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.