experiences help me connect to my peer a lot better because it gives a common ground to base conversations on; however, I think it is a lot harder to relate to teachers on that same level because I think of them more as my superiors and not my equals so I do not necessarily feel that it is a good thing to relate to my teachers on personal of a level. I think that everyone learns in a different way and some people may be able to relate to each other better because of that common ground and for other it may be more difficult. I do not judge the way other people learn and I feel that others do not judge me, mostly. The evidence of learning can defiantly be communicated outside of class just as well as inside class to me. To the only difference is being in a classroom setting.

Discussion Forum

Personally, because of a time crunch and procrastination, I did not participate as deeply in the discussion forum as I would have liked to. I was not in class the previous Thursday because of the football game and did not fully understand the directions. If I had been in class I feel that I could have participated and understood what I what doing a great deal more and I would have gotten a lot more out of the assignment. I want to be able to fully participate in future forums so that I can have better input to it and would know more what I was talking about during the reflections. Although I did not give my all in this, I still did the assignment. I thought from what I got out of it, it was useful to be able to post my answers and read what other people in our class thought. It was interesting to see the similarities between some student’s answers and the extreme differences in a few of the others. It made me think about the reasoning for the differences and if I was giving the more educated answers or not based on my opinions. I think that having questions and responses based on more onions than right or wrong. This foundation for the forums makes it so that all of the students can produce their own ideas about a subject, article, or any other assignment we have. Forums, like our blogs, let us write about what we think and feel about a subject not so much what we know specifically; they could also incorporate both of the aspects of what we know and our thoughts are.  I feel that altogether the forums were more helpful than anything; I would rather have them than not have forums because they help me.

            I think that we should have more forum discussions in the future because I would like to be able to do them with the understanding of what they are in my knowledge now. The forums would let me show everyone my thoughts and see my classmate’s as well. For me, viewing what others thoughts are and comparing them to my own really helps me to further understand topics that I have not quite grasped. To read what people my age and my class have to say can mean more to me than what a teacher might say in the purpose of these forums.

            I really don’t have much else to say about the forums themselves except for the fact that I wish I had fully understood what I was doing. The feedback everyone gave was a lot more detailed than mine because of my lack of effort. I know now that even missing one class for the football game hurt me more than I thought it would. The forums seemed to be a big help and useful to those who fully participated in the discussions. Personally, I just read the directions and posted what I thought was correct or the most educated answers.

Entering the Conversation

From Liberman’s article on science writing for popular audiences, one can conclude that science must be put in simple terms when being published for the public. All people must be able to understand it, no matter what knowledge they might or might not have in relation to extensive scientific research. Liberman thinks that most, if not all, science writers write articles in a style that was much too complicated for the average person to understand; the average person would be someone who is not in any sort of scientific profession and only has the basic knowledge to understand simple published works of science. To support his argument, Lieberman uses examples of science writing by Denis Campbell on news about how fish oil basically makes a person more attentive and smart; however, this article actually proves to be false because when a study was done on the subject it proved the exact opposite. When one first reads the article, all of the content is very confusing. The writing is somewhat backwards and the viewer cannot take anything away from this. If the average person cannot understand what the article is trying to tell them, they will not learn anything from the article or understand the news given. The evidence Liberman gives proves to be helpful because the article is a perfect example on how science writers can be confusing, and in this case, wrong.

There are many ways that this issue of science writers could be corrected. Lieberman thinks that “Any newspaper or magazine that has a Science writer should also have a Bad Science writer, whose job would be act as a sort of intellectual ombudsman.” This means that he thinks that there should be a person to check over the initial article to make sure that it is correct, according to the data that it may be reporting, and written in form that is understandable to all people who might be viewing it. Another way that I personally think that this problem could be solved is to have somewhat of the same thing that Liberman said to have, a person to correct to not understandable text; however, with my solution I think that the science writer should be cut out altogether. This solution could save money for publishing companies and this would make everything a lot easier to understand. If an average writer with no specific science skills wrote these articles, then there would be no confusion as to what they are saying. As long as the public can understand the content, the person who wrote it proves to be unimportant.  Altogether, something has to change in the way that science is reported to the public. Just because some, if not most, average people do not have extensive knowledge in the science field, that does not mean that they do not what to know what is currently going on in the scientific world. If science writing could become more simplistic, then there would be less confusion as to what scientists are trying to convey to society.

