ENG 112 Revising Quiz

When you think of the beach, what is the first thing that comes to mind? If you are thinking of the ocean then you are correct! The ocean is the first thing that comes to mind when a beach is mentioned. The color of an ocean is blue which gives someone a feeling of peace and relaxation. In the advertisement, the entire background is blue. Also, the background has clouds along with the shades of blue. When you look at it, it gives you a cool, relaxing feeling which shows how the ad is trying to set a relaxing mood. The words are written in a darker blue. These words have white mounds on top of them which makes it look like snow on a mountain. It adds to the idea of a clear, refreshing atmosphere. Thus, giving the audience it was intended for feelings of relaxation and serenity.

New & improved essay number three!

Alisha Vailette

7 April 2013

ENG 112

Guarino

Priorities first—work later  

           

Having balance is the one aspect of life most people really strive to achieve. Being balanced in work and socially would make someone feel at peace because you have everything you could want out of life. If you have friends and a great job, what more could you really ask for? In the New York Times article from “The Opinion Pages” on www.nytimes.com there is an article titled; “Is There Life After Work?” and is written by Erin Callan. It is about a woman’s battles balancing work and her social life and how it ultimately fails in the end. She ends up realizing what her priorities really were as she picks up the pieces of her life and puts it back together. I can relate to the article because I work too. Even though I am 19 and not married I feel I still stress as much as anyone with a full-time job. The author uses Ethos and Pathos to appeal to her audience. I think it is targeted at a woman who works and is independent but also has a family to take care of. The argument the author is trying to make is that working too much will not be beneficial in the long run. However, she does not use facts to back up her argument. The author relies solely on her emotion and experience. This makes the author lose credibility to some of her audience. If there were more information and facts about other peoples’ experiences too, it would give the author more credibility because it shows that she is not the only one who has her same opinion. Therefore, the article itself is heartfelt with its emotion and appeal to Pathos but at times the author uses too much emotion and loses her credibility, which weakens her overall argument.

            One of the strengths in this article is the author’s use of Ethos in appealing to her audience. The use of Ethos is successful because she is speaking from experience, making her a credible source. For example in this quote she talks about how other young women look up to her: “Sometimes young women tell me they admire what I’ve done. As they see it, I worked hard for 20 years and can now spend the next 20 focused on other things. But this is not balance. I do not wish that for anyone.” This quote shows her credibility and experience because even other women tell her they admire her. Erin Callan has been through the terrible experiences of not having enough balance in work and life. In my opinion, I think she is accurate in what she says about balance. It is hard for most people working in the corporate world to have a family and maintain their career.

            Another strength I think the author has is the use of Pathos. This is when a writer uses emotion to get his or her point across or strengthen the argument he or she is trying to make. The emotions behind her sentences really grab your attention. In my opinion, you can feel the pain she feels from kind of wasting time working instead of working on what is really important in life. This quote is an example of her regret: “Work always came first, before my family, friends and marriage—which ended just a few years later.” I think this quote shows regret because she is talking about how work came before everything, which ended her marriage. In my opinion, if you are married to someone you planned on being with him or her forever and if a marriage ends because of work, I think that would make anyone carry a huge burden. At one point in the article she talks about how she could not have children of her own. To some women, like me, that hits an emotional nerve. Most women have the innate desire to be a mother. Therefore, thinking of not being able to have children of my own makes me feel guilt and pain. I cannot imagine how this woman feels knowing that she missed out on having her own child. For example: “Most important, although I now have stepchildren, I missed having a child of my own. I am 47 years old and Anthony and I have been trying in vitro fertilization for several years. We are still hoping.” At the end of this quote she says, “We are still hoping”, that sentence alone has so much emotion and pain behind it. She is still hoping for something that probably will not happen because she spent so much time working instead. This is definitely a strength the author has because she shows her emotion so well through her writing.

