Rhetoric Thoughts

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Copyright

In class this week, we watched a series of videos (a crash course) on what the definition of copy right is and what things can be copyrighted. In the video it discusses how the copyright law protects original works of authorship, and that to be have something copy righted, it must be original or creative. Yet an interesting point is that it is very easy to have something copy righted because judges are most likely not qualified to judge someone’s creativity, therefore most things can be copyrighted. This creativity is defined as having a tangible medium of expression, for example if you came up with the idea of a gun that shoots hot dogs but someone else created the actual product, you don’t own the copyrights.Copyright is the protection of expressions not ideas. Another interesting point is how we cannot copyright facts, so a biography on a famous person could only be copyrighted based on the narrative given and not on the facts themselves. Neither can you copyright well known story lines, cliches, or works created by the federal government. Now the topic of the video shifts to discussing how if a person is hired by a company, is creating something during work hours, maybe using a work computer and is under supervision by a manager, then it is considered a work under hire. Therefore the author of the work would be the employer or company, and the person who made the work doesn’t have any economic rights other than being compensated for creating it initially. This specifically reminds me of Buzzfeed videos or quizzes. If I decided to work for Buzzfeed and created a video series that got super popular, and decided to quit Buzzfeed, I would not own the rights to that series, could not take the credit for my ideas, and could not continue the video series. Which, off topic, could be one of the many reasons why so many creators left Buzzfeed and become one of the many Youtubers talking about “Why they left Buzzfeed”. The information I discussed is from the video below, please consider watching the entire series for more information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tamoj84j64I

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Multimedia Project Intro

In class this week we were exposed to a new project based on arguing in multimedia. For examples our teacher showed us videos of previous students assignments and gave us the opportunity to compare the differences between a failing project and a perfect 100 project. The two largest contrasting subjects, based on my own opinion, was a project based on the existence of aliens and a project based on pollution. The project on the existence of aliens had extreme potential to actually give evidence that would support that we are not alone, but as expected of such a highly debated and laughable subject, most of the argument was stating facts rather than showing evidence. For example, they claimed that the pyramids were used as a hydrogen energy source for aliens, but did not give any evidence to how the pyramids would generate such energy, or why aliens needed hydrogen specifically. The entirety of the presentation was assuming that the audience would jump onto an argument based on vagueness, for example the group said that there was no way that the Egyptians couldn’t have made the pyramids because they didn’t have advance tools. Yet again, they did not describe what tools they did have at the time, and discuss the impossibility of creating the pyramids with “such primitive tools” and why aliens would have helped them to create the pyramids, or give a hypothesis on why the Egyptians would have made the pyramids as an energy source for aliens, which in the end received a failing grade. For the 100 grade paper, a group presented the negative effects on the environment that a new plastic factory would have if built near a lake. They effectively gave a fun background to why a plastic factory would be built and why a factory owner should stray away from building, and then included a potential counterargument and in a  respectful negated the argument. Overall from this class period we were able to determine the correct way of writing an argument and different fun ways of presenting the argument such as a power-point, prezi, website, adobe, interpretive dance, and a video. The key takeaway for me was to recognize that while we are researching an argument, make sure that in the end you are arguing a side, taking a stance on an issue,.

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Outline or Movie Trailer?

In class this week, our teacher brought up an interesting comparison, “When writing your outline for your paper, make it as exciting as Black Panther’s trailer”. While that may not be her exact quote, it is pretty similar, and a strange thing to keep in mind when writing an outline. An outline should not only be what you will be writing in your paper, but something that attracts the readers attention such as a given problem and give a vague interesting solution to that problem so the reader will be hooked and have to read the rest of the paper. Some outline writing techniques are chronological order, process, narrative, and problem/solution. For example, the Black Panther movie slowly built up tension by showing short clips of intense fighting/action scenes in chronological order, but yes some of the talking scenes were to have a comedic/sense of character effect and weren’t in order, “I never freeze.”. Another trailer shown in class was the new Incredibles 2, and while the movie hasn’t come out yet, for the most part you see a process, where steps lead up to the world wanting Elastigirl back and  Mr. Incredible staying home and taking care of the kids. The main point behind an outline is to have an effective organization of the structure of the paper, as talked about above where a reader is interested and able to follow the authors train of thought to meet the goals of the author’s purpose. Bringing the conversation back to movie trailers, an outline would be more in depth showing a progression of details and ideas, there would be no "plot twist", or holes in the information given. While a movie trailer just gives enough information to excite the reader and have them looking for more, rather than giving them the whole plot. Yes I know, stating the obvious.

