Initial Thoughts about the Audience for my Argument

I have given some thought on the audience for what I've been thinking about doing for project 3. The first idea for an engineering related topics has an audience that can only be determined/analyzed once I have decided on a topic. However, there will probably be some similar trends for the audiences. The stakeholders will all likelihood include major investors in the subject, as well as the people working on it. The ideal audience will include people, that might not be aware of the subject so they will definitely not know that much about it, and would require some basic knowledge on the matter to be included in the presentation. Besides from the ideal audience the rest of the class in attendance and Dr. Bell will definitely encounter my argument. The people hostile to it will be those that appose the subject of my argument.

Source: https://pixabay.com/en/theater-seating-audience-105573/

For the idea of supporting GMO's I can answer the prompt questions from Dr. Bell's blog post. The people that would be impacted by this issue would be those that consume any food, which contains GMOs, GMOs fed livestock, and GMO organisms. Major stakeholders are primarily interests groups for and against GMOs, as well as large companies that have major stock in GMOs. The interest groups that I mentioned have several beliefs depending on the group. Some believe that GMOs are dangerous and  shouldn't be used/studied at all. Others think that GMOs are a good thing, but caution should be used when using them. My ideal audience would be on the fence of the matter, relatively unaware of what GMOs are capable of. They will need to know common arguments for and against GMOs and-possibly-a definition of GMO's, all of which I will probably include in my argument. And as stated in the above paragraph, My 109H class and professor, Dr. Bell, will also be encountering my argument. The people that will be hostile to my argument will be those against GMOs (or they just don't like me and/or my presentation).

My Proposed Public Argument Ideas

Im still unsure of how what I want to do, But I have somewhat narrowed it down. And while I am not sure on what I want the subject to be, I am pretty sure that I will end up with a powerpoint presentation, since it would provide a visual for the audience to follow along with.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/3399122947
A stump because I'm slightly stumped on what to choose

First thought was to do something in the engineering field that I am passionate about, but I have a hard time finding any arguments that I care about.  The audience, message, and purpose would all depend on what I decide to do. However, it will probably be an argument  for rather than against. The purpose will probably also be to inform and persuade the unaware/on the fence people to side with what I'm arguing for.

My backup idea if I can't pick something would be to make an argument supporting GMOs, since that has been a topic of debate that I have been interested in for a long time. The purpose of the argument is to persuade/inform people who might not know about the good that GMOs can do. The actual audience that is going to be seeing this would be my fellow classmates and Dr. Bell, although the ideal target audience would be people who are on the fence when it comes to GMOs or don't know too much about them.

Analysis of a Sample Public Arguement

From the three examples presented I decided to do "Suffering in the Dessert" for this blog post.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/3370155351

Overall I would say that the tone of the video is a sad one. The music is a big contributor to this, if it was something happier it would have had the affect of me questioning why it was included, which would distract me from the video's message. The visuals were also another key part, especially the images of the spine and unaccompanied children. There were also some text that really sets the tone as a sad one for me. It was primarily when it mentioned the rising number of dead minors. If either of those two things were different, the message would have lost a lot of weight/impact to me.

The video to me primarily relies on emotional appeals, in other words pathos based arguments. Also, logos was used, since several statistical numbers and trends did appear in the video. Which is the right choice in my eyes. The combination of these two types of arguments would work well on convincing the target audience to take a stand in favor of helping illegal immigrants whose lives are in danger.

The credibility is established via a works cited section at the very end, which scrolled like a credits section. The segment showed that she put effort into researching the materials to use in her arguments.

The video starts with the thesis after the title. Sections are order in a way that is text statement followed by supporting pictures. Which is almost exactly like PIE structure, except the explanation is left too the viewers to put into words.

The video starts with broader statements, which than go into more specific statements, like statistics. After these it tells you about an organization doing what they can to aid suffering immigrants, and how they are punished for it. The video also gives a way to find more information about the group. I believe this is a good way to organize it, since if for example the organization that is trying to help is moved to the front, the viewer will be less likely to care about what they are doing, because they haven't been exposed to the rest of the video yet.

I do believe that there is a call to action in this video, which is presented in the form of the web address of the previously mention organization that is presented in a slide saying "see what you can do to help". The spine and unaccompanied children really add a sense that something needs to be done now, before those kids end up looking like the spine.

If I were to do this I would probably add more sections related to the Minuteman Project.

