Preliminary Thoughts

For this first paper assignment I think I am leaning towards using a commercial.  It would probably be one the Crest White Strips ads found on television.  Those advertisements have many appeals to the three main aspects.  If I used this particularly ad I have in mind, I would definitely address the large amounts of appeal to pathos.  The women in the ad are smiling the entire duration of the commercial.  They seem to be extremely happy and are having fun.  The women are also seen with guys, talking and laughing on the phone, jogging and going out with other smiling women.  This commercial is obviously trying to appeal to the audience’s emotion through the happiness and joy expressed by the actors of the ad.  The display on such contentment when using white strips plants the idea that if one uses the Crest White Strips they will as a result be happier.  I would also discuss the appeal to logos that is present in the ad.  In the commercial it displays the women do many daily activities while wearing the white strips. The narrator of the commercial claims that one can wear the strips while doing just about anything.  One woman is changing her clothes, one is washing her face, talking on the phone and another is drinking water.  These details of the ad are appeal to the logical and convenience of using the Advance Seal Crest White Strips. The commercial also claims that the Strips use all new technology that allows them to adhere better than the regular white strips.  The narrator also says that these particular whitening fits any life and every smile as pictures of very different women scroll across the screen. At the very end of the commercial it displays a fact at the bottom in white letters, stating that these Crest White Strips are the number one dentist recommended brand. This can be categorized as logos because it is a type of fact or statistic, but also as ethos because it is using the trusted figure of a dentist to convince viewers to buy the product. It also has an appeal to ethos through the fact that Crest is a well-known and trusted brand that has provided the public with many products for teeth.

            I feel that this commercial does a very good job of appealing to all three areas and I find the ad to be effective in its goal to convince women to invest in white strips.  I am not quite sure of roadblocks that I may have to overcome between now and completing my first paper.  I feel pretty good about the ad I have chosen and my ability to expand on it and complete a rhetorical analysis.  I may have a little trouble with meeting the length requirement, but hopefully Robert’s article gave me the right helpful information to put to use in the paper. I think if I just remember the tips of how to write a great paper I won’t hit too many roadblocks.

Gender and Bathrooms

     Americans have a set idea of what they consider to be male and female.  Most people in the US have certain characteristics that they associate with men and women.  Americans overall agree on the basic beliefs they have on what a man should be like:  have a penis, have broad shoulders, should display a rough and touch attitude, not wear skirts and be the total opposite of women.  Women are characterized by wearing skirts, having bows in their hair, having breasts, having wider hips or smaller waist, having long hair, and being very fragile and delicate. 

All these assumptions can be very hurtful to the people that see them.  If one does not fit the description or the image he or she sees on a sign they maybe have a hard time when using public places that are separated by gender such as bathrooms.  The common signs for restrooms display a very vague outlook on who should be using the facilities.  Not all women wear skirts and in today’s modern world I would guess that on an average day there are more women in the US wearing shorts or pants than there are wearing skirts.  The signs that display women as fragile people with breasts and a skirt made offend or hurt a woman who does not look like the image she sees.  The same thing goes for the male restroom signs. The depiction of men as big and buff with large chests and broad shoulders is very inaccurate and also give a negative and detrimental image to men who do not look like that. 

            There are so many different clothing types, body types, personal styles and different aspects that affect a person’s appearance.  A woman can dress in pants and a collared shirt but still be a woman and use a women’s restroom yet she does not fit the description that the sign portrays.  The reason the signs for bathrooms look the way they do is because of the associations that have been made with each gender.  All the associations are general, but for the most part true.  For example men for the most part don’t wear skirts or the color pink, and women normally don’t have very broad shoulders or stand up when they use the restroom.  Although these associations are true sometimes, the use of such generalizations for signs and separation leaves people with just black and white. Is there not a gray area?  People who are transgender are left having to look at signs that do not depict them at all.

I have never come across problematic signs for gender; most of the ones I see have what they mean written in English below the pictures. I have however seen the all-familiar triangular shaped people, with the shirt for the women and the chest for the men.  I guess I have just been so accustomed to seeing the signs that I never really thought about all the generalizations and assumptions they are basing the pictures on.

Rhetorical Triangle Ad

    

     This ad is for Dawn soap appeals logos, pathos and ethos and has a very persuasive affect on the viewer. This ad logically presents a product that donates a portion of the profit to help clean animals that have been harmed by oil spills.  In the actual commercial for this soap, they present facts and statistics regarding what they do to help animals and the environment that make the audience more likely to buy the product.  Logically it makes sense to buy something that helps other people or in this case other living things.  Why would you buy a different kind of soap and get nothing in return when you could buy dawn and know that you are helping save adorable animal’s lives.

        

     This ad I think appeals to pathos the most out of the three.  By using cute, lovable, little animals to pull at the audience’s heart and convince them that this is the right soap to buy.  The presentation of the animals in distress evokes a sense of responsibility on the viewer and he or she feels obligated to help save the lives of living creatures by choosing this particular brand of soap.  It is human nature to feel compassion for things in need and that is why the ad concentrates its focus on the aid of animals. 

    

       Lastly this ad doesn’t have a clear appeal to ethos, but in the commercial for the soap it shows scientists and environmentalist cleaning animals that have been covered in oil.  This could be a slight appeal to ethos in that it is using authoritative figures to promote the product.

How to Say Nothing in 500 Words

Roberts did a great job of addressing all the issues and problems with the content of student’s writing.  As I was reading the article I found myself guilty of every single mistake writers make.  I realized that I always choose the easy side of the argument, which leaves my papers uninteresting.  He pointed out that most students pick the most common topic or the one that seems to have the most supporting evidence. I found it interesting that Roberts suggested writing down all the obvious reasons then completely ignoring them and creating abstract ideas.  I’ve always been a little weary of straying from the normal, but apparently in writing it is much better to have original thoughts than common ideas.  I learned that it is better to choose the most unusual of the choices in order to make your paper different from the other students so that your teacher doesn’t get tired of hearing the same thing and you will not receive a low grade.  Another error I was reminded of when reading Robert’s argument, was my overuse of what he calls “padding”.  I tend to use extra words that have no content and only add to the length of the sentence.  I was aware that I often use extra words and it was an actual tactic I have always used when writing papers that I thought I could not make long enough to meet the length requirement.  I also am guilty of using colorful words in situation where they do not belong.  I know that I sometimes add words just to make my sentences more interesting, but in reality I am not helping my cause.  I found the whole article very helpful and I especially liked the section where he discussed certain words that have positive and negative associations.  I never actually thought that in depth about how the readers may react to different words and i found it interesting.  Overall I learned quite a bit from this informative article and found each section to hold very useful information that I will use in future papers.