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The Epic Hunt

The highlights of class this week entailed, as the title permits, an epic scavenger hunt. The class was given the task to run around campus finding specific sources and citing them using MLA (the 8th edition) format. Personally I found it amusing that most of my peers decided to go old school to discover certain books on multiple floors with nothing but an authors name. While my team decided to 1) use the computers that are specifically placed around the library to help students find the right number the book is identified by, and 2) ask a librarian what floor this type of book would be found on. This was especially helpful when we had to find children’s books, located on floor 3, and to find a book by Henry James, under classic books floor 1. Overall, while the true goal was to cite different sources using MLA format, I’m sure that the teacher’s “hidden goal” was to open the doors to the library, both metaphorically and physically, yet I’m not sure she left the classroom, and help us see the sources our library has to offer. But a question still remains unasked and unanswered; why were we running around campus, as if we were competing to finish the scavenger hunt? The answer lies way back before our time, where a pen that is strikingly similar to the pens that are sold at our local convenient stores, is held. When intelligent authors discovered the use of this god given pen, it gave them extraordinary powers to write philosophical texts that future generations would cherish. And this pen was in the hand of my own teacher, and was out for the taking.

Credits to Miss Hill for her excellent background information on the pen.

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Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich?

This week in class, to get ready for our research proposal’s annotated bibliography, we used different methods to create an argument for if we believe a hot dog is a sandwich or not. Overall my personal opinion is that the hot dog is indeed a sandwich, as throughout my life it has been referred as a “sausage sandwich”, which by definition is an oblong roll with a sliced or whole cooked sausage, from Wikki. But to American’s this treat is known as a “hot dog”, which I consider to be a shortened version of a “sausage sandwich”. So I go into the definition of a sandwich, also definition from Wikki, which is two pieces of bread consisting of usually meat, veggies and condiments. Another definition used for sandwiches is where someone can eat ingredients in a between two piece of bread without touching the ingredients, and if the ingredients are falling out, it’s most likely just too full. Yet against my reasoning, my group chose why a hot dog was not a sandwich based off the technicality that the hot dog bun is in fact NOT two pieces of bread. I backed this up with the image of Sir Nearly Headless Nick from Harry Potter. If a sandwich is TWO pieces of bread, and a hot dog bun has one piece of bread, it is not a sandwich. Like how you cannot say you are headless if you are NEARLY headless, which is why Nick could not join the Headless Hunt. Therefore the hot dog cannot join the sandwiches. You could also argue that while their structures are similar in carrying food in bread, the function of a sandwich is to hold ingredients together, while a hot dog is a vessel specifically for a sausage, and like homologous structures in Biology, while they have similar structures, doesn’t mean a similar function, just a common ancestor.

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Thought Bubbles On Food Allergies

During class this week we were asked to find topics for our argumentative research paper, and so far I’m leaning towards researching how food allergies occur and what treatments are available. From biology class I’ve noted certain facts about the immune system, like how antibodies have certain receptors that antigens bind to, and after they are bound to the antibody, a response is sent out for “back up” and an inflammatory response. Having food allergies myself, I recognize the symptoms, but to put it simply, food allergies are a immune system defect and to certain people can be highly dangerous and life threatening. When diagnosed with food allergies, a doctors main advice is to avoid the food, but what if there was a way to stop the food’s surface structure from binding to the white blood cell’s receptor? With immune therapy, gene therapy and early exposure treatments food allergens could be a thing of the past. These treatments, while extensive and expensive, have been known to help patients eat up to ten peanuts without an allergic reaction, which in severe food allergy cases, can be life altering. For someone who cannot eat out and go to restaurants and then have the ability to cheesecake for the first time in ten years, or not die when exposed to the smell of peanut butter, again, LIFE ALTERING. So while my paper will be on if food allergies can be desensitized, which can have evidence based on clinical trials, what could the counter be? How does gene altering look morally? People pay other people to give them allergic reactions? How about parents paying people to give their kids allergic reactions in the hope to lower them in the future? Is it worth the money?

http://www.peanut-institute.org/eating-well/allergy/ (more info on peanut allergies and statistics)

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More on the Light Therapy Ad

From last week, if you are familiar with analyzing advertisements and watched the Neutrogena Light Therapy Mask treatment video, you can see I missed a lot of potential details to analyze. No fear, because there’s a Part 2. From the beginning of the ad, as stated last week you are hit with an emotional appeal of humor, yet as I’m sure you all noticed, Olivia is a beautiful girl with flawless skin. This is known as a sex appeal, to get you thinking that if you use this product you will have just as flawless skin and it will make you absolutely stunning. Now pay attention to when Olivia is playing around in her room, and taking a selfie of herself with the mask on. This implies that the actress isn’t afraid of wearing a mask in public, and can be really empowering to know that you should embrace your acne rather than feel ashamed. By showing that the acne is a part of life build’s credibility to Olivia’s character and Neutrogena’s because they feel like the mask can not only help them with their acne but a beginners step to accepting it. Lastly, similarly to what I said last week but failed to mention, is that the idea behind the ad was focused around kairos and very little on logos. To take a Disney actress and have her feature an acne product, makes this ad appeal to a younger audience that are most likely suffering from acne. By saying that the mask would only take up 10 minutes of their time can be not only logos but an appeal to this audience as well because with so many devices and other ads demanding our lives attention constantly, preteens and teenagers have other things they would rather be doing with their time than worrying about acne. A long acne routine can be difficult to carry through, and even find for someone that has never dealt with acne before, and since this mask eliminates the need for any acne routine other than wearing a mask, and it doesn’t stop you from doing activities you would rather be doing, makes this an overall successful ad for preteens and teenagers don’t you think?.