Open Writing

I feel that, depending on what kind of works you are publishing, there can be an equal amount of advantages and disadvantages. The benefits of writing on the open and accessible internet can be many different things. I think the biggest benefit of having works on the internet is receiving feedback. Why else would someone publish anything online? The only reason would be so that others could read it and so that the author could get a response. For the purposes of us writing our blogs online for class, it is a benefit for the students because we can see each other’s work and observe the way our class mates write and pick up good ways of writing or good ideas from them; however, I do not mean plagiarize. Also, as a benefit to me personally, I tend to write better if I know there are others out there viewing my writings. I feel more pressured not to just bull shit my way through my papers or blogs. To me, it would be embarrassing if I knew I did not try on something and knew it was bad but other people were reading it. I would rather give the extra effort and not look like an idiot to my whole class. Posting our blogs online also gives the professor an easy way to view our work and what we think of each other’s writings. I think that as a class we are exploiting the benefits that I stated about posting our writings online. I think that it forces us all to write better because it is being viewed by our class and anyone else who wants to see it.


Although posting out writings online as blogs is beneficial in certain ways, it can also bring about unwanted issues. The biggest issue with posting your own thoughts is that, other than those people in our class, we do not know who exactly is reading what we post. There are some really creepy people out there and it always worries me that someone could be going through all my thoughts online. In contrast, I am sure that almost everyone in our class has something like a Facebook or MySpace so we are all used to having people look at what we are thinking. Another problem with using the internet for our school work is the technical issues that have been coming up. A person never knows when the system will go down or the internet in the dorms will go down. Recently, at University Towers, the internet went down for a long time and caused a lot of the residents issues because of school work that had to be turned in. Although the library is always an option to go to for internet issues, the issues on Moodle going down or something similar to that, like blogger going down as well, could not be helped by the time we need our work in. No one wants to be counted off points for simple technical difficulties.

All of these challenges can be addressed in simple ways because if the fault is technical, you can always talk to the professor, and as for the issue of creepy people, we could try to make our blogs private in some way if it ever became a big issue, which I do not think that it will.

Feedback and Critique

I believe that I am fairly good at offering criticism to other’s work. I complement anything I like and if there is anything that I see that could make their paper better I tell them. I think that giving complements is a defiantly a good thing to do while you are editing someone else’s paper because it shows them their strong points while also showing them what they could do better in. I would never say anything hurtful; however, I would want people to be completely honest when viewing my paper so I plan to do the same for everyone else. Even if I am given a bad comment I think of it as a good thing because it will only make my paper better in the end.


I know that constructive criticism is never a bad thing. Sometimes editors can be too harsh with their comments; however, with peer editing I find that never to be the case. Constructive criticism is never giving corrections but thoughts and ideas on how the text can be improved. The only errors that should be corrected are grammar. I feel that sometimes it can be hard to give criticism to classmates because if I am at the same level they are, why should I be giving them criticism on their work? Although I think that I am good at giving the constructive criticism, sometimes it can be hard to say everything I want to say about a classmate’s paper. I do not want to be the one to make anyone mad for not getting the point they were trying to make in their paper and going a completely different way with it without knowing it.

I think that the most helpful critique that a person can give to me is asking me questions on anything in my writing that might be confusing or could be elaborated on more. Not only will that extend the length of my paper but make it a great deal more thorough. I want to make sure that everything in my writing is explained and there are no questions of what I was trying to say in the end. I want all my points to be sharp and backed up with as much information I can have. The more proof I have the more I feel my paper is complete. While writing peer editing comments for our first paper, I asked a lot of questions to help the people who had not made the page requirement. I hope they are able to use the questions and comments to further their thoughts. The questions, in addition to helping get things explained more, are there to get the writer thinking about more ideas and thoughts to include in their paper.

At this point, I have not received any peer edits back; however, I hope the comments will help me to make my paper more understandable and organized. I also hope that my group will ask me questions as I have done to their papers so that it will help me think of ideas to put into my paper and give it more direction.

Shitty First Drafts

I think that these are good practices because I feel that a lot of them involve taking writing one step at a time and not getting too stressed out about it because once you feel pressured for time or stressed it is easier to get stuck in one spot. Taking a paper draft by draft has always worked for me. If I get stuck I usually stop and take a break for a while then try again; if I am writing late at night the best thing for me to do if I am still stuck is to just go to sleep and wake up with enough time to finish my paper before it is due if it is supposed to be due the next day. If it not due the next day I will take it literally piece by piece.


