Monday, May 31, 2010

Argument Freewrite

Read the scenario below, and then argue your stance using the techniques/skills you acquired from A&B chapter 10. You may use your book, your notes, or your handout as reference. Try to appeal to ethos, logos, and pathos, and look for unstated assumptions, etc. For the sake of this exercise, pick one side or the other.

A (non-specific) country is in the middle of a war. Unlike wars in the past, this war is constantly being covered by the media. In order to avoid public panic and protect civilians, the leader of this country banned the publication of images depicting the return of dead soldiers' coffins. Is this protection or censorship?

Friday, May 14, 2010

Visual Analysis

http://iuplanet.com/forum/attachments/what/984d1206158347-50-most-controversial-album-covers-all-time-albumcovers.jpg

http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0806/playing.in.pain/images/1997-michael-jordan.jpg

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Vote on Your Next Assignment

Click right here to vote on your next assignment.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Amanda's Essay for Peer Review

Amanda Olszewski

When first given this assignment I was at a loss as to what issue I was going to focus on seeing as though Communications is a very broad topic of study. My first thought went towards the way our communication is changing due to advancements in technology and the Internet, but then I felt that topic has been beaten to death lately and I didn’t need to add to it’s execution. I then started thinking in terms of communications in the business aspect, since I am also a marketing minor. This got me looking around at different sights, stumbling upon things like “How to Improve Communications within Management,” and “Proper Business Communication and Etiquette,” all things that did not strike my interest or any passions of mine enough to produce anything fruitful. And so, I digressed; looking for something that, stuck my interest, but was still foreign enough to me that I would not bring in my own biases into the mix. That got me thinking about the growing concern about environmental issues. Being a self proclaimed environment concernist, I decided to plug in the terms “Public Communications” into the Environmental section of the library search engine. This lead me to articles voicing the growing concern with the way science is being communicated to the public. They mentioned the challenges being faced due to the increase in content choices being put out by the media. This sounded like the perfect topic for me; something dealing with the environment and communications. So then it was time to narrow down my search. After pondering the topic for a while I decided to pursue the question, Will increasing/improving communication between scientists and the public, increase social involvement in environmental issues? This is worth researching to me because I believe that in order to make serious changes in the way we use and treat our environment, the more important it is to inform the masses of the challenges and changes we face in terms they can understand.

In starting my research I decided it would be important for me to first understand the current standards and struggles being faced by science communication. I began by searching “Effects of bad communication between science and the public,” and found a very useful article about the protocol of science communication. The article was coincidentally titled “A Protocol for Science Communication for the Public Understanding of Science,” which came from an excerpt from Steve Miller and Jane Gregory. Science in Public: communication, culture and credibility, and helped give me a good understanding about what is coming to be expected of both scientists and the public when dealing with the issue of communicating science through different media. The article started off talking about how scientist’s role in communicating with the public has changed due to the changes in political and social circumstances. Claiming that people are being influenced by so many different mediums giving them many different sources of information and leading them to many different opinions and information. They then started talking about the current relationship between scientists and the media. Their next point was one I had never really thought about and that was that the media, although it does in fact serve as the middle man in most cases between scientists and the public, they are not responsible in increasing the publics understanding of the sciences and all it’s essentials. Another new pattern this article brought to light for me was that since media today is so “I want it not” most of the science being preformed is in the moment and does not always have an answer right away. So when people are reading about these in the now sciences being studied and they don’t have and exact answer yet, they tend to make up their own ending to the experiment and rarely return to the issue when the experiments are completed. This to me gave insight into some of the challenges scientists are facing in trying to get their finding out there and understood. The article continues to give the following seven “protocols” for effective communication: 1.) Acknowledge the Place of Popularization 2.)Being Clear About Motives 3.) Respecting the Audience 4.)Negotiating New Knowledge, Understanding and Attitudes 5.) Establishing a Basis For Trust 6.)Acknowledging the Social in Science 7.) Facilitating Public Participation. These points set standards, suggest improvements for science communications and give direction to both the public and to scientists as to how to meet half way when communicating to each other. So by now I have gained a pretty good understanding of the changing relationship and responsibilities of both the scientist and the public when trying to better understand one another, but this information also lead me to think, If the media is demanding answers before they were able to give them, and the people are demanding the media to give them answers, and the media needs people to buy their magazines, how can scientists make sure their discoveries are being properly exposed?