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Light Therapy Ad Short Analysis

For this weeks rhetorical analysis, I decided to choose a silly advertisement for a new acne treatment called “Light Therapy”, by Neutrogena that stars Olivia Holt, a Disney channel star. When the ad first begins, the audience is introduced to a full face white mask that lights up underneath. Olivia begins by playing off the audiences first reaction, saying “yes I know it looks like something from a science-fiction movie, but trust me it really works”, which plays with both pathos and ethos. By stating the audiences fear and making a joke out of it, this allows the audience to feel more connected to the speaker, and she also includes informal diction that makes a strong appeal to children. Ethos comes in when children recognize the actress is from Disney channel, someone that they have seen on their favorite shows, making them more likely to accept something that they are selling. The kicker? That the actress is from Disney channel and promoting a product that helps cure acne, which most young viewers struggle with. Continuing with the ad, Olivia jokes around with logos saying that it doesn’t take but around 10 minutes to work, and it’s for all skin types. Which if you struggle with acne, based on your skin type, you have certain products and routines to fight it, and light therapy just threw all that hard work out the window for something much easier. And just to lace it back with pathos, Olivia demonstrates that she herself uses the light therapy mask and continues her day while wearing the mask, helping make her skin healthier, and for an added bonus of logos intertwined, the mask gives off a red and blue light that works on fighting acne, but overall it gives off a “cool glow”. This is where the ad likes to turn off the background lights to see that the mask lights up in the dark, which can be any kids dream. So overall, in my opinion, for an advertisement that appeals to children, it was very effective. Take a look for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2_H6Sd3Ezs

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NFL’s wavering reputation

Any NFL fans out there that remember 2015? For the National Football League, 2015 was game changing year where the public decided to put their foot down and demand that the NFL take control of their players and punish them for their actions. From the image, the football, representing the NFL’s image, shows how the league’s reputation has been beaten up by the many issues that have been plaguing them for years. Steroid abuse, brain injuries, players beating their spouses, the Patriots deflating footballs to win games, and even spying on a team’s strategies and recording them against the NFL’s rules, where does it end? When this question was finally asked from a public that had had enough of the leagues weak responses to punish the players, the response of the football in the image makes it seem like the NFL is downplaying all their issues, that they only feel a bit deflated. Where the word “deflated” can play off the fact that the reputation is shown as a football being beat until actual deflation, cue the “sss” sound, or one of the biggest controversies with the Patriots, “Deflate gate”. Focusing on the image, the football grabs your attention with colorful bandages and dark shading in the background to show the football is in the spotlight of the press’s eyes. But looking at the style of the comic, you could also narrow down who the author could be, who their audience could be and where you would see the comic, ignoring the signature in the corner. Knowing the NFL is based in America, and that football is mostly an American sport you could pin point that the author lives in America, and that the author based his comics focus on an audience that would have to be familiar with the league to understand the issues being talked about. Since the style is in comic form, and there only one picture, you could say that this was most likely printed in a newspaper or magazine, but could have easily been uploaded online.

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An Intro before I get started

Hey my name’s Kalyn, which can be hard to pronounce so I usually nod when something familiar pops out of people’s mouths, but I pronounce it “KAY-LYNN”, but that doesn’t mean I’m right. I’m from South Carolina but most of the time I’m dreaming I’m somewhere else, not that I don’t think the South isn’t great but if you gave me the opportunity to go to another state or country, I would most likely be out the door because my bags are already packed. So far I’ve been traveling with my best friend Kenny around Europe the U.S. and parts of South America and we have been struggling to pick the right career to allow us to travel in the future, and most might say business! Yet so far both Kenny and I have been leaning towards a career in medicine because of our love of the ever-changing nature of science so kudos to us and wish us luck! If I hadn’t have picked a science major for medicine, you would’ve found me in the arts college because all I do is craft, sew and paint, along with the occasional Netflix binge. Traveling helps me visualize other cultures and actually get involved in learning how other societies work, along with eating everything in my path and finding new scenes and inspiration for my paintings. Yet this blog is focused mainly on how rhetoric works, or my interpretation of it. Rhetoric is a way we can persuade people to act or feel a certain way with different techniques to target a specific group of people. With the ability to use rhetoric or recognize it, we can respond to certain groups of people’s wants or needs, determine an author’s purpose, and even learn to adopt it and write it as our own. And the picture below is me standing near the cliffs of California, yet not too close because of my fear of heights.