This is an interesting letter written to a Buffalo New York newspaper. The author is a guy named Marty Essen. To say that the Buffalo newspaper is his only audience would be inaccurate. In all reality, the audience is more generalized to Buffalo residents and those who read a Buffalo paper.
In this article, the author has several different messages, some of more import than others and some receiving more attention than others. The main message that I take from it is that drilling in sensitive regions, specifically ANWR in Alaska, is not the right decision for Americans to make. The author talks about a trip to the region and even contrasts the beauty of the natural region and the ugliness of regions that have been developed for oil drilling. He also seems to have some other messages in the text. He talks about how Americans are “addicted” to fossil fuels, and that alternative energy sources could and should be used by Americans more-so than they are. And finally, his message and claim is that drilling or oil does significant damage to the environments of those areas.
The first apparent claim for ethos in this article comes pretty early in the article. He approaches this argument as “beyond politics” and introduces himself as someone who has “seen [with his] own eyes” the damage that is being done in certain Alaska oil regions. This almost obligates the reader to respect his opinion. Not many Americans readers have actually been to Alaska and so they depend immediately on the author to present this in a fair, honest way.
More ethos is added when he goes into politics. He talks about how George W. Bush’s policies on the environment have “disappointed” him. This is going to create a lot of authority when aimed at people who are anti-Bush, which at this point, is a large part of the country. Of course, there are many different calls for ethos throughout the paper. They are good because they are pretty subtle.
As with most arguments, this one is loaded with emotional appeals. The author uses very vivid imagery and contrasts to create emotional appeals to the reader. For example, he talks about the beautiful scenery of a non-drilled plot in Alaska. He almost makes it out to be kind of a paradise. Soon after, he has shipped off to an oil field in a different part of Alaska. However, instead of everything being good this time, he is overwhelmed with how ugly and terrible the place is. This plays at people’s disgust. No one wants to see a pretty place go ugly, and that’s what the author suggests has happened in that particular region in Alaska.
He also plays at our sense of shame. He talks about how Americans are “addicted” to fossil fuels. In this way, readers feel like they are a part of the problem in a way. Sometimes, there is nothing more effective than the guilt trip, and the author seems to have it down pretty well.
Finally, we get to the Logos. If there is anything that I am disappointed in with this guy’s argument, it is the logos. He seems to have spent a good portion making a sound argument on how drilling is bad for the environment and then he switches gears before you know it. A major thing said about drilling in ANWR shouldn’t be done because it wouldn’t even help that much. The reader is left to say, “well if it doesn’t help that much, then why do it? I think that this is the author’s intent. He obviously doesn’t want to see Alaska drilled in any further. Since he is trying to convince others that that is not the right thing to do, his logical argument is that even if we were to drill in these areas, it wouldn’t be helpful. He talks about how oil is on a work market and that drilling our own oil in the states would only be minimally helpful. I think that this is a logical enough argument, but that more time and focus could have been spent on it. All in all, it is a good article and makes some very good points. It seems convincing enough and provides some good information. But it obviously only tells one side of the story.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Assignment #4
For my article that we searched for in the library, I ended up finding something on the internet that talks about offshore drilling. The article definitely seemed to have a bias to it, but did provide some good information. It was several pages out of a book called "coastal alert." It had several chapters in it, a few of which I had access to. One part talked about how the government is apparantly "selling the coasts to big oil." Other parts talked about the effects that oil drilling has on ecology and quality of life, the developing of offshore gas and oil and how energy alternatives can supposedly replace offshore drilling. The article was informative, but it's hard to say how informative it was simply because it did seem so biased and one sided and didn't seem to present both sides of the story. In short, it would be much more effective to rhetorically analyze it than to use it for legitimate research on the subject.
I tried a lot of different methods and databases to get articles on oil drilling, and they did bring a lot of things up, but I found myself either going around in circles or just frustrated altogether. Bottom line is, I lost patience. I found that google scholar and google books seemed to help me out most. Maybe it's because google has done a good job, or maybe I'm just too stupid to find anything any other way. But google seemed to be the answer ... again.