Reflection on Rhetorical Analysis paper

I did my paper on HONY, the piece itself can be found in a link that is in the previous blog post. While I don't know the score yet, I feel like I did much better on this one than my QRG. Reason being is that I felt that the analysis was definitely better. Although I do wish that I could go back and put a better thesis in the introduction. Also, I felt that the conclusion was a weak point that I should have done better.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46153825@N00/148771151

However, this was the first time that I have seen SOAPSTone, which may come in handy for the future.  I also found out that "making connections" is a colloquial when talking about bonds between people. I may have to go and find a dictionary of colloquials, since this is the second paper that they have made their way into.

I posted on Gabi Dodson's blog, Benjamin Weiss's blog, and Alaina Michaels's blog.

link to draft of rhetorical analysis

https://docs.google.com/a/email.arizona.edu/document/d/1A5vaxifM9wwcw_AREdb8dogNkYADU3KF34nJlsfn2kA/edit?usp=sharing
An area of concern for me is the organization of paragraph 4. As far as additional outside the class feedback go, I plan to have my family members go over.

I have also posted what I thought was helpful information on Lekha's draft (its a comment on the blog, since the draft was in view only) and Alaina's draft, which is also a comment on the post, because the document was view only.

Thesis and Outline for Rhetorical Analysis Assignment.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wufoo/5707226102

Here is my draft thesis for the rhetorical analysis essay. Brandon Stanton’s presentation of himself and his photos allows his primarily social media user audience to form connections with the subjects of the photos.

Link to the outline (it is also on the pre-write document)
Feel free to comment.


Here are the people, whose blogs I commented on: Laura Shoemaker, Benjamin Weiss, and Gabi Dodson.

Pre-write for the Second Assignement

In making my blog posts, I have done several pre-writing activities regarding a rhetorical analysis of HONY.  I have made a google doc, where I have compiled them. Here is the link. Included in it is an observations and inferences chart and the SOAPSTone. The chart is an useful pre-writing activity, since it provides some idea of what he is trying to do with his rhetorics. The second one helps me understand, what he is trying to do with his photos+captions. I also plan to do an outline of what I intend to write, however I'm not sure if that is considered pre-writing. I'm pretty sure it is though, but I may be wrong.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jkim1/452830868

I have commented on Gabi Dodson's blog post and Davis Lee's post.

Personal Response: What I Decided to Write About

I have decided to write about HONY for the second assignment.  The reason I chose HONY is that I feel like I can connect better with the content in it. Also, I like reading the stories of people and their lives.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/seatbelt67/502255276

Here are the blogs I have commented on about this blog post: Cati Krutilla and Katie Lista.

Outline of Mikalya Gerdes-Morgan's Rhetorical Analysis of a Sex Trafficking Documentary

Here is a link to the outline.

While looking at the outline you will probably notice that one section is blue and another is red. It is to signify which section I thought was the strongest and weakest. (Sections in this case meaning paragraphs in the essay).

Source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/iragelb/5611594783

In regards to the overall organizational quality of the essay, I would say it is very good. As far as I can tell, the topic sentences relate back to the thesis (in a way.) Although, the topic sentence of section V seems more to relate back to the previous paragraph, not the the thesis. Also, it should be noted that some paragraphs come across (to me at least) as redundant.  I thought section II was particularly strong. Main reason is that it provides some of the best example-explanation, as well as lack of redundancy. Section III on the other hand is the weakest in my opinion. It basically repeats what the second paragraph says, except it is being said by a different person. It feels like it can be easily worked into the first paragraph, which is something that bothers me the most.

observations and inferences table + paragraph on HONY

Observations and Inferences on David Stanton’s Humans of New York
Observations:	Inferences:
Bet several grand of student loans and ended up with a trading job	He is a risk taker
Jumps from obsession to obsession and decided to move to New York from Chicago in order to take pictures.	Spontaneous
HONY is on tumblr and facebook primarily (he’s releasing a book, but by the time this blog will be posted it has not come out yet.)	Possibly his preferred method of distribution is on social media sites Maybe it is easier for his viewers to be involved (commons, etc…)
Portrait style photos	Shows that main focus is on the individual being photographed. He has an easier time
Some of the photos aren’t focused on the person.	They feel the safety of themselves and their loved ones might be endangered perhaps For some it is clear that the reason is that the story attached is not about the person being photographed, but about a dead person that they knew.
Some people are posing for the shots	It is not a slice-of-life type of collection, but rather about the people as they portray themselves.
Varying tones, some pictures are light hearted and others are of a crying woman who recalls the death by drowning of her husband or a caption where the person pictured has been giving serious contemplation to committing suicide, but can’t work up the courage.	He is trying to get the stories of these people out there, in order to raise awareness and teach people about different perspectives/ ways of life/etc…
Pictures that are clearly taken in different countries	He has grown famous for this, and people out there want him to tell the stories of the people in these countries.

