Rhetorical Analysis

I chose a picture about cell phones.  In it, there are five high school or college age people sitting around a table all talking on cell phones.  Many of them also have a Starbuck's drink.  Then there is a caption in the upper right hand corner that says, "Everyone has it.  Everyone needs it."

This picture makes the argument that all young adults have cell phones.  Even when they are in each other's presence, they all seem to need to be on the phone.  There is even a deck of cards on the table between them, but it doesn't look like they will ever play cards with each other.  The audience is obviously young adults like the ones pictured as the ad is saying that we all needs phones and use them constantly even though we are with our friends.  

I think that this argument is effective.  It definitely has emotional appeal because it is showing friends being together but not talking to each other.  I guess, almost in the same way, it is making a logical appeal because when you are with your friends, why do you need to be talking with others that aren't with you?  We should be able to spend time with our friends in person and talk to others on the phone when we aren't with other people.  It is also a realistic image.  You see many young adults, as well as those of other generations, constantly talking on cell phones.  It lets us have more communication with others, but at the same time, it takes away from some of that personal connection that you get when you are actually with someone.  

In Class: Rhetorical Thinking

Rhetorical thinking is talking apart an argument and really analyzing it. But of course the arguments that use ethos, pathos or logos are most effective. When you analyze it you should look at both sides and see who wrote it and if someone was sponsoring it. Then you can get a bigger picture on what is happening. The book gave an example when they were talking about the anti-war pictures and how some people use close-ups but that might not really show the whole picture. I thought the argument using Bob Dylan was really funny and I do wonder why VS chose to have him on their commercial. The more you can analyze who is saying something the better. But if you are going to write something yourself you need to make sure that you can draw everyone's attention. And you want to make sure that when you do this, that people will be willing to listen to you because they can see that you know what you are talking about. We have to make sure we pick our audience and see if we want what we say to be said in a comical way or to be really serious. An example of a very serious add the book gives is the one of the drunk driving poster. The book puts it in the Ethos section, but it is also a very serious topic because it has changed the injured girls life forever. If you are super effective, you can show both sides at the same time fairly equally and still prove your point.

Bookstore Appeals

I believe that the TCU Bookstore is full of many logical, ethical and emotional appeals. Let's start with the emotional appeals. From the outside, I think that the Bookstore looks rather glamorous as it is on the corner and has huge windows facing the street. When you walk in the store, you see its two escalators in the middle of the store. That definitely makes a statement. The Bookstore has been built to invite you upstairs and present a very open space. Currently at the top of the escalator are many stuffed animals with hearts on them or hearts that they are holding. They are just waiting for someone to come by and pick them to be given to a loved one on Valentine's Day. Another emotional appeal would be the school spirit felt by someone who walks into the store. Along with all the TCU merchandise, there is a banner like printing on the overhang between the first and second floors that expresses the academic life of TCU, the old days and also the athletic side of TCU. It is really neat to look at and just soak in the meaning of the pictures.
The Bookstore is also full of many logical appeals. The way it is set up is a basic one. The majority of the Barnes and Noble books are on the first floor in the front. They back up to the Starbucks cafe with the magazines being the closest. Next to the cafe on the other side are the snacks and small necessities. Then upstairs is all the school supplies and school books, along with female oriented accesories like Vera Bradley purses, jewelry and dorm room items.
One ethical argument I noticed is all the posters of famous books they have on the wall. The Bookstore is telling you that these books they have chosen to display are the best and most likely also classics.
Now, obviously these are not the only ethical, logical and emotional appeals made in the Bookstore, but that is because there are endless possibilities.

In Class: Visual

My attention is immediately drawn to the girl's face. The girl holding the cigarette does not look the least bit happy. She also has a white dress and light bouncing off her hair which helps to fram her face and draw even more attention to her. Her eyes seem to be looking right at me, full of emotion. I feel like something is wrong but I don't know what.
Then you look at how she is standing with a cigarette in one hand and the other crossed before her. In the front corner, there is another girl. She isn't well lit. It's actually almost hard to see her, and at first glance you would completely miss her. She looks kind of upset because her hands are on her hips. The girl with the cigarette looks older than she really is too. It's like she's already lived a hard life. The fact that she is wearing a white dress and the girl whom we can't really see is wearing a darker dress seems almost backwards if we think of white as being innocence. I find the lighting to be quite interesting. The most lighting is on the cigarette girl's face.
This image is about a lot of emotion. She's kind of depressed and seems like things are just hard for her. The little girl seems like she's almost more authoritative with her hands on her hips. It's almost like she wants to help the girl with the cigarette.
The creator of this image definately wanted it to be striking. I think it shows a side of life that we may be afraid of. Maybe that we see many things in our lives in a negative light and so we often feel like the girl in white. We need to notice that there is always that other person telling us that we've gone the wrong way and need to change. The creator wants to draw out lots of emotion.

In Class: Logic

The one thing that I found odd in the logos chapter was the discussion of interviews. The interview they selected was about an arsonist. They were claiming that he was a terrorist and in turn he was saying that if he was a terrorist, then the companies doing the polluting should also be considered terrorists. I just kind of wondered what the logical argument they were discussing was. After reading the article, the book asks if the interviewer was being unbiased or if he was leading his questions on way or the other. So it just makes me wonder if we are supposed to think of the entire thing, the interviewee and the interviewer as both making or asking logical questions or if it's just supposed to be one or the other.
The analogies part also confused me. It seemed as if the book gave a good analogy and then said, no, wait, analogies aren't a good way to use logical appeal because they are overused and used improperly. The book says they are routinely abused, but personally, I thought the one in the book was good.