SWA #7

Library databases hold articles dating all the way back to many years ago from all sorts of magazines and other media. You can often find exactly what you are looking for by typing in a key word into the search, and articles relating to that key word will come up to help you. It lists all of the sources and has the author, publisher, date, etc. all right there. However you will need a password to access the database because it’s a paid subscription that the university pays for. The worldwide web can offer many more sources, however many of them are not viable sources. Anyone can post something onto the web, and it is free to access for people.
A bibliography lists all of the sources in alphabetical order that relate to the topic being written about that one referenced when writing the paper. It tells the basic information like the title author and publisher, as well as the date accessed. An annotated bibliography gives the specifics of the information from the articles that might be used in the research paper. When it comes time to write the paper an annotated bibliography can help a lot because it has all of the key information that you picked out from the article right there. All that all you have to do is pick out the information from right there and work it into the paper.
Credible sources often come from a recognized organization that has a domain name that is reputable, not something that a random person could have picked out and placed on Wikipedia. Often times it also helps if that article has been reproduced in print because it has a credible sponsor if so, like a paper or magazine. It also helps when the source is not slanted one way because it will appeal to a greater audience. Often times the extreme sources tend to be unreliable. Current sources are also better because the information is more up to date and has the tendency to be more true than older sources on the same topic.
A research plan allows you to organize how you plan to approach the paper. It makes the paper have more order and structure instead of wandering off. The sources and information that you plan to use are all laid out and your quotes and important information have been explained. You can use it to address the specific areas of your paper that you find important and necessary to address.
Plagiarism is when one uses another authors information or ideas in their paper as their own without giving credit to the original author. It is very simple to avoid plagiarism. Almost anytime there are quotations in your paper it needs to be cited from the source it came from. Also when you use information that come from one of the sources in the bibliography that will need to be cited.

2/16/2009

i really wasn't trying to accomplish too much with my card. I really was just trying to get the assignment done, while adding a little bit of humor to the assignment. With my card I just wanted to create a sense of the feeling of waking up with no recollection of what happened the night before. I thought it would be something that would get a laugh or two that many of my peers would be able to. I used the background with all of the questions to represent the unknown of what might have happened. The text was my handwriting because I thought it made it more personal. And the blue question marks and the blue pen just happened to be a coincidence because that background was blue and the only color pen I had was blue. My final product was something that I thought was pretty good, if I Could have I would have maybe like to have some different color question marks, but I couldn't find it on Google and didn't want to look around so it was fine.

SWA #6

The change in the Macintosh advertisement approach from the 1994 Performa commercial to the more recent Macintosh Love commercial is quite substantial. The main claim from the Performa commercial in 1994 was all about trying to convince the audience on how simple using Macintosh’s was for the everyday person. It compared the operating system to a person’s thought process to make it seem very user friendly, while showing how difficult a operating a PC could be for the users. The commercial also backs up its claim by trying to convince users about the durability and performance that comes with the Macintosh Performa. There really are not any unstated assumptions in this commercial, just that Macintosh’s are better than PC’s. It is trying to spread that message to the target audience of anybody getting ready to or thinking about purchasing a computer. However the Macintosh Love commercial is quite a different in terms of advertising approach. The Mac Love commercial isn’t close to the other commercial really; it starts off by saying “I Love You” in many different languages and playing a song that sings “you love has passed me by, you took me surprise… you took away everything I had”. It then says how millions of PC users were infected with the “love virus” last year, but the Mac OS operating system did not allow for the virus to spread. This has a much more obvious unstated assumption in the advertisement, such as the fact that Macintosh’s much more immune to computer viruses than PC’s. It also has a wider target audience as well because not only does it appeal to people thinking about new computers, but also to people who were infected with the virus and might want to get a computer where they have a less likely chance of catching a harmful virus again. The styles in the ads had much to do with the times they were made in. When the Performa commercial was made in 1994 many people still were relatively unknowledgeable about computers, so the commercial tried to ease the concerns about their product by making it seem like their product is relatively easy to use and well worth the investment for years to come. But as time moved on and computers became more and more advanced, so did other things like viruses. People don’t want to have their thousand dollar computers crash with a virus, so the Mac Love commercial tries to target that. By making the Macs seem more immune to viruses than PCs they can hopefully persuade more people into purchasing their products. The style in the advertisements are just a reflection of the time that they were made, trying to appeal to the audience in the best possible way for the time period.

Blog Post #1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9ut9tvqOHY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbzdFLfdi6I&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYiGpVGTU2U

Some of the best advertising comes out every February for the Super Bowl, where companies pay ridiculous amounts of money for advertisements. However with the economy the way it is this year, it seemed irresponsible for companies to be paying so much for advertisements when millions are left unemployed. Miller High Life, a popular beer, took advantage of this in their advertising. They ran a 30 commercial earlier before the Super Bowl to get their point across, and then from there on out they ran short 1 second clips of their advertising spokesman just saying “High Life”. It really worked which was the funny thing because it had the one thing that every Super Bowl commercial at least attempts, humor. It was funny to see a guy flash up on the television and just yell out “High Life”, while other companies were putting together 30 second ads that sometimes were not even funny. It made its mark on the audience, which was really anyone watching the game and enjoys beer. The claim was clearly stated because all that it really said in the one second clips was “High Life”. There was nothing else to the commercials really.

