Rhetorical Analysis 5 - Source for Paper C

I’ll just say it again, and early on in this post . . . I love football. I’ve been surrounded by it for as long as I can remember, played it myself for more than a decade straight, and let it consume my weekends every fall with the greatest pleasure. There is still one thing that bothers me about the sport: the college football championship is still a biased machine. It’s operated by greedy engineers that fear change and revel in control. It should end.

Rhetorical Analysis 5 - Source for Paper C: Word Count = 333 Words

My topic for Paper C is a pro-active essay that supports a college football play-off system and perhaps the best source I discovered is a very interesting finding. The article is actually intended to steer fans away from a play-off system by convincing them it is in their best interest to remain with Bowl games, and I would like to analyze the fallacies of his argument.

The columnist for the website, armchairgm.wikia.com argues that the play-off system would be a hassle and a detriment to both students and fans alike. He gives to all college football fans a list of seven specific points that range from scheduling difficulties for student athletes to a complicated schedule and even reaches out to an idea that minor conferences still wouldn’t have much sway in the tournament. However, his argument falls apart as he merely appeal to logos, and let’s be honest, how many football fans will take logical reasoning into account when they adorn their school’s colors from head to toe, often revealing more body than covering (with the exception of paint) while in 40 degree weather standing in the same spot for three hours? Logic is probably the least effective technique for such fanatic crowds who even pray for a “Cinderella Story” for their beloved Alma-Mater. Plus, he lacks supportive details to make a sufficient argument. He speaks in behalf of collegiate athletes without their input, and most of his points fall outside of the idea of relevant because although he may be a well informed writer, he doesn’t lace up his cleats everyday for practice hoping to win a national title for his school. By the fact that so many commentators, including myself, heavily disagree with his logic on his own web-page, I would easily venture to say that such a pathetic attempt to quite the masses about the necessity of a play-off was only effective in stirring up a dust storm on this debate and not in calming the tempest about this topic.

Rhetorical Analysis 4 - Paper A

Rhetorical Analysis 3 - Paper A: Word Count = 266

My first persuasive paper had promise but got a little misdirected. The argument settles in as an approach to show that the Liberty Square Apartment complex has a fallible check-out schedule that will eventually damage their reputation. Obviously, it is directed toward the management team of Liberty Square with the goal standing as a change in their policy for residents checking-out, hoping that maybe it will be easier for other in the future. Also, I like the people that work there, so I just don’t want them to be penalized for a short-sighted policy that’s unfair for tenants.

The vast majority of the argument was made by an appeal to logos. The logic that I work on is simple; what hurts your reputation will hurt your profits. This implicit assumption ended up being the main focus. That’s where I went wrong. Instead of working hard to prove that the undesirable check-out procedure damages their reputation (which will in turn negatively impact their bottom line), I meandered on supporting the assumption. Although the argument toward the implicit assumption is well-made, that’s not the correct outline. I didn’t have sufficient information to tie the claim and reason together like I ought to have had. From further an analysis of the paper, it was still typical style for a persuasive writing as well as being accurate in its attempt to inform. The relevancy of the information was a slight miss, but that’s due to the missed focus of the essay. Actually, it seems that with a little bit of tweaking in a revision, the paper could be very effective.

Rhetorical Analysis 3 - Speech (From Varsity Blues)

"Before this game started, Kilmer said, '48 minutes for the next 48 years of our lives.' Well I don't agree with that at all, alright? I think that's dead wrong. Let's go out there and we'll play the next 24 minutes for the next 24 minutes, and we'll leave it all out on the field. We have the rest of our lives to be mediocre, but we have the opportunity to play like gods for the next half of football! But we can't be afraid to lose! There's no room for fear in this game. If we go out there, and [give it less than our all] because we're scared, then all we're left with us is just an excuse. We're always gonna wonder. But if we could out there and give it absolutely everything . . . then that's heroic. Let's be heroes." --James Van Der Beek, Varsity Blues

Rhetorical Analysis 3 - Movie Speech from Varsity Blues: Word Count = 358

For my whole life I have either been active in playing football or at least surrounded by it. That’s one of the effects of being from Texas. It only makes sense that I tend to gravitate toward football topics, and movies are no exception.

My favorite football-related movie is actually Varsity Blues. The movie is all about a group of teenagers that have extreme pressure placed on them to perform well on their high-school football team, with a majority of that pressure coming from their coach. Eventually, the pressure on both sides is too much for either to bear; the coach nearly kills a player and then the players revolt. However, I don’t want to talk about the whole movie, just one specific speech that the stand-out, replacement quarterback gives.

The replacement quarterback, John Moxon, has only one motivation in his half-time speech during the last game of the season – convince his team that they can still win. Not to win for their coach or their families or the school or their town, but for themselves. His approach involves the argument that “anything is still possible if they give it their all”; they can still win if they play without fear of losing. This in an intense appeal to pathos because it plays on the emotions that the others have concerning winning and losing. He mentions that they can be normal for the rest of their lives, but this is their one moment to be god-like, and all it takes is to play without fear. Moxon provides more than sufficient motivation that their goal is plausible and delivers it in such a typical manner that it’s almost as cliché and jaded as a locker room speech can be, but somehow it never fails to inspire. The relevancy of his argument builds up perfectly and gives even the movie watchers chills up the spine. Naturally, it’s effective because at the end of the speech, all of the players are more psyched up than Moxon could have imagined and they eventually pull out the hard-fought victory. You just have to love a happy ending where everyone gets what they deserve.