The steps for me to write a successful paper are to first make some sort of brain storm of the ideas I have that I want to write about. Sometimes I will do a web, or multiple webs, and then from there I will go paragraph by paragraph organizing my thoughts by main subject. After that, I will go about wiring mini, unfinished, sentences. These steps usually take the longest so that once I get to writing my actual paper I can just add a few words here and there and it is already put together. Using this strategy keeps me from having such an awful first draft. I try not to make my first draft too bad so that I will not have to completely rewrite my paper. I am the type of person to only want to have to do something once. I am more open to fixing the little things than I am to having to completely re do a paragraph or more than that. I do not try to reach perfection my any means but I want to look like I am educated. I have friends that will zoom through two thousand words in a little over an hour and think they have done well. They know that their paper is not very well put together, but all they care about it getting it done. I am not that way. Getting the paper done fast is one of the least of my concerns unless I am crunched on time, which does happen sometimes. I try to give myself enough time to organize my thoughts so that my paper is not all over the place like others may be.

I agree with the fact stated that attempting to obtain perfection will only ruin everything good about a person’s writing. I believe it is good to work towards that with every draft but thinking that it will be accomplished within the very first attempt is somewhat foolish. After reading this I have some worries only because I have not reached the page requirement for my paper; however, I know that I can do it and have enough time to finish what I need to say. I just need some help on organizing what I am trying to say into my arguments against the advertisement I chose.

Propaganda

Since World War II propaganda has grown to a more subliminal level. I feel that we do not notice the propaganda in current television ads or in any ads in the media. In German propaganda during the Second World War, the Nazi’s made it very clear on the type of image they were trying to portray of the Jewish community. Today, I think people are more ignorant to the images shown to them and the persuasive messages that they are being told. As viewers, we process these messages with no regards the underlying messages. To me, an example of this is the commercials we see for organizations that show images of children in third world countries that have blank looks, no smiles, and appear miserable. This is going to make me sound like a heartless person, but I hate these commercials. While these children may be hungry, the last thing they are is sad. I have a very good friend, Brooke, who went and spent a summer in Uganda, where many of the “sad children” are said to be from. She told me that she rarely saw a sad child; they were all happy with their lives. Because they live in a third world country, they do not have any way of knowing the difference of their lives to the lives of others throughout the world. Brooke told me that although hunger and disease are very large issues, they go to school, if available, and then play, especially the young children. They do not know that they are unfortunate; therefore, I believe that the commercials that portray them as miserable and depressed are out for something more than just helping these kids. There are many organizations that people donate to that do not know that half, if not more, of their donation is going to pay for the employees of the organization. However, this is not true of all organizations that go to help those in need. This form of subliminal propaganda shows us an image of an unhappy child and, along with sad music, makes us feel bad for having the things that we do so that we will donate to these organizations. Technology has made us believe these images and messages so much more because we are seeing actual film of these children; therefore, the images are real and if we are seeing the children ourselves, what reason do have to not believe that it is accurate?


In 2010, I think that people are most afraid of the economic and job world. Although our economy is, slowly but surely, rising back up, over the past three years we have been taught and have grown to fear losing jobs and money. Images and political cartoons displaying the fallen industries surround us everywhere and we have no choice but to fear everything ahead. We always fear what we are told to fear because we do not know what else to do. As Americans, we follow what a higher power tells us is wrong even prior to us finding out on our own; to me, we are a “follow the leader” country.

What is it?

Based on the discussions we have had in class, a rhetorical analysis is a breakdown of a text. A text can be anything from a novel to an advertisement, which is what we have been working with. I feel that a rhetorical analysis, in the case of advertisements, is going through every aspect displayed and finding what exactly appeals to the audience and how the propaganda will affect them. I think that a rhetorical analysis should be organized by the separation of the rhetorical analysis triangle. To begin, start with an introduction of all the different appeals and an overview of what is going on in the text. Secondly, go through each of the three appeals of the triangle separately in the order of least prominent to most in paragraph form. Then, to pull all of the different aspects together, in the conclusion, discuss how everything works as a whole part to make the advertisement successful.


Based on what I know, I plan to go about organizing my rhetorical analysis in the same fashion that I previously explained by going through each aspect and giving a detailed breakdown of the logos, ethos, and pathos of the advertisement. Not only do I plan to breakdown the rhetorical triangle, I want to include many of my own arguments and defenses on my opinions. When writing on the subject of anything that I am passionate about, I can honestly go on for pages and pages. In this paper I want to display great amounts of passion for whatever I may choose to analyze. I want to include factual information from both sides of my argument; therefore, I plan to do a good deal of research so that all of my arguments are thorough in the since that I know what I am talking about so that I have confidence in my writing.

So that my argument will be strong, as previously stated, I plan to start with the least prominent appeal and build my way up to the most strong so that within my paper my arguments can get more and more solid. While stating facts of both sides I want to use those arguments to further my points in the direction that I plan to go with my paper; by the direction I mean whatever way I choose to go in my paper in agreeing and creating an argument that way or disagreeing and rebutting the advertisement.