Blog Post #2

The card that says “I cried for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode III… but not for the tsunami victims” shares the anonymous author’s apparent guilt about the situation. The explicit claim is stating that the author felt more sorrow for a fictional character than he or she did for the thousands of people that died in the tsunami. However it seems as though they are implying that they feel remorse for it, maybe even a little embarrassed that they can show such emotion for a fictional character, but not the real people that were going through struggle. The author is clearly somebody that feels like they have a guilty conscience for their actions, which the anonymous audience helps. Because the audience doesn’t know exactly who is writing this the author can get something off their conscience without having to worry about people that they know finding out. There isn’t textual support to really support that, other than the fact that PostSecret is meant to be a place where people can submit their deepest secrets with complete anonymity. The visual component doesn’t really do much for the card. It just sort of shows that the author cares more about outer space and Star Wars, because there is more of the outer space picture, than about the tsunami, because there is less of the water in the card.

2/9

Visual arguments tend to draw in the audience faster than written arguments. It allows for the audience to gain emotion or opinion about what the author is trying to convey in a few moments rather than having be explained over a few pages. But most importantly it allows for viewers to have different views on one image, much more open for interpretation than written arguments tend to be.

Essay Author and Title:
“If You Run a Red Light, Will Everyone Know?” by Brad Stone


Central Argument of the Essay:
(p. 348) That people’s personal criminal records (or lack thereof) are too easily accessed on the web.



My Central Claim about the nature/effectiveness of the argument in the essay:
I found the argument to be quite effective. I found the way that Stone ended the essay to have great effect by saying how CriminalSearches.com creators feel that the site is like a seatbelt, and then throwing in the fact that both of them had clean records.



This is how the author manipulated the rhetorical appeals:

* The logos appeal:
A very logical appeal because many people were probably unaware of the site and how anybody can access it and see any sort of criminal record that they might have

* The ethos appeal:
Stone appealed to his audience because he seemed to be like the average person who seemed pessimistic about the website and the potential harm that could come with the site, despite the good it is trying to do.

* The pathos appeal:
Appealed to the audiences emotions because I would like to think that nobody would want their name out on this site if they had done something in their past that might warrant their name to appear on it.



My conclusion about the nature/effectiveness of the argument in the essay:
I found the article to be quite appealing because of the nature of the topic. I wouldn’t want my personal record being on the internet for the whole world to see, and that’s how Stone chose to approach the issue in his writing. He seemed like the average person who didn’t want his record out on the internet either, instead of looking down on anyone who might have been on the site like some writers might have chosen to style their writing. Stone’s concerns were much like his audience’s, which made the effect on the readers much more profound.

Essay Author and Title:

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Central Argument of the Essay:
(p.xx) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX



My Central Claim about the nature/effectiveness of the argument in the essay:
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This is how the author mnipulated the rhetorical appeals:




* The logos appeal:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


* The ethos appeal:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


* The pathos appeal:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


My conclusion about the nature/effectiveness of the argument in the essay:

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In Class Writing

In Daniel Kimmage’s article “Fight Terror with YouTube”, Kimmage is able to appeal to his audience by touching on two subjects that they are very familiar with: terrorism and YouTube. The article title is able to draw in the readers with the title. He appeals to the audiences emotions because terrorism is something that so many fear. The article is based more on the emotions that the article stirs up more so than the argument.

Response to "FIght Terror with YouTube"

In Daniel Kimmage’s New York Times article “Fight Terror with YouTube” he proposes a different side to the fight on terror that I found to be very interesting. Instead of continuing to fight every single country that harbors or promotes terrorism through force, maybe the focus should be on stopping the promotion of Al Qaeda and other terrorists on the world wide web. It wouldn’t be a violation of their rights, which shouldn’t even matter anyways because they shouldn’t be entitled to the same rights as human beings to begin with, but instead managing the evolving web to work against them. In an age where sites like YouTube and Facebook have the ability to have such a great influence, the real terrorists can be shown for the scum that they are to their people; instead of the propaganda of the good that they are doing that the try to portray it as. The problem in that war lies in the states in the Middle East where terrorism is so profound. The authoritarian governments of Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen prohibit or severely limit internet access to its people. Kimmage argues that not only should the people be entitled to the right to be able to unobstructed internet access as a right, but also it would serve as an effective way of limiting the sphere of influence that Al Qaeda feeds off of. I feel like the argument that Kimmage brings up is a very interesting, and potentially effective, way of fighting terrorism in the Middle East. That method paired with the war on Al Qaeda could prove very effective. Once the people are able to see what truly happens to the terrorists it could keep Al Qaeda from gaining additional forces. So when all of the remaining forces are either dead or jailed, it would prove very difficult for them to continue their terrorism on the rest of the world.