Brian Ross English 151 Ms. Mudd May, 6 2010
Helping hands?
Critical Preface You got hurt. You just had surgery, now what? The next step in the health care profession after incidents such as these is rehabilitation. This is where people turn to Physical Therapy for a faster and better recovery. A therapist is known as a movement specialist that helps recovering patients from any type of accident or injury. Rehabilitation usually ranges from any part of your body from head to foot. There are many techniques and methods for the patient to use while attempting to get back to full health. The profession has been an ever growing field of work for hospital systems since the end of WWII. During its growth, new branches such as Massage therapy and Occupational therapy, have gone hand in hand with the medical fields. My major is Pre-Physical Therapy, so to look into this topic a little more about how the job is done will help me answer some of my questions that I have about its uses. We have all had some type of personal experience where we either got hurt or needed surgery. Resulting from this, doctors have probably requested you to go into a type of rehab center so they can evaluate your progression in the healing process. The problem that has slowly crept up in studies today is that of the benefits of this line of work. Now this is where I would like to find out the answers to some of my questions: (1) Are all types of health related injury actually worthwhile for a therapist to do work on? (2) Is there solid beneficial factor to the patients’ participation of the therapy? (3) Is there actual data to show patients improvement with their problem? And (4) Is there a mental aspect of the healing process? These questions need to be answered, not only for me but for others, so that they too can see my results of the research. I have currently been looking over research during late April, and early May 2010, ranging over many topics on this subject. I have viewed academic journals that I will be using as my sources for my annotated bibliography. After viewing many sources for my annotated bibliography I will be mainly using academic journals. I did find all of my sources to be helpful to obtain the answers I was looking for in my work.

Annotated Bibliography
Carpentier, Jim. “Therapy Can AND CANNOT DO.”American Fitness 28.1 (2010): 52-53. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 April. 2010. This article covers the Massage side of therapy. In the article Carpentier clearly states on both sides of the argument of what massage therapy can and cannot do. We learn that there is an”Sports-Message” that is only 15-30 minutes in length, used for one or two main parts of your body while the “Swedish-Massage” 30 minutes to an hour in length will go over your entire body. It is noted that positive results from these two types of massage will (1) Alleviate pain in patients. (2) Lowers stress hormones. (3) Lessens depressive symptoms. (4) boost immune system. (5) improve muscle flexability and recovery. To the other side of massage therapy, the disadvantage can come from different directions. To say you got freshly hurt, massage would only worsen the injury that occurred by aggravation. Also any type of massage is proven to not help protect against injury. Having an article being up to date such as this makes it worthwhile and valid for a good source to use.
“People With Diabetes Benefit From Exercise at Work.” Magazine of Physical Therapy 12.10 (2004): 69-70. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2. May. 2010.
This article I found to be quite interesting when looking up research for this topic. I can across this article about an ongoing research study with people diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes. After many clinical hours of work lead researcher Gang Hu of the National Public Health Institute has found a link between diabetes and working. While around 3,000 people attended this study, sadly only 1,400 lived to see the results. Therapists took measures of peoples work field and their blood count levels. As the study showed participants who were linked to have a “light” job such as office work, were reported with higher rates of health problems. The people in the middle reported moderate. But the workers who had “active” jobs ended with the best health. Once the numbers were all calculated and straightened out, findings shown that with just a little more effort in the work field will result in a better record of health. Therapists who helped conduct the study also saw less conditions of linked stress and pains with patients how had more active job. While taking this all in this helped me realize that this article was good because it had reliable numbers and facts from great sources.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Extra Credit

I went to the Farmer's Market out by Athena Grand for Earth month. There were many vegetables, baked goods, and plants. All the people were so genuine and cared a lot about what they were selling. I personally enjoyed the Amish bakery place. I got their chocolate chip cookies and banana bread. Let's just say it was gone pretty fast! I will definitely be going back, especially with my Mom on Mom's weekend! The fresh food was much appreciated in a world of dining hall meals.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

extra credit

i went to black sheep inc. sketch comedy for earth month extra credit. It was at the front room from 9-10. They started off the act by giving some fun facts about the environment. Then the eight people did improv skits of different topic and included some more facts about the environment. There was a lot of people there to see it. the whole front room was filled up. IT reminded me of whos line is it anyway on abc family.I thought it was pretty interesting and enjoyed it.