Source: https://pixabay.com/en/magnifying-glass-hand-finger-thumb-106803/

A thing I like about the HONY photo collection/ website is that they tell the stories of so many different people in such a manner that it can easily evoke my emotions. I say this because a picture with a good caption of what the person said is more effective than either of the two alone. If I were to write about this for the second assignment, I might talk about how Brandon is using these stories +pictures to raise awareness,  get people motivated to do something, and broaden the perspective of others. It would primarily focus on the refugee stories (if I can find the right time bracket for the photos.) I might also provide some background information about Brandon, since that has to do with his credibility.

HONY SOAPSTone

Once again I am tasked with finding the aspects of SOAPSTone (the exact names of the aspects can be found in the previous blog, SOAPSTone #likeagirl) for Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York.

Source: https://pixabay.com/en/sherlock-holmes-detective-462978/
(The finding of the SOAPSTone)

The first aspect, speaker, is Brandon. He comes off as an approachable guy (gives an email link if you want to say hi or something like that) that can be spontaneous and a risk taker. The occasion is that he lost his job as a trader, so he decided to move to New York to take pictures of its inhabitants. The audience would have to be primarily social media users, since the main places you can see his photos are Tumblr and Facebook. It can also be people interested in the unique  people one can meet in New York, he did want to organize it by neighborhood. His purpose is to capture  the uniqueness of the people in New York, as well as, the telling of their stories (something that happened later on in the project. The subject is the unique and interesting inhabitants of New York, whose photos were taken primarily in the portrait style.  The tone of the piece varies based on the individual photo, but it is usually light-hearted, owing to that the photos are based on  interesting people that Brandon decided to photograph.

SOAPSTone #likeagirl

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/16712622489
Steatite rock (another name for steatite is soapstone)

The SOAPSTone aspects(subject, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone) of Always's #likeagirl commercial is what I have been tasked to write about. The speaker aspect of the ad is the Always brand, which make feminine hygiene products. The occasion of the ad is that at some point to say that someone did something "like a girl" has become a common insult in society. The purpose of this ad is to empower young females, and to reinforce the idea that you should not be ashamed of your gender. Always may have also did it for the good publicity, in order to have potential buyers think positively of their brand. The target demographic (audience) is young females, since the ad is about empowering women. It may have also targeted Superbowl fans/watchers, since it aired during the Superbowl, or it could have been aired then for the purpose of getting more viewers/awareness. The subject, as hinted at in the occasion, is that "like a girl" has become an insult, which is not something people should be okay with. The commercial's tone is informative, it brings to people's attention that this problem has arisen in our society. It is also empowering and persuasive (the uncut version at least,) since it is persuading young girls that they are not somehow lesser, just because they are a different gender.

Group Rhetorical Analysis of Girl Culture

(Revision is at the bottom)

Lets start with a bit of context, which many of you, expected majority of readers of my blog, won't need. The group was tasked with creating an outline of Joan Brumberg's essay, which the title was given as Essay (it is based off of Lauren Greenfield's Girl Culture photo essay.) Next, each each member was tasked with writing their own paragraph based off of a section from the outline. My section was called The domination of the "right body."

(OLD paragraph) Some girls out there are obsessed with the idea of obtaining the "ideal" body. Their pursuit of this idea often leads to issues when their body's hit puberty. Young females, when they hit puberty, start developing adipose tissue, fat, around their midsection.  Their concern comes from the idea that the best body is the slim/thin body. The build of the adipose can lead to some severe reactions. There are girls out there that develop some pretty severe eating disorders because of this; anorexia, bulimia, etc.  And, others feel the need to go to weight-loss camp in order to deal with their body. While there is nothing wrong with weight camp in general, some girls decide to go there as a reaction to their in-puberty bodies. Girls pursuit of the "right" body can lead to some severe reactions, some of which are dangerously self-destructive.

Source: https://pixabay.com/en/diet-fat-health-weight-healthy-398613/

I was also tasked with analyzing SOAPSTone (Speaker, Occasion,  Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone) for the above paragraph, so without further ado. For the first S, the speaker of the above paragraph is me,  although the above is based off of an essay by Brumberg, which is about Laura Greenfield's photo essay, Girl Culture. My occasion was that some girls out there are taking extreme action in pursuit of a "ideal" body.  For the audience, I tried to target young females, but I'm not sure if that is noticeable in the above. The purpose, beyond it being mandatory, was to inform the reader about the lengths that some resort to in this pursuit, and to a lesser extent persuade the reader that a build-up of adipose tissue is a natural body reaction during puberty for females.  The subject is the pursuit of the "ideal" body and the negative impact it could have. For tone, I tried to be informative. Feel free to comment below.

