Warm-Up 3/16

Out of the three Carolina Reader articles I believe that the "Plan for Homeless Gets Mixed Reactions" was the most rhetorically appealing. It appeals to the logic of the readers very effectively. It represents the logic of the both sides for the possible move equally effectively by giving the reasons for and against the move. Any reader could understand why the side would or wouldn't be opposed to the move. The article appeals to the emotions because both sides realize the importance of the problem of the homeless in Columbia and how important it is to fix it. They share their feeling about how dire an issue it is, but just not the same ideas on how to go about and fix it. I think because of the justifications of that both sides give along with the emotions that they express to give the readers a better understanding about the issue of the homeless in Columbia.

In-Class Writing 3/2

The main argument in "The Controversy behind Barbie" is whether or not Barbie is a positive or negative role model for young girls. There are those who believe that Barbie portrays negative female stereotypes and that Barbie is responsible for the poor body image that girls have. And then there are the others that say Barbie is a good role model because she is able to do everything.
The audience is mainly intended to be women, especially those that have had a Barbie. The rhetoric appeals are intended to make them feel one way or another about Barbie.
It seems like feminists hold the first viewpoint because of the way they try and over-analyze a doll and blame all negative female stereotypes on Barbie. The second position seems to be Mattell because it makes Barbie seem like the perfect role model that can inspire girls to do anything they want to do. And the third view seems to be that of logical people. They realize that Barbie does portray some negative stereotypes, but yet is not responsible for all of the negative images of females.
The author is for the third position. She explains how she believes that Barbie does in some way teach girls to look up to the material things, but she also feels Barbie is a scapegoat that gets blamed for more than she should.

Warm-Up 3/2

The most interesting piece of information that I found while researching for Paper #3 was that it is legal to grow marijuana in certain counties in Northern California. In fact it accounts for almost two-thirds of their economy because they grow it and sell it to the government. I found that interesting because that is very different from the rest of the country and I wouldn't have expected the government to buy it back.

Exploratory Paper

The issue that I plan on researching for my paper is the legalization of marijuana in the United States. In almost every single part of the United States it is illegal to possess, grow or smoke marijuana. However in some places you can possess small amounts of it in certain places. It is also allowed to be used with prescription by cancer patients. In northern California growing medical marijuana is legal, in fact it accounts for almost two-thirds of their economy. Yet the federal government has yet to put in laws that would legalize Marijuana nationally in the United States, even though our neighbors in Canada have.
Legalizing marijuana appeals to a very wide audience. Even though it is illegal, marijuana is one of the most commonly used drugs in the U.S. It is not restricted to certain age groups, marijuana users range from the middle school students to grandparents. The marijuana users would like it to be legalized to get rid of the current punishments that are associated with getting caught using marijuana. These proponents feel as though there is no need for the government to put constraints on marijuana because it is not a drug that kills people as opposed to cocaine and heroin. However there are still very many who believe that marijuana should stay illegal because it is a hallucinogen drug that is mind altering. Opponents feel that if marijuana is allowed to be legalized then the flood gates could open up for other drugs as well.
There are three main positions in the issue on legalizing marijuana. They are the supporters for legalizing all drugs, who feel that the government should not limit what they chose to do with their own lives. Supporters for legalizing all drugs think that they should regulate what they put into their bodies, not the government. Then there is the middle, supporters who just want marijuana legalized. They believe that marijuana is not harmful and should be allowed to be smoked as freely as tobacco. And finally there is the side that doesn’t want to legalize marijuana at all. Not only do they feel like marijuana should not be legalized because of the fact that it is a hallucinogen, but also because it could open the flood gates to other drugs to be legalized as well.
I personally am interested because the legalization of marijuana is one of the issues that I feel affects my peers and I the most. I favor the government to legalize all drugs. If they did that than they could tax them to help the economy, but also because I feel like it should be the individuals decision to what they put into their bodies.

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.