Chapter 16

Chapter 16 focuses on the importance and use of evidence in arguments.  The use of evidence is vital in most majors today, which is the primary focus in our next writing project.  Simply asserting a statement does not always guarantee that people will believe it. Evidence is a key component in convincing your audience to believe what you are presenting to them. Evidence is a large part of the science field, especially in the engineering and medical field.  Take for example, a medical journal. A medical journal will contain evidence of both ethos and logos. Logos as evidence helps establish ethos in this particular example. Researchers spend millions of dollars to collect hard evidence to prove that their findings are credible and that the data that is found can be repeatable for other researchers interested in the same field.  Personally I would not want to take a pharmaceutical drug that does not list side effects and the efficiency of that drug. Evidence is what people seek before trialing these pharmaceutical drugs. When big companies introduce drugs commercially, they must collect data (evidence) before introducing the drug commercially. The labels on prescription bottles are the evidence (logos) that these companies find and publish.

Another form of evidence is the evidence in analytical a papers. You can provide evidence in the form of quotations or paraphrasing from other sources to provide evidence for your argument. This is an example of the evidence we used in the previous two writing projects in this class. Evidence helps make the statement you are trying to present more concrete. People are more willing to side with your stance in an argument more easily if evidence is provided. I would consider evidence highly crucial in any paper, or oral argument. Without evidence, an argument is empty words.

Style and Word Choice

Chapter thirteen focuses on style and presentation in arguments. The section I found most interesting was the section on the style and word choice. Vocabulary helps define your style in an argument. The vocabulary used also sets the tone in your argument. I took notice of the activity on page 420, and I found it really useful in comparing pictures to different styles of writing. Take for example the picture below, when a person looks at this picture they mentally link this picture as  laid back, and casual.

This type of style correlates to some styles authors use. The words, "cat, help, bag, and book," are some casual words. This sort of style relates to a younger audience, or to an audience attracted to lower level vocabulary.

Now for this next example, the picture displayed above. The clothes represent a more "work attire" look. This correlates to a more sophisticated style of writing. So instead of using words like "cat, or help," you can use different synonyms of these words to attract a different audience. You could replace the list of words above with "feline, assistance, tote, and novel." So you advanced a step ahead of the style of writing. This style can be for a general audience, usually young adults and college students.

Now the example above, is what most deem "wedding attire." People are only going to wear this type of clothing if they are going to a formal event. This style of attire can correlate to the most sophisticated of writing styles. A sophisticated writing style is more complicated and takes more knowledge to comprehend as the vocabulary is higher. So replacing the first list of words, you would use, "felis catus, succor, satchel, and dissertation." You can see how the difference in the style of wording use. And this would be examples of different styles of writing.

Disney or Hollywood?

I'm sure you've heard the words, "I love you" more than you care to hear. But what would you consider as to be "love." Is it the Hollywood version, or maybe the Disney definition? Either way, its a central part of the American culture. Love revolves around EVERYTHING. So how does society pin a Webster definition on this particular noun?

Well according to Dictionary.com, love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. But does this definition fit in today's society or in the imaginary world of Disney? In Disney, Prince Charming rides through the night to save the princess from eternal doom. But today's movies sheds a different definition of love. Take for example the Twilight series. In this particular quartet, love is complicated, it can be full of frustration and depression.The two definitions are foils of one another.

If you hadn't already guessed, definitions can be exemplified by arguments. Society frequently presents their take on a certain subject, like the definition of love. Formal definitions are what you find in dictionaries, whereas operational definitions identify an object by what it does or by what conditions it creates. Arguments derive from either one of these definitions whenever people disagree about what the conditions define. Definitional arguments evolve out of the occasions and conversations of daily life, whether public and private.  

So the next time you take a look at an adjective, take the time to realize what the author is trying to present. The world displays a lot of different definitions in their own personal way. It's through these representations that people derive their own definitions of words from their own and other people's experiences.

