September 29

Cruz’s story shows that if luck doesn’t happen, then finding the American dream is very hard. Cruz contrasts the idea of the American dream by giving examples of not being able to rise to the top because of racial stereotypes. The main character gets jobs that have a good pay but it is mainly because he is different from all of the other applicants because he is Mexican. Once he gets the jobs, he realizes that there is not much room for him to succeed in the business because the higher ups said he needed to learn the business. It showed that Dick was just very lucky in getting a job where he could start at the bottom and get to the top. Most jobs do not work out as well as that one did for Dick. The two stories were similar in the fact that they both displayed the ability for a person at a lower class can get a job and become part of the middle or upper class. 

September 26

The author is making the implicit argument that luck is the key to success. Luck is what allows many people to change their lives without planning out every step of the way. Most people can’t plan on being successful because everything depends on the circumstances around them. People can dream about being successful, but in the end they can’t make it happen by themselves. Making good decisions can also aid in the luck to influence their success. Dick didn’t jump into the water to save the boy because he thought it would make him successful, he did it because he was a kind and caring person. This unexpected event brought him success when all he had hoped to do was be successful at some point in his life.  The success of someone can be as unknown as being in the right place at the right time because no one knows when they will be lucky. 

September 19

Visual arguments can be more persuasive than other arguments depending on what the author is trying to argue. The explicit and implicit arguments were good examples of how the pictures and visuals can be taken the wrong way. A visual argument would hit people on more of an emotional level because they can see what the author is trying to convey.The reader could misinterpret the argument and then the author is not passing on the information they were hoping to give to others. Our society uses more visual arguments now than they used to, but it can be hard to figure out exactly what the author wants the reader to gain from the argument.  The advantage of another type of argument is that it can be fleshed out better and tell the reader exactly what the author wants them to know about the argument at hand. 

September 18

In Writing Arguments, it says that the writers responsibility with ethos is to get the audience to trust what he or she is saying. In order to prove their point, they need the audience to believe that their arguement is true whether they use facts or personal stories. With pathos, the author has to get the audience to connect emotionally with the topic. It needs to be written in a way that the audience feels an emotional attachment to the topic so they side with the author. Our government and media do not usually live up the expectations of ethos and pathos. Many times they distort the facts so they make the audience have more confidence in them. The media and the government also discuss topics that are especially important in the lives of many people on an every day basis and then try to change their views with ethos. The media is very good about using ethos and pathos in their favor instead of in favor of the audience. 

September 16

David Langley uses evidence by giving personal experience and comparing skateboarding to other larger world issues. The personal story at the beginning grabbed my attention and made me start to feel sorry for him and lean towards his side of the argument. The fact that he was almost fined for skateboarding when the sign said that holidays were legal, made it seem unreasonable that the police stopped him. His personal story was very convincing. The way he brought world issues into the story also helped him prove his point. World issues effect everyone, not just certain people, so it was easier to sympathize with him since he said that skateboarding was better for the environment than many other forms of transportation and other sports. He almost slipped the information into the reading so the next thing I knew, I was agreeing with him. Langley also brings up the point that skateboarders can’t skate when there is trash everywhere, making them even better for the environment. It was a very smart point to add because it is something I would have never thought of. If skateboarders were allowed everywhere, maybe pollution wouldn’t be such a problem. 

September 15

A pseudo-argument I have encountered is one that most people come across in their lives. Does math really help you in the real world? I think that this is a question that almost every kid has asked their math teacher at least once. The math teacher always says that the problem can be related to real life and that it will be used every day especially in certain professions. Then the kids always reply that their jobs will not require math so why do they need to learn it? An English teacher doesn’t use most of the math that is taught in high school math, it’s a fact. There will always be opposing arguments on this, and there has never been a conclusion. Both sides have their own ideas and they stick with it never allowing a conclusion to take place. The student in this case is the fanatical skeptic because they won’t believe the math teacher no matter what they say to convince them otherwise. 

September 11

Pathos is a very influential rhetorical device because it deals directly with the emotions of the reader. It is what is going to influence whether the reader agrees or disagrees with the writers’ argument. The writer wants to target the feelings of the reader and by doing that they are working on pathos. It is what makes or breaks the piece of writing for an author, if the reader doesn’t like it, then the argument was not worth arguing in the first place.  Without the idea of pathos, the writer would not be able to focus their emotions in the piece. The writer is able to decide whom they want the piece to be focused on and then they use pathos to target the audience that they want. It makes the reader imagine what the writer is talking about as well. It helps the reader visual and make decisions on the argument at hand. 

September 8

At first thought, I agreed with the article. It seemed perfectly reasonable to torture someone who was guilty of something if it saved the life of an innocent person. The author was very good at persuading us to see it his way. As we got to discussing the article, my ideas started to change. I still feel that the article has some true parts, but I feel like the author is not giving us the whole truth. The idea that the person being tortured might not for example say where the bomb really is makes it difficult because then everyone dies. I am now leaning more towards torture is not the answer. It does not necessarily change anything because the person being tortured is probably not going be honest, which means that the person is being tortured for nothing. It makes me wonder whether its worth torturing one person to potentially save more people or whether it’s not worth hurting someone to save people that may not be able to be saved. 

September 5

The biotech food debate is one that until now was never something I thought about. There has been lots of research done by scientists, so now biotech foods are easily accessed in our everyday lives. I feel that science is too far along to stop the production of biotech foods. I am not necessarily one that wants to eat the biotech foods, but I don’t feel that the production should be stopped. The FDA has not stopped the production yet, so in some aspects, it may not be as bad as everyone thinks. Since there is some concern over health value with these foods, it should be required that each food is labeled biotech or not. Having each food labeled, allows each consumer to make the decision for his or her self and it puts no one at risk for eating biotech foods that may harm him or her in some way.  

September 2

The genres help make these two arguments. Both of the arguments use the visual argument to display their ideas. If there wasn’t genre then there would not be a focus to the cartoon or ad and then they would not have any influence over the reader. The cartoon on page 1 is largely influenced by the text underneath and the captions. This argument would not be as easy to understand or as effective if the words were not there to guide the reader to understand the picture. Once again, in the ad, the words make the argument. If they were not there, the blank nutritional facts would not make any sense to the reader; they could take it as the food being too caloric instead of genetically changed. It would be easy to mistake it for the wrong argument. 

August 29

Explicit and implicit arguments are very different from each other, but both argue a point for or against an idea. An implicit argument is an argument that is displayed in the form of art or a nontraditional method. It can be a poem, a picture, a painting or any other art form that can be used to prove a point. The picture and poem on page five and six display how an implicit argument can be worked into two different art forms, but still have two different arguments. They both display war but one shows the happier side of war and the other a more gruesome side. An explicit argument is an argument that is written out and developed. It is usually one where the person has done research and has fleshed out their ideas into an argument with many points supporting it.