Earth Day Comedy Improv

Me and Andrew Broehm went to the Front Room in Baker Center for the Earth Day Black Sheep Inc. Sketch Comedy improv event on April 22. To celebrate Earth Day they centered their skits around environmental issues. They opened their event with a message about how bad coal is for the environment. They were pretty funny and they did a good job of incorporating the unhealthy changeable things in the environment into each skit. I actually learned some things about the environment that were new to me. I would recommend improv skits like this to anyone who likes a good laugh.

5 Stages Of Dying With Giraffe

I chose this video to depic rhetoric because it uses rhetoric appealing to your ethos or emotions and shows thes different ways one may react or change in a situation.


Wednesday, April 21, 2010


I chose this image because it portrays how Obama uses rhetoric. He is a great speaker and very persuasive but the author of this cartoon thinks he is all talk.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Essay Two Topics

Write a little bit about the topics you're considering for your second essay (by posting as a comment). Which form (annotated bib. or exploratory essay) are you considering? If you're having a hard time, let us know. Feel free to respond to others' posts.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

M&M Rhetoric!

I picked this piece of writing for my rhetoric example because of the author's unique ability to sound completely confident and precise when talking about something so made up and ridiculous. He sets a certain ethos by uses descriptive words like genetically inferior, robustness, splinters, and hypothesized. It makes us feel like the author knows what they are doing and almost makes us overlook the insanity of the actual idea.

Nike - Airport '98


This is an advertisement that Nike put together with the Brazilian National team, to promote the World Cup tournament, and of course the Nike Swoosh. In this advertisement I believe the are solely advertising to young to middle age men, and soccer fans alike. The music the choose is a catching tune, not in the english tongue and keeps you moving to the beat. The way the make the airport into a soccer field and how he misses the "goal" off the line pole is very creative to me.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Rhetoric Example

I picked this video to show how rhetoric is use to sell a product in a commercial. I feel that it sends a message that he is better than most men and how you should listen to him because they make him seem very magical and all knowing. Also they appeal to women to buy this product for their man because it persuade them to want a man like the one you see in the commercial using his muscles to persuade women to buy the product. The other video i showed really showed 2 different sides to these ads because the other one was more targeted to men and being very manly and they use a different rhetoric technique to do this by being very loud and punching and kicking buildings and explosions! Looking at these commercials really show how much thought goes into rhetoric for these ads to convince you to buy a product.

Old Spice Commercial 1

Old Spice Commercial 2

Monday, April 12, 2010

Rhetoric Example

This is a different image than the one I presented in class as an example of Rhetoric. I got this one online. This image shows rhetoric through the pictures and the text, just like the one I presented in class.

Friday, April 9, 2010

rHeToRiC !

I FEEL THIS IS A VERY COMPLEX EXAMPLE OF RHETORIC BECAUSE YOU CAN GET MANY IDEAS OR THOUGHTS FROM LOOKING AT IT. SO THIS IS WHY I CHOSE IT. I FEEL A NEGATIVE VIBE THROUGH MY EYES WHEN I LOOK AT THIS BUT I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT OPINIONS.... FEEL FREE TO POST A COMMENT AND TELL ME YOURS

Thursday, April 8, 2010

technology article

The most interesting point that I saw that was in this article is how communication has changed because of technology. There are some people that communicate more through technology than they do face to face with a person. Don't get me wrong I love my cell phone, laptop, facebook, ipod, etc. Technology is an amazing advancement to this world, but everything should be in moderation. It starts to become a problem when you are so absorbed in it that it becomes disrespectful to others because your technology of choice is taking priority over them. Technology is a very good thing some people just take too far.

