Every Nook and Cranny

Everyday the population of America is bombarded with all different types of advertising; if that may come from billboards, movie theaters, television and most commonly on the Internet. America itself has made it nearly impossible for one to get away from such advertising. The commercialized culture is increasing in a drastic manner, but is it helping to better our community or hurt it. In Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor writing “Every Nook and Cranny: The Dangerous Spread of Commercialized Culture” they argue the fact that advertising is hurting America as a whole. These writers develop a well organized argument within there article and make sure to include statistical data as well as their thoughts on the problem to support their claims. The authors also try to appeal to pathos by using children within their essay “…Diseases affecting people in the United States, and especially children..” the authors continue this quote into talking about child obesity and the notion that advertising certain products make children think less of themselves leading them into a state of depression. This appeals to the emotions of the adult readers to persuade them into thinking that certain types of advertising may lead into their child being injured.

         I personally agree with the authors on their stand on this issue. Many companies that are in charge of selling harmful products try to find ways in which their product could be sold in a positive manner. For example, for many alcohol advertisings they have a celebrity on the commercial to help promote that alcohol is cool and does not injure the body in a negative manner. While older people may know the consequences of abusing alcohol many high school students will not see those facts within the commercial that they are watching and will end up abusing alcohol and may end up injured.

Reader Response 4

Over the past 10 years, social networking has gone to something unheard of; to becoming the main way, people connect with each other all over the world. Threw the Internet people can connect with friends that moved to different towns, states or even continents. In the article “I Need MySpace” written by Cindy Long, informs the readers on a outdated social networking site MySpace. Long makes the argument that even though these sites offer a beneficial aspect of the site, they also open opportunities for sexual predators to be able to look up and pin point locations of children.

            Cindy Long argument within her writing is not very strong, she picked a one sided argument that really no one can argue against because everyone knows that with using social networking sites comes a risk of running into some predators. Though her argument may not be strong without a notification of another side of the argument, she uses Pathos and Logos to make up for that. Long use logos by having several examples in her writing about teenagers going behind parents backs to meet specific people that they met on these sights. Pathos is used threw scaring parent readers on the fact that predators use these types of sights to look for children. Though this should not be a shocker to parents, it often is because parents try to not think about that when it comes to these social networking cites.

      Personally I have never really been into MySpace or facebook, though I do have one and spend a good amount of time looking at what my friends are doing, I am not one of the people that adds a friend the first time I meet them. This is when facebook becomes dangerous, these cites have came a long way in security and continue to make sure that no predators can easily access information threw children. But teenagers are more focuses on the number of friends they have rather than the fact that they are actual friends or just some random dude that thinks your “hot”.

      

Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Kids

I have always been blessed in life with being able to have my own room, have a good meal on the table every night and be able to attend schools that would prepare me for my college career. In the short, essay “Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Kids” the author talks about a family that has “Six people live here, in a room the size of the master bedroom in a modest suburban house”. This opening uses pathos to get the reader to feel for the family, the author attempts to put the reader in the shoes of a family that has nearly nothing. The author does a good job throughout the essay using pathos to get the reader engaged in the story but she lacks the tone to make her story a mind-changing story. The author argues the fact that there is an American Dream, which now days in America is becoming more of a long shot. The author uses a weak tone; she starts using the tone well in the story about the family that is poor. When she transitions to the argument part of the essay, she keeps the same tone, making her argument sound weak with a bad word choice and a very unconvincing argument. But what the author does do well is point out a fact that really does hit home. “Two years ago the National Low Income Housing Coalition calculate that the hourly income necessary to afford the average two-bedroom apartment was around 12$. That more than twice the minimum wage.” This was a surprising fact that truly made her argument one thousand times stronger. It is hard to believe that America broadcast this American dream yet they put minimum wage at a value that can’t even afford a 2 bedroom apartment.

“Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts”

In the writing “Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts” written by Harvey C. Mansfield he discusses the inflation in grades that are given at the prestigious college of Harvard. Mansfield start off his essay strong with “ This term I decided to experiment with the grading of my political-philosophy course at Harvard.” Within that sentence Mansfield demonstrated a case of ethos by laying out his credentials for the readers letting them know that he is valid to write a topic about grade inflation since him himself is a teacher at one of the most prestigious colleges in the nation. The writer also uses good evidence by using his own class as an experiment and used them as the sample subject to prove that people in private schools do not deserve the high grades in which they earn, it is just mandatory for him to give out those grades according to school policy. “Moreover, everyone knows that C is an average grade, whereas a B+ is next to the top. Mere recalibration does not address the real problem: the raising of grades way beyond what students deserve.” In this section he uses logos because he points out a known fact that C is an average grade. But in this section he also says that EVERYONE KNOWS THAT C IS AN AVERAGE GRADE which is considered a logical fallacy because some people consider a C a more that average grade in some classes. Mansfield argument was well developed because he used his own class as an example and there is no true way to argue against that because it is a fact. Mansfield paper was well developed and was interesting enough to keep me focused on the writing.

Violent Media is Good for Kids

When I was a child I was always pushed away from watching shows that had intense visual brutality by my parents, but I am not sure if that was the best way for my parents to raise me. I was sheltered away from the real world, what I would be facing when I was older. In this writing “Violent Media is Good for Kids” the author explains that sheltering kids away from feelings that they may have in the future is not a good way to raise them, and I most certainly do agree.  My mom did a fantastic job raising me as a child but I think she should have showed me the violent actions that would happen throughout the world and explain to me if they are a good or bad action to take part in. For example, throughout elementary school and middle school I was made fun of and harassed because I did not know what certain profanity words were. So one day when I came home from school I dropped the “F-bomb” that I herd from one of my friends, I was unaware of what that word meant and did not know the effect that it would have on my family for saying it. Thirty minutes and a soapy tongue latter I knew that it was not a word to say aloud to my family and not a word to use. Gerard Jones does a very good job in his writing by keeping the reader entertained. He starts with personal stories how his parents sheltered him from the violent media and it kept me wanting to read more. He also uses a more relaxed and understanding tone in his writings making it easier to read because it didn’t feel like his ideas were being forced into my head without them wanting to be there. I do feel like his writings could have more statistical evidence so he could back up his ideas with facts but overall it was a good piece of writing.