Even so, relying on emotion can also weaken the argument you are trying to make. A weakness this author has is relying too much on emotion to prove her point that balancing life and work is very hard. Sometimes people will tell stories of life experiences and it will have an impact on other peoples’ lives because of the emotion and details behind it. However, using the appeal of Pathos too much could be devastating to your argument. This could make you seem less credible to your audience and more like you are complaining or whining about your situation. In, “Is There Life After Work?” the author makes a good use of Pathos but she weakens her overall argument because she only uses emotions to support it. An example of this is; “Perhaps I needed what felt at the time like some of the worst experiences in my life to come to a place where I could be grateful for the life I had. I had to learn to begin to appreciate what was left.” This quote has a lot of emotion behind it, which is a good use of Pathos; but, in my opinion, it adds too much emotion to her argument. The reason I think the previous quote adds too much emotion is because previously in her article she already has a lot of emotional quotes. The author uses Pathos a lot in the beginning of her article. Instead of using an emotional quote at the end of her article, I think she should have used an example of how someone else failed in balancing life and work. Thus, giving her more credibility because it does not look like she is the only one who went through this experience. Doing this would show her readers that there are other people in the world like her and that her argument is strong because of this. Since she does not use anyone else’s experiences but her own it weakens her overall argument.

            Overall, I thought that Erin Callan’s article on balancing work and life was very interesting. It was an eye opener because it shows you how someone can lose themselves in their work and not care for their family. It made me appreciate what I have now and to be grateful for the people in my life and my family. I realized I should not stress as much about work and I should live my life now before it is too late.

Essay number three!

For my third essay I am choosing to revise and extend essay number two. I am choosing this one because the second essay we wrote was very challenging for me and I want improve on something that I thought I could not do as well on. I think I will do better revising and extending my second essay because when I was writing it originally I remember thinking that I wanted to add more details in it. In the comments on my second essay it said that I should expand on a lot of different parts of my essay. Therefore, this would be the perfect opportunity to improve and expand. I also plan to make sure all my quotes are introduced properly and that I add more quotes into the essay. I would really like to have a better thesis too because that seems to be something I have a problem with when I am writing. I want my thesis to be precise and to make sense in my essay. Another thing I want to improve on is the overall structure of my essay. I realized when I was reading through that I left some things in the final essay that were supposed to be changed when I revised it. I would really like to make sure my grammar and essay structure are on point because I want to improve my writing. Doing the second essay over again will be a challenge but I think it would be best for me because you cannot get better unless you really challenge yourself to do so. 

Priorities first, work later

Priorities first—work later  

           

Having balance is the one aspect of life we really strive to achieve. Being balanced in work and socially is important to most, and is probably one of the hardest things to accomplish. In the New York Times article from “The Opinion Pages” on www.nytimes.com there is an article titled; “Is There Life After Work?” and is written by Erin Callan. It is about a woman’s battles balancing work and her social life and how it ultimately fails in the end. She ends up realizing what her priorities really were as she picks up the pieces of her life and puts it back together. I can relate to the article because I work too. Even though I am 19 and not married I feel I still stress as much as anyone with a full-time job. The author uses Ethos and Pathos to appeal to her audience. I think it is targeted at a woman who works and is independent but also has a family to take care of. The argument the author is trying to make is that working too much will not be beneficial in the long run. However, she does not use facts to back up her argument. The author lies solely on her emotion and experience. This makes the author lose credibility to some of her audience.  Therefore, the strengths of the author reflect through the article very well and make it a very convincing, interesting piece of writing but sometimes Erin Callan relies too much on her emotions weakening the overall argument.

            One of the strengths in this article is the author’s use of Ethos in appealing to her audience. She makes you very able to relate to her and feel her emotions through her writing. The use of Ethos is successful because she is speaking from experience, making her a credible source. For example in this quote it talks about how other young women look up to her; “Sometimes young women tell me they admire what I’ve done. As they see it, I worked hard for 20 years and can now spend the next 20 focused on other things. But this is not balance. I do not wish that for anyone.” This quote shows her credibility and experience because even other women tell her they admire her. Erin Callan has been through the terrible experiences of not having enough balance in work and life, which gives her argument the credibility that some people look for in an article.