I am still not sure of what advertisement I would like to analyze; however, I have been looking in magazines and online for anything that stands out to me. There has been nothing thus far that I have looked at and felt a strong need to express how I feel about it. Whenever I am choosing a subject to write about I am always very picky. I want to find something that I know I can go through and find every aspect of logos, ethos, and pathos, that way I know I can write a lot about the subject and will still be able to fulfill the requirements for the rhetorical analysis.

Preliminart Thoughts

I honestly have no idea what I want to write my first paper about. I know that I want it to be an advertisement that I disagree with; therefore, I can have more to write about. At this point I am thinking that I want to do a poster advertisement rather than an advertisement that is a film clip or a commercial. I feel that, for me, I can do more work that way. I find it easier to use a single shot advertisement because I can break down what the advertisement means to me and more clearly display my reasoning. An example of this would be when we, as a class, analyzed the advertisement for Bud Light Beer. We could easily go through each aspect of the advertisement and discuss what we first saw, why we saw it first, how the advertisement was persuasive, and what would make us go out and buy this product. Although I am still unsure of what specific advertisement I would like to analyze I am sure that I will disagree with it and it will be a single shot.


Some things that I disagree with, that could be useful for this paper are peta2 advertisements, McDonalds, and advertisements that are degrading to women. Although I do disagree with these things, I really do not have much to say on some of the advertisements that I have seen thus far. I probably will not pick an advertisement that degrades women because, to be honest, when I see a girl doing promiscuous things in an advertisement or wearing little clothing, I automatically think of her as a trashy person. I know that that may not be the case at all but to me if you choose to do things like that for money then that’s your own problem and you already know the way that you are perceived. I also know that not all these women pose as their own decision, but I feel like that is more of an intense topic. I feel like I just need to continue searching for something that I think I could continue to debate about, not just something that I disagree with. Finding something that I could debate about, or against, means that I could go on and on about the subject no matter what the argument for it may be, which I know is a large part of writing about anything that is controversial; I have to know both sides in order to know my place and where I stand so that I can make good arguments.

Obviously, the biggest road block for me, between now and actually writing this paper, will be finding the perfect advertisement for me to write about. I think that if I apply myself and look deeper into the issues in the world today and into the things I do not agree with I can find something of strong meaning to me. Hopefully I can find one soon so that I can began to outline what I want to write about in my paper.

Sex, Gender, and Toilets

Normally, gender construction is based on whether the fact a person is either male or female. This is not because anyone looks down upon transgender people or does not want to include them, it is simply because that is how society is taught to view gender. One key example of this is when a person is asked to fill out a general information form or, maybe, some sort of job application. There is usually, if not always, a section that will ask you for your gender and give you the choice of either male or female. What is one supposed to do if they consider themselves neither at the moment? This controversy is one that is currently not being dealt with as it should be; however, in my own opinion, I believe that a person only has one body part in their pants, so I do not understand how it is so hard to choose a bathroom.


Personally, I do not take offense in bathroom signs; as long as I know where to go, I do not see an issue with what the sign portrays my sexuality to be; however, I can see how a person could find it offensive. Always assuming that a woman is one with large, or in some of the examples, disembodied breasts makes women feel like they have to have a specific image. In contrast, this could also be defined as sexist towards women because it is putting a label of extreme sex appeal on an image of a woman. These arguments could also be taken towards men’s bathroom signs as well. In personal observations, I have noted that not all men are shaped like rectangles, just as not all women are shaped like triangles.

The assumptions of who might be using the bathrooms with the signs upon them of masculine men or “sexy” women is that these labels limit and may confuse different types of people as to where they are supposed to do the simple and normal task of using the bathroom. Not all women wear dresses; therefore, if I am coming from another country and have never seen a bathroom sign as one labeled with a woman in a dress, how would I know what toilet I am supposed to use? I might think that I am not wearing a dress so maybe I need to go to the room with the figure of a person wearing pants because that more matches my attire. In most cases that would not be acceptable. This leaves many questions to men and women of other cultures. The stereotypical view of a man and a woman may be very different depending on the part of the world that a person is coming from. I know that if I were to go to a restroom and find a sign with two different colored apples or fire and a wave, I would have no clue as to where I should go.

I have never come across a confusing bathroom sign; however, I have also never left the country to experience the extremities of the issue. I honestly have no idea what I would do if I was confused as to where to go. I think that the ultimate solution to this is that all bathrooms should be universal sex bathrooms. This would have to eliminate multiple stall bathrooms, but it could solve many cultural differences when trying to decide where to use the bathroom. I do not understand why it should be such a confusing matter. If I have to go, I have to go, and I better have a place to do it.