Rhetorical Analysis 2 - Movie Trailer

Let me just begin by saying that I LOVE movies, and the fact that I have to search for a good trailer to analyze just adds more excitement to this assignment.

Rhetorical Analysis 2 - Movie Trailer - Word Count: 267

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in a new movie called Inception. It premiers in July and is already making a splash with its movie trailer. The trailer portrays several thrilling scenes that promote a compelling feeling of suspense and adventure. These snip-its promote the idea that watching the movie will successfully meet the need of a good thrill. Therefore, the audience for this specific movie appears to be those thrill-seeking types that enjoy a little bit of drama, and probably range between those in their late teenage years to even middle-aged adults. Obviously, like with any other movie, the trailer stays fully focused on trying to get people to go watch the movie in theaters.

The “how” of this advertisement is a very exciting part. It gives more than a sufficient amount of clips from the movie to sell the audience on the idea that it’s suspenseful and worth the seven to eight dollars to watch it in the theater. Also, it follows a fairly typical form of advertisement by giving its name, a very brief synopsis – just enough plot to wet your whistle – and further appeals to ethos by pointing out the fact that the director also directed other big movies like The Dark Knight. The trailer stays very relevant to its argument for the audience to watch it by using only the essential information. This naturally leaves the viewers more and more curious about what they haven’t seen yet, driving them that much faster to witness the plot unfold first-hand. All-in-all, I would personally say that it’s quite effective because it’s got me wanting to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z75o-F6ja2I

Rhetorical Analysis 1 - Advertisement

OK, so now the blog has become a dual-purposed machine because I actually have to use it to do homework for my persuasive writing class. Luckily, it's actually the LAST English course of my life. No offense to the Language Arts-gifted out there, but it's just not my thing. I'd prefer calculating the alpha emission of a decaying nuclear substance or dissecting a human cadaver than writing another drawn-out English paper. No offense Professor Esplin, that's just what I'd prefer to do - to each his own, right? By the way Prof. Esplin, this little intro isn't a part of the word count for the rhetorical analysis.

Rhetorical Analysis 1 - Advertisement: Word Count 393 words

Lately, there has been a craze about the Old Spice Body Wash commercials, unparalleled by any other commercial fad out there. Really, I can’t remember anything quite like it, ever. However, this little frenzy begs for the answers from a couple of questions; why are these commercials so memorable and are these commercials truly effective?

The Old Spice Company has a creative claim and reasoning behind its commercials. Mostly, I’d like to focus on the initial commercial to make the big splash, the one that ends with the phrase, “I’m the man that your man could smell like.” Obviously it has the claim that by using Old Spice Body Wash a man could be more appealing by smelling like the man shown in the commercials. The audience is to be in part men and women. Men are influenced by the thought that they could be that much more attractive and could live the lifestyle as the man depicted on the boat and riding the horse and women are affected by the simple phrase that their men could smell better. Of course, this is all with the purpose of selling more body wash.

The preceding paragraph unfortunately could not answer either of the questions earlier proposed, but it sets the stage for the desired responses. The principles of Rhetoric, firstly ethos and logos (respectively being the appeal to authority and logic) are of little application in these ads as the main player of interest is pathos – the appeal to emotion. In this case, Old Spice plays on emotions for the simple motivation of trying to leave a lasting imprint on the mind of the viewer. Thus, it utilizes word-of-mouth advertising because everyone enjoys sharing a good laugh with their friends and the hilarity of this commercial is ideal for that purpose of sharing. Likely, the biggest reason for its success would be how atypically it is setup. It gives a sufficient amount of information on the product, but in all reality, it does its selling by playing on everyone’s “funny-bone” and just plain entertaining its audience.

All-in-all, I think it can be concluded that the commercials are memorable because they make the audience laugh and give them a good time that can be shared with friends. Furthermore, it is effective because it leaves that lasting impression that sticks in the mind of the viewers.

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship...

How about we just keep it simple on this first go around. I'm starting out this blog, in part, because I just had one of the best weekends I can remember. Also, I occasionally have a few other things I'd like to say.

So about this weekend...there wasn't much that really stood out as being spectacular, but there were a few instances where I could see tender mercies from God at work. From finding a lost spring for my favorite watch in the grass, to my car not getting booted while visiting an apartment complex, the blessings just kept on rolling all weekend long.

All-in-all, it was just a consistently great few days filled with adult sessions of a fantastic Stake Conference, "men-richment" barbecue, watching Casablanca, new clothes, a great date, a little bit of country-swing dancing, cooking an awesome breakfast on Sunday morning before Stake Conference, some movie-time with Ben-Hur, and to top it all off...I got a position as an anatomy lab TA.

Okay, maybe there were a few things that stood out (like the date, cooking, and getting the job as a TA) but for the most part, it was just an all around good time.