            Another strength I think the author has is the use of Pathos. This is when you use emotion to get your point across or strengthen your argument. The emotions behind her sentences really grab your attention. In my opinion, you can feel the pain she feels from kind of wasting time working instead of working on what is really important in life. At one point in the article she talks about how she could not have children of her own. To some women, like me, that hits an emotional nerve. Most women have the innate desire to be a mother. Therefore, thinking of not being able to have children of my own makes me feel guilt and pain. I cannot imagine how this woman feels knowing that she missed out on having her own child. “Most important, although I now have stepchildren, I missed having a child of my own. I am 47 years old and Anthony and I have been trying in vitro fertilization for several years. We are still hoping.” At the end of this quote she says, “We are still hoping”, that sentence alone has so much emotion and pain behind it. She is still hoping for something that probably will not happen because she spent so much time working instead. This is definitely a strength the author has because she shows her emotion so well through her writing.

Even so, relying on emotion can also weaken the argument you are trying to make. A weakness the author has is relying too much on emotion to prove her point that balancing life and work is very hard. Sometimes people will tell stories of life experiences and it will have an impact on other peoples’ lives because of the emotion and details behind it. However, using the appeal of Pathos too much could be devastating to your argument. This could make you seem less credible to your audience and more like you are complaining or whining about your situation. In, “Is There Life After Work?” the author makes a good use of Pathos but she weakens her overall argument because she only uses emotions to support it. An example of this is; “Perhaps I needed what felt at the time like some of the worst experiences in my life to come to a place where I could be grateful for the life I had. I had to learn to begin to appreciate what was left.” This quote has a lot of emotion behind it, which is a good use of Pathos; but, in my opinion, it adds too much emotion to her argument. This is because it starts to sound like she is complaining and relying on the fact that she had bad experiences in her life instead of using facts or someone else’s experience to make her point stronger.

            Overall, the author’s strengths were that she appealed to the audience well using Pathos and Ethos. A weakness she had was relying too much on emotion, which ends up weakening her argument. But, I think the article was very moving and easy to relate to. It showed me someone else’s view on work and how it can take over your life so quickly that you do not even realize it. It makes me appreciate what I have now and to be grateful for the people in my life and my family. Therefore, the author does a really good job of appealing to her audience and makes you feel her pain and emotion through her story. 

Grade Inflation: Myth or fact?

I think Alfie Kohn, the author of "The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation", makes a sound argument in saying that grade inflation really does not exist. He makes a lot of valid points as to why it is a myth. The fact that grade averages fluctuate every year does not mean the teachers are starting to be easier on students. It really depends on the student and the drive they have to do well in school. "Unfortunately, self-reports are notoriously unreliable, and the numbers become even more dubious when only a self-selected, and possibly unrepresentative, segment bothers to return the questionnaires. (One out of three failed to do so in 1993; no information is offered about the return rates in the earlier surveys.)" This quote is saying that there have been surveys done on grades students are receiving. And that one out of three failed to even return the surveys. Therefore, this makes grade inflation an irrelevant topic because if you are trying to figure out the grades of students, you need all of the data. What if that last report had all the bad grades people were looking for? The grades that were not "A's" and would disprove grade inflation? We will never know because the report was never returned. That is one flaw in the opponent's argument. There is not even enough evidence to support a grade inflation argument. Also, statistics show that grade averages fluctuate with every generation. "The proportion of A's and B's received by students: 58.5 percent in the '70s, 58.9 percent in the '80s, and 58.0 percent in the '90s. Even when Adelman looked at "highly selective" institutions, he again found very little change in average GPA over the decades." These statistics would also disprove the argument of "grade inflation." It shows that the teachers have nothing to do with grades students receive and that it depends on the generation. One generation might not think grades are important to their society, so their grades will be lower than the next generations'. But, that does not mean the grades inflated due to the grading system of teachers. Also, how does one even prove, with data, that the quality of work in students has gone down? Where would you find the data to prove that teachers are just giving students "A's" when they do not deserve it? The author even refers to this as a flaw in the grade inflation argument. "Maybe students aren't forced to take as many courses outside their primary areas of interest in which they didn't fare as well. Maybe struggling students are now able to withdraw from a course before a poor grade appears on their transcripts." Therefore, all of these "maybes" cannot prove that grade inflation is a real problem. No one can measure the quality of a student's work now, nor could they in previous years. Thus, grade inflation is a myth due to lack of evidence and data proving it otherwise.