The library instruction was very helpful. I can see how the massive amount of databases could be very helpful for research. That was all very new to me. I had absolutely no experience using EBSCO or any of the other databases available through the library's site. That was the nicest thing I learned from the library instruction. That is a lot of information to have access to, and is helpful now, but will most definitely be even more helpful in the future. But like I said, I'm probably just not good enough at using EBSCO and the other legitimate databases yet, and so far, have just resorted to google books to bail me out. But that being said, google books did a very good job for me. This article that I found was only one of many that fit what I was looking for.
I tried a lot of different methods and databases to get articles on oil drilling, and they did bring a lot of things up, but I found myself either going around in circles or just frustrated altogether. Bottom line is, I lost patience. I found that google scholar and google books seemed to help me out most. Maybe it's because google has done a good job, or maybe I'm just too stupid to find anything any other way. But google seemed to be the answer ... again.
The library instruction was very helpful. I can see how the massive amount of databases could be very helpful for research. That was all very new to me. I had absolutely no experience using EBSCO or any of the other databases available through the library's site. That was the nicest thing I learned from the library instruction. That is a lot of information to have access to, and is helpful now, but will most definitely be even more helpful in the future. But like I said, I'm probably just not good enough at using EBSCO and the other legitimate databases yet, and so far, have just resorted to google books to bail me out. But that being said, google books did a very good job for me. This article that I found was only one of many that fit what I was looking for.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Assignment #3 (Rhetorical Analysis)
My rhetorical analysis I did this weekend was kind of an interesting and unusual public service ad. It was designed to be funny at times, but eventually, it turns into a sarcastic, yet highly effective ad on registering to vote and then voting.
The ad was sent to me by a friend as a link from collegehumor.com, I believe. The audience is definitely towards young adults at voting age. I imagine this is the audience because a lot of times, younger audiences have a difficult time with voting. They ask what the point is, and this add directly brings that up. It appeals to the younger college-age crowd by using several celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Halle Berry, Ellen DeGeneres, several other comedians, Toby Maguire, a few rappers and other celebrities that would be considered "cool" to this age-group. In reality, it's a good move by whoever made the add to use people like this. All the celebrities make a sarcastic, yet highly effective add as to why college students should vote.
The add is fairly long. The first one minute and twenty seconds of the add is a series of celebrities saying things like "don't vote," "whatever you do, don't vote," "what's the point?" and other things like that which would appear to discourage the audience from voting. This turns out to be entirely sarcastic in the end and the whole attitude of the argument changes into a "this is why you should vote" argument.
An interesting thing about this add is that there is not a very strong, or at least reliable call for authority. There seems to be an entire lack of ethos altogether. The biggest claim that the add can make towards having ethos is something to the effect of, "Look! Celebrities! Celebrities are cool, so listen to the celebrities tell you to vote." However, this kind of ethos, weak as it might be, is probably perfect for the audience. College students do not generally care about what an intellect has to say to them. But they do have a respect and admiration towards hollywood celebrities. So ironically enough, the add's apparant lack of legitimate ethos acts as an ethos in and of itself to its intended audience.
Despite a seeming lack of ethos, this add is not lacking in pathos at all. After the first minute of the add, the emotional appeals seem to be coming at the audience in every second until it turns into a large and highly effective guilt trip. As mentioned earlier, the first part of the add it celebrities sarcastically saying, "don't vote." However, at about 1:20 into the add, Halle Berry changes things up by saying, "Don't vote ... unless you care about health care." The add then completely changes. A montage of celebrities go on to say, "if you care about gun control, women's rights, civil right, rising gas prices, social security, the war ... then you should vote." All of those issues play at a broad audience, but will hit pretty much everyone with at least one thing that would bring out an emotional response. Like I mentioned, the way this is put forward is almost a bit of a guilt trip. It is as if the add is saying, if you don't vote, you must not care about all these super important issues. And that is playing at shame or guilt as an emotion in and of itself, not to mention all the emotions that the various issues play at.
The logos of the add is subtle. It goes right along with the pathos. The logos can be summarized by saying that voting is the way for an individual to show that they care about these things. The audience is left to decide for themselves as to why caring and voting are connected, but the add assumes that the audience will be able to put that together for themselves. And in reality, college students should be able to pick up on that. The subtlety of the logos seems to add to the sarcastic nature of the add, which is one of the major strengths of the add to begin with. It is a very coy add.
