Writing Prompts CR pg. 301

1. The piece is arguing that if information isn't broken down, bulleted, or basically told to us, we don't really know how to process it. When we're given a huge chunk of information, we basically try to scan it to find out what it's about, and the important meaning of it instead of actually reading the whole thing and understanding everything.
2. The whole piece is a hyperbole. The author is exaggerating how all of a sudden the world receives a chunk of information, and everything basically halts. By doing this, the author is able to evoke feelings in the reader. When we start reading, we start questioning what the information was that was received and try to figure out what it means. But the author's point was that it doesn't matter what the information is, if it isn't clearly defined, we usually skip over it, and view it as unimportant.

Annotated Bibliography

Brown, HC and C Cocker. "Lesbian And Gay Fostering And Adoption: Out Of The Closet Into The Mainstream?." Adoption & Fostering 32.4 (2008): 19-30. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.

     This article explores debate on whether or not lesbians and gay men should be allowed to foster/adopt children. The article also goes into the fostering and adoption processes, and what would be best for the well being of the child. Statistics are also given on what researchers have found about children that have been adopted by gays. It is also discussed what the process should be to go about when choosing which children should be matched up with homosexual couples, and what the future looks like for the adoption process.

Sioco, MC. "What Makes A Family? A Closer Look At Gay Adoption." Children's Voice 18.6 (2009): 18-23. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.

     This article is about a man and his partner wanting to adopt their foster children in Florida, and the process they had to go through to try to do so. The article states what states prohibit gay adoptions, etc. It also goes into how there's nothing psychologically proven that states anything will be wrong with a child adopted by gay parents. This article also discusses to future of homosexual adoption.

SWA Writing Arguments pg. 236

1. In the piece, something can be defined as a "sport" if it uses motor skills, have a scoring system, and cannot use anything more complicated than a "simple machine". It's also a sport if it involves a ball, a footrace, turns, a score, a being physical.
2. It could be important to have accepted criteria for what constitutes as a sport, if you're going to have people competing in something for some sort of prize. If people just make up things as they go, cheating could occur or someone could end up seriously hurt. It's also not very fair for someone to be able to create a very difficult "sport" and have them competing against someone who doesn't.

Research Project Issues

1. South Carolina Gas Prices
2. Gay People Being Able To Adopt Or Not
3. Legalization Or Marijuana

> http://libcore.csd.sc.edu:50080/ebsco-web/ehost/detail?sid=3ed0a743-c71e-436c-9234-cef24698a834%40sessionmgr15&vid=1&hid=7&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=65499664
> http://libcore.csd.sc.edu:50080/ebsco-web/ehost/detail?sid=25cb2f69-1f60-4b31-ac46-f201d1cea687%40sessionmgr13&vid=1&hid=7&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=58009544
> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fut.10115/abstract
> http://www.jstor.org/stable/1250487

Searching for gas prices in SC and their effect on consumers was very hard. I could find a good many articles on gas prices but just about none of them narrowed down to the individual effect on SC.

> http://libcore.csd.sc.edu:50080/ebsco-web/ehost/detail?sid=ff5e98be-c8e3-4ab7-8d5b-6c2938a2c8ea%40sessionmgr15&vid=1&hid=7&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=rzh&AN=2010143335
> http://libcore.csd.sc.edu:50080/ebsco-web/ehost/detail?sid=fc78f084-647e-4c22-8a3a-abdbc8d6212d%40sessionmgr15&vid=1&hid=7&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=rzh&AN=2010535257
> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J145v04n03_05
> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J145v07n01_06

Gay adoption was an easier topic to find information on, and this is the one that I'll probably go with for my project.

> http://libcore.csd.sc.edu:50080/ebsco-web/ehost/detail?sid=7b3fb880-aba0-4bc1-8ef9-1e710d9d539e%40sessionmgr4&vid=1&hid=7&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=55170168
> http://libcore.csd.sc.edu:50080/ebsco-web/ehost/detail?sid=994479c9-b64a-40c9-85b9-f9dc440bc5f8%40sessionmgr15&vid=1&hid=7&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&AN=12197297
> http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/mcvay.htm
> http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WMOdI9pC-gEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=legalizing+marijuana&ots=hRRD_C2U4a&sig=inJvD3FWkwt0touVxJSqcKYOK_Y#v=onepage&q&f=false

The legalization of marijuana was also an easy topic to look up. I doubt that I'll go with this issue though because I feel like I can get more into the previous topic.

Internet Article Response

"Factory food artificially cheap, bad for your health"

The article claims that a lot of the food that is cheaper in quality is actually bad for us. The claim is supported by the fact that products get recalled for not being safe, animals that are being made for meat aren't properly taken care of in the factory farms, animals that aren't fed well will create poor meats to be eaten, and our water is being contaminated. I think that the article does make good points, and it is convincing. But I also understand the fact that sometimes people have to make decisions to eat a poor quality of food because that's what they are able to afford.

Carolina Reader pg. 107

Matthew Scully builds and supports his case that cruelty to animals should be a conservative cause, because it states the conservative viewpoint then ties it into his thoughts, and the facts on animal cruelty. He states that a lot of conservatives will side with those who are for killing or harming the animals, but very few actually take the time to look into what is going on. It is stated that conservatives tend to believe in traditions, but there is nothing traditional in factory farming; it is actually "rural values and a betrayal of honorable animal husbandry". Scully is basically able to sum it all up at the end of his piece by stating that we just can't take from the animals, we have to give back to them too; that we owe them life, along with a good death.

