Analyzing My Analysis?

For my analysis I feel like I deserve around 185/200 points. I feel like I was pretty good about the analysis, but I could have gone deeper into it and used a little less summary. I feel like I was pretty good about narrowing down my audience and remembering to relate my argument back to them. If I were to do this over again I would probably change my analysis. I would do a little bit more, and try to say a little bit more.

As you can probably guess, I struggled with the analysis part of this (a pretty crappy thing to have a problem with, considering this is a rhetorical analysis). And as I said earlier, I feel like I was pretty good at remembering my audience. For the most part. I am also pretty good when it comes to grammer, so I'm gonna change that to my biggest strength.

Poor, Poor, Jim Lehrer

I heard just after the debate that neither candidate won, but it was Jim Lehrer that lost. Sad thought, but he was kind of run over by both Romney and Obama. On the plus side, this seemed like an actual debate! Each candidate talked about the issues, and didn't have as many personal attacks on the other as I was expecting. That my friends, is how it should be.

Here are the rhetorical tools I noticed while watching the debate:

1. When Romney questioned/responded to President Obama, he made direct eye contact with Obama.
2. When talking about lowering tax rates and cuts, Romney used hand gestures (He lowered his hands. How clever).
3. Not to be outdone, Obama used hand gestures as well when talking about closing loopholes (He closed his hands. Just as clever).
4. Romney used a kind of metaphor when when he related people saying things that aren't true to him over and over to hearing that from his five sons.
5. Obama went to a supposedly credible (Not being partisan--I just don't know if it was credible or not) outside source in the form of an economist for information and numbers.
6. "It's math." --Obama. Numbers don't lie, and I like math quite a bit. That one got me thinking.
7. Both candidates had some equivocation going on. They couldn't agree on the definition of a "small business."
8. Allusions--not to major things in literature, but they both referenced the Clinton and Bush jr. administrations. What worked, what didn't work, etc.
9.  Obama used personification when he said that on the first day in office he walked into office with a trillion dollar deficit greeting him. I wonder what kind of greeting that would be. . .
10. After what some people would consider "profound" statements, each candidate would pause for a second to presumably let Americans digest what they just said. Smart.

Confession: I Still Don't Understand Twitter.

"Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted" was written in 2010 by Malcolm Gladwill. He is a British-Canadian author, who has been a writer for The New Yorker since 1996. Gladwill has also written four books: "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference," "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," "Outliers: The Story of Success," and "What the Dog Saw (A compilation of stories published in The New Yorker)." Having only read it once so far, I didn't notice any underlying motivation to write this article. Other than the fact that it's his job, but I digress. Given the publication, I would assume that the audience was a national one, but I have only heard of The New Yorker a few times, so it leads me to think that it is a New York audience, or perhaps the east cost. Or a national audience and I completely miss things like this. All options are completely reasonable.

Malcolm's purpose for writing this is to let people know that social media does not necessarily lead to action, and that action happened before all of this tweeting and poking and whatever else people do online. He doesn't seem to be saying that social media is a bad thing, just that our society seems to have forgotten what activism is, and that #iranelection doesn't really do anything helpful regarding the Iran election. He points this out by comparing the diner sit-ins during the 1960s to how people are "active" today. I think by comparing to something as big as that, helps get his point across better. He also uses other sources. I didn't look into all of them, but most seemed to be pretty reliable, and strengthened his Ethos for me at least.

I've already alluded to it, but I believe this article was effective. I feel like his points were valid, the other sources helped him, and that the comparison really made it seem like people today don't do a whole lot. There is more, but this isn't my paper. So until next prompt, I bid you adieu.

Grammar, Grammar, Grammar

As often as I correct others grammar, I still mess up sometimes. Here are my five sentences that I revised in my paper.

• Original sentence: I am still fairly new to the whole college experience, I have quickly learned how stressful it can be.
• Problem: Comma splice
• Rule: Two independent clauses need to be joined together with a period or semicolon.
• Solution: I am still fairly new to the whole college experience; I have quickly learned how stressful it can be. 

• Original sentence: The founding fathers didn't fight the entire revolutionary war so people could not vote.
• Problem: Capitalization
• Rule: Capitalize proper nouns and historical events.
• Solution: The Founding Fathers didn't fight the entire revolutionary war so people could not vote.

• Original sentence: . . . Pericles, a statesman during the golden age of athens . . .
• Problem: Capitalization
• Rule: Capitalize places and specific time periods.
• Solution: . . . Pericles, a statesman during the Golden Age of Athens . . . 

• Original sentence: After realizing that we are effected daily by politics . . . 
• Problem: Commonly confused words
• Rule: Know the difference between affect and effect. 
• Solution: After realizing that we are affected daily by politics . . . 

• Original sentence: I feel the old cliche, "if you don't like something, then change it" is very appropriate when I hear people complaining about issues or policies.
• Problem: Quotations
• Rule: Cliches are rarely appropriate. Instead of trying to justify them using quotations, revise the sentence to avoid them all together.
• Solution: Some people complain about political issues all the time. We are not a stationary society; we can change things.

   

Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Mr. Collin's Proposal
Ethos
1. Lady Catherine de Bourgh said he "must marry."
2. "[His] situation in life . . . are circumstances highly in [his] favor."
3. "I am persuaded that when sanctioned by your excellent parents . . . my proposals will not fail of being acceptable."

Pathos
1. "Modesty adds to your other perfections."
2. He knows she doesn't have a lot of money, but he will "never reproach on that score when [they] are married."
3. "You are uniformly charming!"

Logos
1. "A right thing for every clergyman to set the example of matrimony in his parish."
2. "It will add greatly to [his] happiness."
3. He is going to inherit their estate when their father dies, and he couldn't satisfy himself "without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters."

My Paper
Ethos
1. Do some more research, get numbers as accurate as I can.
2. Say a little bit more about how I am a freshman, but still know stuff.
3. Become more knowledgable about politics myself. I know some, but there's always more to learn.

Pathos
1. Most if not all political issues apply to almost everyone.
2. We can change things if we're willing to compromise and be bipartisan.
3. Provide specific examples for BYU Students.

Logos
1. Focus on how to get involved.
2. Do more accurate research with credible sources.
3. When talking about politics, quotes from the founding fathers seem to get the point across.

Intro and Proposal

Hey all! My name is Jordyn VerHoef. I'm from Orem, Utah and (obviously) going to BYU. I play the violin and piano and that's about it. I don't really consider myself an interesting person so I can never think of anything for these kind of questions. But I do have one near-sighted eye and one far-sighted eye. I've never met anyone that has that. So I'll call that part of the prompt good. I am the fourth child in my family. I have one older brother, two older sisters, and younger sister. I also have nine nieces and nephews who are some of my favorite people in the entire world.

My Opinion Editorial proposed topic is: College students are not involved in politics. I'm not saying to go into politics, but to research about the candidates who are running, research the issues, and vote accordingly. It is extremely relevant right now, because it's an election year--the President, 1/3 of the Senate, and the entire House of Representatives are up for re-election. My initial thoughts about this topic are that people don't know what's going on. They decide which party to join, and (most of the time) stick with that for the rest of their lives. I cannot tell you how many people have said something to me along the lines of "I will never vote for a Democrat--I don't even know who the Republican nominee is, but I won't vote for a Democrat."And I think that's a major problem. Not only is Congress extremely partisan today, but we as Americans are as well. I don't believe that most people know what is actually involved with Obamacare, or what Mitt Romney says will be his foreign policy. On top of all of that, the age group of people who don't vote at all are 18-24 year-olds.