Arguments Based on Emotion: Pathos (ch. 2)

Arguments Based on Emotion: Pathos (Ch. 2)

The Sculpture of Love and Anguis

Emotional appeals to any audience are powerful methods for influencing what people think and  believe. It is one of the most popular forms visual arguments use. We all make decisions that are based on our feelings.Writers, speakers, and artists find images to evoke certain emotions in people, so that their audience can connect to those feelings and even act on them. Take for example the sculpture pictured to the right. It is of a hand reaching up to the sky in a desperate attempt to grasp for help. The hand is tattooed with a number from Aushwitz and is the figure of a dying persons last attempt at help. The figure might leave the onlooker with despair, hope, or even a feeling of emptiness. The creator of this sculpture wanted to create these feeling so that the people who gaze upon this large piece remember the Holocaust and the immense grief and hardship human beings faced during this terrible period of time.

A Series of Vignettes

Sensing Both Love and Fear

The photographs to the left are of the figures that cover the hand pictured above. A Series of Vignettes shows a truly emotional image of an elderly man pleading for the young child's life, and the one to the right of it is a mother who is trying to comfort her child before their unavoidably death to come. These visual arguments do not need words to convey intended argument to its audience. It is the emotion one feels when they look upon these figures that stirs the wanted action. This is the purpose of pathos 

in visual arguments.

Chapter 14 Visual Arguments

CHAPTER 14

Visual Arguments have been around for centuries. They have lined the banks of the Nile in the form of statues, leaders have stamped them on monetary coins, and early cave dwellers carved them on cave walls. Visual arguments can range from the simplest of images to television ads. These images make arguments of their own, since each person analyzes the meaning differently. Human vision is selective. People have a tendency to shape what they have seen and learned to see things according to their meanings within their culture. Images can bring meaning to life because they appeal to emotion, or a significant point in history. Any image can be portrayed as a visual argument. Take for example, the picture on the top left. It is a visual image of characters from The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland in the setting of a modern day subway. Anyone who is familiar with the short story or Disney's film Alice in Wonderland, knows the famous line from the white rabbit, "I'm late, I'm late!" The title of the subway has the word "circus" which portrays how hectic people are on their way to work or on the way home in a subway. And in the long run how ridiculous it can be. Overall, analyzing the visual elements of arguments can be tricky, especially because images can hold more than one meaning. But it can also be the reason why visual arguments are so effective.             

So as a synopsis, the chapter in this book was primarily on visual arguments as a whole. It emphasized the power of visual arguments, and the effectiveness of shaping the messages behind visual arguments. If you refer back to the chapter in Everything's an Argument, the chapter will give you tips on how to analyze different visual arguments and how to determine the meaning behind the images.

It also provides a section on using visuals in your own arguments.

                    IDEAS FOR ADVOCACY AD          
 images from Shepard Fairey             

                                         

          

                    

Introduction

Hey everyone! I'm Daniella. I am a freshman at ASU majoring in Biomedical Engineering. I came from Queen Creek, AZ. Queen Creek is a small town right in between Florence and Chandler. Its a quiet area, but recent construction has brought an influx of people from the surrounding areas and now what was once dairy farms and fields, is now occupied by Walmarts and Targets. I have always wanted to be a Sun Devil since a small child, and that goal is the reason why I choose to attend Arizona State University. I live on Campus in PV Main. I have a couple of interesting hobbies and facts about myself:

Picture of my Home Town :)

• I am a NBA fan, the Suns being one of my favorite teams
• I also played basketball all through high school
• My favorite color is black
• I am the oldest of two children in my family, as I have a younger sister
• I love Supernatural, in my opinion one of the best shows on television to this date
• I like all types of music except for alternative
• I am the queen of sarcasm
• I love the movie Bridesmaids
• I want to work in the medical industry
• I have never been the one to like writing, or the one to write in journals
• The only sport I cannot watch on television or in person is soccer
• I am Hispanic, even though I may seem like the whitest person in the world
• I am not afraid to try new things
• I am also a video game nerd, as sad as that seems