RA #2 Outline

Lauren Shumpert

RA #2 Outline

ENG 102

Title: Effectiveness of the Palm

Thesis: Even though the same product can be portrayed in several ads, if the ads are set up differently, and be targeted towards multiple groups of people, they can essentially end up varying from each other.

I.                    Visual Appeal

a.      Placement of pictures

                                                              i.      Ad 1: the hand vs. just the phone

                                                            ii.      Ad 2: the three pictures taking up majority of the picture

b.      Backgrounds

                                                              i.      Ad 1: chaotic background vs. the plain white one

                                                            ii.      Plain greyish green background – meaning sophistication?

c.       Logos/Written text

                                                              i.      Ad 1: Logo at the bottom; “organize” is written in the same orange color as the actually Palm logo so that it you associate the two together

                                                            ii.      Ad 2: Logo to the left is just a tad bit darker than the background, kind of gives a formal feel to the ad

II.                  Audience

a.      Ad 1: targets a more hectic person’s lifestyle, offering to take their chaotic life and make it more organized with the use of this phone

                                                              i.      City background

                                                            ii.      Notes scribbled all of the hand

                                                          iii.      Phone with a plain background

b.      Ad 2: targets a business associated person, it even states it in the logo that it’s for a business

III.                Effectiveness

a.      Ad 1 tends to be more effective

                                                              i.      Eye-catching

                                                            ii.      The pictures give you something to relate to

b.      Ad 2 tends to be less effective

                                                              i.      Nothing really stands out

                                                            ii.      Ad is too plain

                                                          iii.      Majority of people would just flip pass it if they saw it in a magazine

Conclusion: Based on the ad designer’s ideas, an ad can be extremely effective or not effective at all. Two very similar products can be viewed completely different based on their placing, the logos on the page, and the actual visual appeal of the pictures.

Rhetorical Analysis Topic

1. The ads that I'm analyzing are for different types of Palm phones. Even though I found both ads online, it says that they were printed in magazines, but doesn't clarify which ones.
2. I believe that the audience that they first one is targeting is more of a fast paced, hectic person. It basically states that this phone can help take you out of chaos, and make your life more orderly. The second ad seems to target a more sophisticated audience. The background is really plain, and the phones basically take up the whole page. It looks like the phones are made to really "speak for themselves".
3. Ad 1; the page is divided in half, one half (left)shows a hand with messages written all over it, there's a city scene as the background, the other half (right) has a plain background, and the phone is located in the very middle, on both halves, there's one word written above each picture, on the left, it says "chaos", on the right it says "order", the font is pretty basic, not cursive, not old-fashioned, pretty modern, easy to read, and at the bottom it states "Organize your life with palm"
Ad 2; kind of a greyish green background, 3 phones are located almost in the middle of the page, it says "Palm webOS for business" on the left side of the phones, relatively plain ad
4. I chose these two ads because even though they are advertising basically the same project, the looks of the ads are very different. While one of them seems to target a more laid-back, fast-paced person, the other is directed towards a more business-like person.

Advertisements

Advertisement 1:
     - Calvin Klein Jeans
     - Target Audience: Women
     - Product: Jeans
     - Shared Assumptions: If you have a large butt, or you want people to thing you have a large butt, you need to pay and wear these pants because they will give you a big Kim Kardashian bubble butt.
     - Claims/Reasons: You should buy these pants because you care how you look in your jeans, and you want to look good.

Advertisement 2:
     - Forever; Mariah Carey Perfume
     - Target Audience: Women who want to smell nice, and men who want their women to smell nice
     - Product: Perfume
     - Shared Assumption: You care about how you smell, you want people to think you smell nice.
     - Claims/Reasons: You should buy this perfume because it's going to make you smell good, men are going to find you sexy, and you want to smell good to attract them.

Advertisement 3:
     - Palm phone
     - Target Audience: people whose life tend to be a little chaotic, those who are always on the go, people who have a busy schedule, those who have a lot they have to remember
     - Product: phone
     - Shared Assumption: the consumer has a fast-paced hectic life and needs something to make it easier and something that's useful to them
     - Claims/Reasons: You should buy this phone because it'll take your "chaos" of a life, and make it more "order"ly.

Advertisement 4:
     - Club House butter
     - Target Audience: popcorn lovers
     - Product: butter you can sprinkle on popcorn that you make
     - Shared Assumption: Club House butter is the best; it's so good that even the popcorn loves it.
     - Claims/Reasons: You should buy this popcorn because you want it to be delicious.
    

Postsecret Card

1. My secret was based on Britney Spear's shaving her head, and I believe I conveyed it implicitly because I didn't fully state who it was and what she had done.
2. I chose to include a picture of her as a bald lady, and I chose that because I wanted people to know it was, and what she had done.
3. I used a blue pen to scratch out her eyes and write on the card. I wrote some of the words in a different way because I felt like those were the most important parts of what I was saying.
4. I wanted to portray Britney Spears as someone who needed help, and acted out because she needed help.
5. I wanted the viewers of the secret to feel bad for Britney and be understanding.