"WHAT'S IN THAT ADVERTISEMENT?"

The Handbook had examples on citing the advertisements, but more importantly it had a lot of information on oral presentations. I took a speech class last year and much of what we learned was repeated in the handbook. The eye contact speakers are suppose to give their audience, not depending too much on visuals, and knowing who your audience is helps with giving a good speech.  We will have to present in front of the class as part of this assignment so it helps to go over it again. Giving speeches are very uncomfortable to many people, so any tips that are given really help.

Both the Handbook and the textbook gave a lot of information about the analyzing process. We hopefully will learn by the end of this assignment how to analyze visuals. It is definitely something I have never done before. I am excited about learning how to do this when looking at an advertisement. The Handbook defined claims as positive statements that require support. So by looking at the visual and really understanding it, I will learn the claim of the visual. I also learned that when using a visual in any presentation it needs to be understood why it is important. It reminds me of the oreo cookie method. Before entering a quote (visual) you must introduce it into the presentation and then explain why it was important. It makes sense to do it this way because what might seem important to me may not be the same to my audience. This is why I would have to show them why I thought it would be needed.

When I was in middle school I was introduced to Greek mythology. It is not that I believe in it, I looked at it just like stories. They were so fun to read and always kept me interested. In the textbook, they bring up Aristotle and his studies with persuasion. He comes up with logos, pathos, and ethos. I think it does play a huge role in how we look at things. I think whether we want to believe it or not we use all three of these. I never knew what it was called before but it is something I am used to doing. When ever a commercial comes on t.v endorsing a product, I look at who is in the commercial. Who says that this is a good product? Does the person appear to have any credibility? This is what the ethos stands for. Then there is those commercials, or pictures that you can connect with. Maybe it is something that I have experienced in my life before, or maybe I know someone who has experienced it. On page 11 of the textbook it shows the picture of the polar bears covered with graffiti. I can't say that I have had a polar bear or used to be one, but it still makes me emotional to see it. I would love to protect these bears because they are helpless. Whatever it is that makes me feel connected to it emotionally is part of the pathos. When not looking at the credibility of whose representing the visual or how I feel emotionally about it, I look at if it makes sense. Do they have enough facts that would make me really believe what is going on is true? That is when we start looking at the logos. I think Aristotle was right about these three things.

"HALF WAY THERE"

Yay, we are half way through this semester. I guess it is going by so quickly due to only having class once a week. So far I think we have had a good semester. I think I have learned a lot from class. I have definitely  learned more in this half then I did my entire English 1010 class. That makes me feel better to know that I am going to walk away from this class with more knowledge than I walked in with. That's the way classes are suppose to be, right?

I am probably most excited about learning the quotes. I have always struggled with quotes in my papers. I would get too scared sometimes to use them in my papers. It has been something I have always wanted to learn more about and I think I did in this class. I learned about the Oreo cookie method with quotes. This method will come in handy and help with the quality of my papers. Sometimes there would be quotes that had a really good part in it, but they were too long. Whenever I saw quotes like this I would avoid using them as well. I learned that using three dots (...) before or after the quote in quotations shows that you only used a part of the original quote. This tip is going to help me with those situations involving long quotes. Knowing I have a voice in my paper that needs to come through when I write is one of the most important things I learned. This will make my papers come from me, sound like me, and be me. I am not completely there yet with the correct MLA format when writing papers. However, I have learned a lot about the format so far in this semester. I know that many papers are written in MLA format and I want to become a pro at this. I want to know all the requirements of this format without having to really stop and think about it. I also am looking forward to all the different types of papers we are writing. So far I think everything we have done has been different. This has helped with having more variety in the way I write. I always used the 5 point paragraphs when writing papers and I think this class so far has steered me away from that. These are only a couple things I have learned so far. English 1020 has been great so far and I know I will learn so much more before this semester is finished.

"It Is A Little Out There"

Coming up with the idea for my proposal was far from easy. It took what felt like forever to think about what I wanted to talk about. When I finally thought about my proposal idea, I thought wow why was this so hard?. I guess it always happens that way for me. I chose something that I really am passionate about and get pretty emotional about as well. It was hard doing my research because you see so many different stories of kids who are victims of bullies. There are so many emotions that I feel when reading these stories like hate, sadness, and useless. I wish I could take away all their pain as well as the pain of their family members.

     When I actually started writing, I scribbled some stuff down that I knew I wanted to put in my essay. I knew that my essay would definitely have research included. I have already written my essay now, but knew that I wanted to make it persuasive. I wanted my audience to read the research and side with me. I want my audience to understand the situation and how serious I think it is. My essay turned out to have cause and effect as well. It is argumentative, it displays my thoughts as well as my critics thoughts. I think my essay has a bunch of the writings types mixed in one. I think it will make my paper interesting. My proposal might freak some people out, but did Swift's not do that as well? I want everyone to know the issue I am speaking about, but that I got a little carried away with my proposal to have a little fun with the audience. I'm not the best writer by far, so I had a lot of struggles writing the paper. The quotes confused me a little because I wanted to correctly add them into my paper. I am hoping they are correct, but if not I can fix it after the review. I also went to bed after finishing the paper and DREAMED ABOUT THE WORKS CITED PAGE!! (** NOT KIDDING**) I not only dreamed about it, every time I would wake up in the middle of the night to adjust the way I was sleeping (pregnancy) I would think about it again. It would not go away!! It drove me insane because I think I did it right. Not sure why I kept thinking about it. I am just glad it is over with :)