Technology

I feel like technology has consummed our lives now a days. You can't walk down the street without seeing someone either on a phone or listening to an ipod. In the article it stated that we are always connected or tethered to some form of thechnology and this is true. Its not a bad thing in my eyes its just that times are changing.

What will the world be like in the next 10 to 15 years? thechnology wise...

Technology Article

In this article about how technology is ever constant in our lives one question that came to mind when they mentioned blending peoples real life with their virtual lives. They used examples like creating avatars and online games. The question that i thought was are these people creating these fantasies and playing these games to escape reality and have a better "virtual" life. Another thing i noticed from the article was how dependent we are with our cell phones. It seems like now a days if you loose your phone you feel disconnected from everything in the world. Secondly it also mentioned about people looking down under the table to check their phones at dinner with someone. My question is that, Has this been accepted as OK by our society? i feel that it is really rude. someone cant honestly go less than a hour without checking their phone. I feel its more insulting to your dinner partner since its like saying "your so boring and my phone is more entertaining than you"

Technology Article

Technology is a great way of communication. It's becoming more popular everyday. Unfortunately, technology is becoming the only way people communicate anymore. Instead of talking face to face or even on the phone, people email, text, etc. Honestly, I don't even like to talk on the phone anymore because I know I can just text someone instead of taking time to actually have a personal conversation with them. Is it really possible that people depend too much on technology? I think that technology was meant to enhance communication, but in reality it's just another way for people to avoid that awkward conversation face to face or on the phone. It's making communication less personal and less meaningful.

What will the future be like as technology continues to expand become more involved in everyone's lives?

Technology

The extreme use of technology in todays world has brought down the lack of customer service and the personal side to talking to each other. Yes, the use of technology has speeded up the processing and some external problems to our communication but to me it brings down the overall personal side to business and friendship. The use of cell phones has taken away from the personal side of communicating with each other, via emails or texts.


How much technology is to much?

Articles

I agree that it is becoming increasingly impossible to get financial aid. For people like me who come from low-income backgrounds, college is almost impossible to afford. I think that there needs to be more funding to provide for people to go to college. I also think that the amount of aid you get shouldn't have anything to do with what your parents make.

What do you think?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

technology reading

i do not know if i am doing this right or if we are suppose to make a comment about the technology article but i am going to anyways. The main thing that came to my mind when reading the article is why people are so worried about people putting their information on facebook and myspace. If you dont think its right then do not do it. Worry about yourself and let other people do what they think is right for them. Also when they were talking about being so worried that everyone is always emailing, texting , or playing with their blackberry made me kind of mad. People need to communicate with one another whether it is for work or just to talk with family or friends it what is easiest and most convenient so i dont know why people mind it so much.
I chose this example of rhetoric because I believe it shows a real life change in the type of rhetoric being conveyed. The photo on the left represents the opposite of what today's public wants to see on the front cover a popular magazine. On the right, they have electronically manipulated the photo to help relay a more accepted message on to the readers.

Chris's Rhetoric Example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_cOcILhz_c

This example was notable because of the ways he expressed his conversation. Also the way they showed the different views and lighting of him as he spoke. The extra clips were also notable of his famous touchdown dances and other wild behaviors he's known for.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Hilarious/Insightful/Fantastic Metaphors

So we've noted a few times in class how it's really important for us to keep our voice in academic writing. Learning how to balance the demands of the academic audience, genre, and purpose with our own personal voices can be hard, but somehow (some of) these metaphors really do it. They're funny, and if you read them as intentionally humorous, they certainly have potential to inject voice and personality into otherwise boring statements.

Click here to check out the metaphors.

rhetoric


i chose this image for my rhetoric example because i thought it was a very powerful image that can be seen in several different ways on how you interpret things.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Oh Rhetoric, What Art Thou?

What is rhetoric to you? When you hear the word rhetoric, what's the first thing that comes to mind? When do you use rhetoric?

If you have no idea what rhetoric is, that's fine. Take a guess.

Try to think about under what circumstances you've heard/seen rhetoric used. Is rhetoric something to be trusted? To be feared? To be mastered?