In my opinion, this add was highly effective. In fact, it informed and convinced me that I should vote. It wasn't that I was against voting, but that I hadn't really thought about it before. The makers of the add seem to know that there are many people in their intended audience that are like that, and thus, take a "snap out of it" approach to the apathetic audience. And I'll be honest, it did snap me out of it. I believe that the add is effective because it concentrates on what will be effective in a political type argument to its audience. It focusses on emotions as opposed to authoritive figures in suits. The war, gasoline prices and other issues at play in politics can bring various strong emotions out of people, including the college age students. This add does a good job of bringing all those emotions closer to the surface and playing on them in a way that makes the audience say, "wait a minute! I do care about that. I should vote." All in all, I was very impressed with the effectiveness of the add.
The ad was sent to me by a friend as a link from collegehumor.com, I believe. The audience is definitely towards young adults at voting age. I imagine this is the audience because a lot of times, younger audiences have a difficult time with voting. They ask what the point is, and this add directly brings that up. It appeals to the younger college-age crowd by using several celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Halle Berry, Ellen DeGeneres, several other comedians, Toby Maguire, a few rappers and other celebrities that would be considered "cool" to this age-group. In reality, it's a good move by whoever made the add to use people like this. All the celebrities make a sarcastic, yet highly effective add as to why college students should vote.
The add is fairly long. The first one minute and twenty seconds of the add is a series of celebrities saying things like "don't vote," "whatever you do, don't vote," "what's the point?" and other things like that which would appear to discourage the audience from voting. This turns out to be entirely sarcastic in the end and the whole attitude of the argument changes into a "this is why you should vote" argument.
An interesting thing about this add is that there is not a very strong, or at least reliable call for authority. There seems to be an entire lack of ethos altogether. The biggest claim that the add can make towards having ethos is something to the effect of, "Look! Celebrities! Celebrities are cool, so listen to the celebrities tell you to vote." However, this kind of ethos, weak as it might be, is probably perfect for the audience. College students do not generally care about what an intellect has to say to them. But they do have a respect and admiration towards hollywood celebrities. So ironically enough, the add's apparant lack of legitimate ethos acts as an ethos in and of itself to its intended audience.
Despite a seeming lack of ethos, this add is not lacking in pathos at all. After the first minute of the add, the emotional appeals seem to be coming at the audience in every second until it turns into a large and highly effective guilt trip. As mentioned earlier, the first part of the add it celebrities sarcastically saying, "don't vote." However, at about 1:20 into the add, Halle Berry changes things up by saying, "Don't vote ... unless you care about health care." The add then completely changes. A montage of celebrities go on to say, "if you care about gun control, women's rights, civil right, rising gas prices, social security, the war ... then you should vote." All of those issues play at a broad audience, but will hit pretty much everyone with at least one thing that would bring out an emotional response. Like I mentioned, the way this is put forward is almost a bit of a guilt trip. It is as if the add is saying, if you don't vote, you must not care about all these super important issues. And that is playing at shame or guilt as an emotion in and of itself, not to mention all the emotions that the various issues play at.
The logos of the add is subtle. It goes right along with the pathos. The logos can be summarized by saying that voting is the way for an individual to show that they care about these things. The audience is left to decide for themselves as to why caring and voting are connected, but the add assumes that the audience will be able to put that together for themselves. And in reality, college students should be able to pick up on that. The subtlety of the logos seems to add to the sarcastic nature of the add, which is one of the major strengths of the add to begin with. It is a very coy add.
In my opinion, this add was highly effective. In fact, it informed and convinced me that I should vote. It wasn't that I was against voting, but that I hadn't really thought about it before. The makers of the add seem to know that there are many people in their intended audience that are like that, and thus, take a "snap out of it" approach to the apathetic audience. And I'll be honest, it did snap me out of it. I believe that the add is effective because it concentrates on what will be effective in a political type argument to its audience. It focusses on emotions as opposed to authoritive figures in suits. The war, gasoline prices and other issues at play in politics can bring various strong emotions out of people, including the college age students. This add does a good job of bringing all those emotions closer to the surface and playing on them in a way that makes the audience say, "wait a minute! I do care about that. I should vote." All in all, I was very impressed with the effectiveness of the add.
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