Luxury, comfort and happiness, all in one

       The quality of your car can reveal a lot about your lifestyle. It could show that you are rich, poor, middle class, young or old. Your personality and lifestyle can be shown through your car. My advertisement is a car advertisement for Audi. Audis are nice, luxurious, high standard cars. The price ranges from $50,000 dollars and up. Because of this, owning an Audi would definitely show you are living a comfortable, upper class lifestyle. The ad I chose is a picture of four Audi car seats in the middle of a movie theater. The four seats have a spotlight on them and the rest of the movie theater is kind of dark. I think the movie theater represents that the ad is directed at families more than anything. This ad is selling the idea of luxury and an upper class lifestyle to the average American family. 

       

       In advertisements, the way the picture is taken and presented is very important to the consumers' idea of the product. The advertisement I chose is of four Audi car seats in a movie theater. I think the movie theater shows that this brand of car is directed at families more than anything. Usually, families will go out to the movies together. It is suitable for all ages- young and old, so this would be showing that an Audi is for the average American family. When you think of the average American family, I bet you think of a white picket fence with a nice house in a suburban area of the world. There is a husband, stay at home mother, two children and a dog. This is the audience the ad would be directing it's sales at. The colors in an ad are also important. The seats are almost all white with black arm rests. You can tell that there is lighting in the picture. In the ad, the lighting looks as if it is showing on the Audi seats more than anything. Also, the movie theater seats are red and much simpler than the car seats themselves. The color red is a very powerful, intense color. It catches peoples' eyes and stands out. The color red represents desire, love, passion, strength and energy. It is even shown to raise peoples' blood pressure. The fact that they made the movie theater seats red and Audi seats white is also interesting because those colors contrast each other greatly. Thus, making the Audi seats really stand out to someone that is flipping through a magazine. All these aspects of the ad play into our emotions and make us lust after an Audi. Since it plays into our emotions the ad is using Pathos as a form of persuasion. The ad also has emotional appeal that would attract people to buy the car.

        The emotional appeal behind the ad relies on the visual elements in the picture and what the image of an Audi represents. The audience the ad is directed as is the average All-American family. It appeals to the stay at home mothers of these families because they want to feel trendy and luxurious. Since there are tons of luxury cars competing for attention, the advertisements must be convincing. The color and lighting in this picture increase the desire and lust in a human being. The Audi car seats are representing luxury and comfort. If you feel luxurious and comfortable then you will be happy with your life. Also, the brand Audi is a well-knownr respected brand. This would make anyone driving an Audi feel important and "cool", Therefore, this ad is selling the idea of an upper class lifestyle and luxury; which results in overall happiness. This definitely appeals to the All-American families because on top of being a perfect family, you need happiness to go along with it! This ad makes you feel as though if you buy an Audi your desires and overall happiness will be met and you will live a comfortable, luxurious lifestyle.

        Overall, this ad is selling the idea of luxury and an upper class lifestyle to the average American family. Even though an Audi is an expensive car, the average American family can afford it on their budget. Thus, appealing to families the most. The color red in the advertisement could make the consumer desire and lust after the Audi because of the emotions behind the color. This would make anyone want to buy the car because it promotes the idea of luxury and upper class. If you live a luxurious, upper class lifestyle it usually means you a very happy in life. Also, the contrast of the white seats against the red background really stands out and attracts peoples' eyes to the ad. I definitely think this ad is effective. It does not have any words or flashy pictures to draw attention to it, but I think it gets straight to the point. Since the car seats are in a movie theater it shows it appeals to families. Because the colors stand out it attracts the human eye. Therefore, both of these together make for a very effective, successful advertisement. 

USA Today: Superbowl Snapshot

For the response question on pg. 63 I chose the Superbowl snapshot. The quote on the side of the picture says "How we'll use our smartphones during SuperBowl 2013." 
I think this picture is funny.

Here are my three claims about the picture:
1) Since people are using their phones while watching the Super Bowl, this implies that people who are "watching" the SuperBowl are not really watching the Superbowl. Therefore, they are just following suit because everyone watches the SuperBowl.
2) Since peoples' faces are buried in their phones during an important football game, it must be that a lot of people who watch football aren't true football fans.
3) Since people use their phones and watch TV at the same time most of the time, we may infer that people just like to watch TV and talk to their friends about what is going on in the Superbowl because social media is a big part of life now.  

Either way we are always on our phones even when there are important events on TV to us that we want to watch.