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos - PALL MALL Smoking Advertisement

In Pall Mall’s old time Christmas smoking advertisement, the company uses the public figure of Santa Claus to promote smoking their product. Also within the advertisement, factual figures, or logos, are used to demonstrate how Pall Malls are better than any other of the cigarette brands. When this advertisement was made, companies could say nearly anything that would make their product sell. Actual facts were not necessary because then it would not be as persuasive or profitable to use any other type of truthful ad. Pathos, connecting to the emotions of the advertisements audience, is used by displaying the feeling that Santa Claus is having when he smokes a Pall Mall, which is joy and happiness; in addition, ethos is used by the literal use of the figure of Santa Claus himself. Using a figure such as Santa during the holidays creates an ad that can appeal to everyone, especially young children.


The, so called “facts” in the advertisement are that Pall Malls are the smoothest and most enjoyable cigarettes around. The ad displays that they last longer and, thus, are better; in addition, the fact that Santa Claus is smoking the product it makes the ad more appealing to the younger generation, as well as everyone else. The largest logo in the ad, however, is the headline of, “guard against throat-scratch.” This is the products biggest selling point. The pathos used within this ad is the feeling that is advertised by smoking a Pall Mall. Santa Claus, being a national figure for joy, demonstrates that his jolliness is defiantly not diminished by smoking a Pall Mall; therefore, who would it be a bad thing for anyone else to smoke?

I believe that the ethos is the strongest because Santa Claus ties in all of the other elements together to create the persuasive Christmas as for smoking Pall Mall Cigarettes. He is the largest figure on the ad and, especially during the holiday time, he is the biggest icon for young children; however, I do not believe that this ad is necessarily only targeted at children because when talking about the elements of the product the ad is more centered towards adults. Santa Claus, as the figure of Pall Mall, creates a strong message in this ad by basically saying that if a person is to smoke a Pall Mall that he or she will have no throat scratch, a longer cigarette and enjoy every moment of it. I think that the message may have been more effective when it was originally used, however, I do not believe that if an ad as such as this one was displayed for the public in present time that it would have the same impact; this is because now we have more anti-smoking ads rather than ads that promote smoking tobacco, also because ads have to be truthful that are made in the present. Most smoking ads that one would see currently would have a pretty girl or a handsome man on it smoking and the logo of the company. Therefore, this message, during the time of its display, could have had a very persuasive effect on its viewers.

How to Say Nothing in 500 Words

Based on Roberts’ article, How to Say Nothing in 500 Words, I noticed that in my own writing I have a tendency to go writing about usual topics and, sometimes, I use the obvious padding; although, I feel that I do not use the padding on the same extreme levels given in the examples in the article. I may use a few extra words here and there but I can usually catch myself using the padding too much. I learned this skill of catching my own padding mistakes in writing from my junior year, high school, English teacher. I had written a ten page research paper and when I got my first draft back there was nearly a page a half marked off my paper because of unneeded “fluff,” as she would call it.


In addition to the padding and fluff, I did not realize that taking the usual route of a prompt was such a bad thing to do; as long as a person felt passionate about the subject, I did not think that it made a difference, which Roberts states as well by saying, “Go to the heart of the matter.” This means that as long as you feel strongly about the subject then, by all means, go and write about it because you know that you have plenty to say that could easily fill 500 words. Before reading this article, I figured that choosing the prompt was probably the least important part of writing a paper; however, after seeing that particular step through a professor’s eyes, I now have a better understanding on how picking a subject that is unlike what the rest of the students have chosen would be more beneficial to the professor and my grade; I can understand how reading the same thing over and over again would become rather boring after a long amount of time.

The most interesting part of this article to me was where Roberts talked about avoiding the obvious content. Before I read the section, to me, this meant that one should not simply continue to restate the beginning statement or argument; however, after reading it I realized how easy it is to just take the easy way out without even really knowing it. I do not think that I am one who only discusses the obvious content that is expected, but I do believe that I could go deeper within my writing. I think that by planning out a paper before writing it could be a big help in this area; I could plan by paragraph or idea to make sure that I am asking myself deeper questions in order to fill my paper with more interesting content. Therefore, the thoughts that are within the paper are closer to what I am really thinking rather than just filler text to get to the end of the assigned amount of work.

Roberts’ article really opened my eyes to many common mistakes in writing, some mistakes that I make and some that I do not make. As for the ones that I do not make he has now made me more aware of things to watch out for and habits that do not need to develop.