Here's the links to the classmates blog posts that I commented on, Katie Lista and Cati Krutilla

(Revision) Lauren Greenfield tackles the complex issues associated with girls' desire to obtain a slim body and the sometimes devastating methods employed in her photo essay Girl Culture. She shows her readers vivid imagery of desperate girls that are suffering from anorexia in order to persuade the viewers to think of the damages that today's beauty standards can cause.  Greenfield also displays a group of photos centered around overweight women in weight-loss camps. By showing how miserable these people are with their bodies, She shows the readers the effect that society's standards have on people.  She shows her readers the pain and struggles of these girls as they try to conform to the way our society has defined beauty.

A Reflection on the assignment: It was through doing this assignment that I gained some valuable insight. I learned that not every little thing doesn't need to be included. Also, if there are noticeable topic sentences than it is a good idea to include them on the outline, since they provide some very good insight on what the paragraph is about. And, when trying to recreate a paragraph(s) based on an outline, I should at times go back and re-read the original, and not just go solely off the outline. Especially, if said outline is perhaps not that good in the first place.

Word Cloud from QRG

Visual Analysis of a Photo

For this assignment, we were tasked with analyzing one of Lauren Greenfield's photos in her work, Girl Culture. I have decided to analyze the 11th picture, which features Lana examining her body post surgery. After viewing the photo, I found it interesting that Greenfield chose to use Lana's reflection in the mirror to portray her, instead of a shot focused on Lana herself. I believe that Greenfield wanted people to think about why Lana would want to have her body go through the operation (it was breast implants,) since one of the most prominent things that can be seen is the bandages covering her chest and the small vivid scar on her body. When considering the purpose of the photo essay, I believe that Greenfield is drawing attention the importance many girls place on having the "ideal" body, and the lengths girls are going to to obtain it.

source: https://pixabay.com/en/photo-picture-image-photography-99135/

As far as visual strategies go, I have noticed several things. The angle of the photo shows the camera being tilted and off to the side, since it does not appear in the reflection. The advantage of this is that it really empathizes Lana examining herself in the mirror, which is further empathized by Lana's reflection being the most in-focused part of the photo, especially since everything outside the mirror's reflection has a blurry look to it. Speaking of things outside the mirror the edge of the photo is clearly not a reflection, since you can see the edge of the mirror. The effect that this has is that it doesn't look like Lana is posing for a photograph. In regard to dominance, the first things I see when looking at the picture are the bandages on her body. The reason I look there is for these reasons: it is clearly in focus, only person in the shot, and the photo gives the impression that she is looking there as well. It was mention earlier that on the edge of the photo you can see where the mirror ends and the rest bathroom begins that is slightly misleading. It only shows the mirror's edge near the right side of the photo.  The only contrast I can see is between the reflection (in focus) and the non-reflection parts (slightly blurred in most cases, an item hangs over the reflection, and is extremely blurry.) The purpose of this contrast is to draw the eye to the reflection. As for scale, nothing looks too odd or stands out when thinking about scale.

Unit 1 Reflection

The first unit was certainly interesting all things considered. It is during this time that my blog was created, and it is my first blog ever. It will be something that I'm likely to remember for years to come. A lot of firsts came from this unit: first time using blogger, first time creating a cluster plot, etc....  The unit is my first time writing an internet genre, it probably showed, and as a result I have learned a fair amount regarding using hyperlinks in such assignments. Because the unit was about analyzing rhetoric, I have learned and greatly improved my understanding on how people use rhetorics and how to spot their use of rhetorics.

Speaking about how people are communicating, I noticed how that people in my chosen subject, human enhancement, are using some common trends in their arguments. A very common trend was using logic and quoting other credible people, which appeared in nearly all of my applicable sources that are in the final annotated bibliography post (obviously a source that is a painting in a web gallery won't have an argument. If you doubt me you're welcome to try and find a valid argument being made on the listed source.) In regards to the form of their communications, a good majority of the material I found were scholarly essays and articles from news site.

Source: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byways/photos/62736

Its embarrassing to admit but a rather large flaw in my writing was pointed out to me. The flaw being that I tend to be wordy and add unneeded sentences to a paragraph. (I'm probably still doing that and not noticing to be honest.) I've never been good at self-appraising my strengths in my writing, but I believe that I did the hyperlinking correctly at least, I'm pretty sure that I included links to all relevant source material, as well as thing that my audience might be interested in. I can definitely improve what sentences I add to my works, since that was a major problem I had in the assignment. Also, writing down analysis of the rhetoric used could definitely use some work (I felt like it was severely lacking a day later.) But to some up the most important thing that I learned. Make sure what I'm writing actually answers the prompt. Having to rewrite the entire paper to account for that mistake was not fun.