The Revolution Will Not be Tweeted

Our world today revolves around technology.  One of the biggest ways technology is used is for social media, and that is why I decided to write my Rhetorical Analysis paper on the article “The Revolution Will Not be Tweeted.”  The author, Malcolm Gladwell’s purpose in writing this article is to prove that social media is not an effective way to motivate people to participate in actions such as standing up for specific beliefs.  Gladwell begins his article telling the story of the 1960 sit-in protest in North Carolina.  Four black college students decided to sit in a white bar.  The protest grew by the thousands by the end of the week, just because four boys decided to take a stand.  I really liked how he started out with this because it grabbed my attention from the beginning.  He continues to give a few more examples of situations, like the first, to prove a point.  I think this helped build his ethos and pathos.  He gave specific details from real situations, which gave him the power of authority.  He created pathos because the audience is emotionally moved by these stories.  He used his word choice very carefully.  He did not use too many intense words, but just enough that it made me feel something.  Malcolm stated that it was scientifically proven that people who are willing to stand up for a cause that they believe in no matter what the consequence, are able to do so because they have a personal connection.  They have something to fight for and people to fight with.  That makes you stronger.  He then gave a different example of how social media helped save a man’s life because they were able to make more people aware of his health condition through the media.  He said that social media is a great way to make people aware of problems occurring in the world, but because you do not personally know all of your “friends” on Facebook, there is no personal connection.  This proved the fact that although social media may increase participation, it lessens the motivation of people to stand up for what they believe.  I think this article was effective.  He used excellent examples that helped me understand his argument better and persuaded me to believe his point of view.  I am excited to get started on this analysis!  

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I'm not sure why but for some reason there has been an unusual amount of discussion about the effects of globalization in all of my classes, including in my Spanish 355 class. I wrote my OpEd about globalization and its effects on Costa Rica. Globalization is becoming quite the theme for me so I guess I should study it more. So, having said that, I chose the article "Globalization and International Conflict: Can FDI Increase Peace" ch. 4-E. I picked this article not only because I personally agree with the points proven, but it is a very informative article with a great amount of credible sources and research. For example, just in the introduction, the author begins talking about comparative advantage which is a basic concept in any beginning Econ class. In fact, I just learned about it two weeks ago. But it just goes on to explain that comparative advantage, how countries trade one with another, improves each countries' economy while at the same time, creating more cooperation and good feeling between countries, thus creating more peace. One of the points the author goes on to prove is that as countries begin to trade more and more with other countries, they are much more likely to not join in conflict, jeopardizing their growing economy. It's a very interesting article and it is well written, presented, and proved through the information given.

Another Blog Post

The article I have chosen to examine for this assignment is “Why eat Local” by Dominic Muren. The author is writing to people that are “increasingly concerned about the quality and cleanliness of the foods they eat.” Also to those that “want more control over what they put into their bodies.” The purpose of the author is to convince her audience of the benefits of eating locally. The author does this by describing the personal health, economic, and environmental benefits of doing so. Although the author might have been effective at giving quotes by seemingly important people or organizations, due to the overall lack of organization and depth, the article is inefficient at accomplishing its purpose.

I found the organization to be a bit hard to follow. I’m not even sure if there was a thesis statement. I guess there is but it doesn’t really outline what the article is going to be about. Not only is the article not structured well as a whole but, even within the paragraphs and even within each sentence. There is a very jerky flow to the article. There was also no conclusion to the article.

Not only did the article lack a conclusion but also the individual points seemed to lack conclusion. The author seemed to bring up some interesting points but didn’t bring them to their complete and logical conclusion. I feel like the points of the article could have been expounded upon. Overall, I was just left expecting more from the points.

The Very Possible Rally for Greatness

I chose the article "AIDs and India." It talks about the issue of aids in India and the present and future negative impacts it is making. The author is trying to do two things: raise concern about AIDs and get people involved in helping fight the spread and growth of the disease. I personally feel that she does a great job.
This is my favorite aspect of the article. Unlike most articles that talk on this subject, it actually gives the reader hope. Hope that there is a cure. Instead of just reiterating what we already know that AIDS is harmful, it tells us about what people are doing to help prevent it. Then he tells us what we can do. And not in impossible measures like donating thousands of dollars, but in very reachable ways. I think this works great, because a lot of the times I think people are easily persuaded into caring about a certain issue, but when it comes to acting on it, they get scared or intimidated and back out. This article does nothing of the sort.
The author also includes a great personal story from a person you wouldn't normally expect to be active in this issue, and that does a great job reaching the pathos of the reader.
Statistics also, play a key role in raising the concern about this issue, but not in an overbearing way that makes the reader set the book down out of pure boredom of confusion.
Great article with lots to pull from!

While skimming over the content page in our book I came across a title that struck my interest. The article is called, "Immigration is about us." While studying abroad in Spain my 'mother' told me a little story about Spain's immigration and how some handle it there. Being so close to the African border, Spain receive many illegal immigrants that travel via boat. The journey is usually carried out on a small boat that struggles to make it ashore. The part that most amazed me was this-Spaniards would gather, where the boats come in, and rather than build a border, shoot, and shoo them away, the Spaniards would help pull the boats into safety and welcome the newcomers in. My thoughts were turned to the Mexican border and how different things are here.

 I chose the article "immigration is about us" because not only do I find the topic interesting but Willes does a great job at arguing his point. The author’s purpose for writing is to state that almost everyone agrees that current circumstances of immigration need to be fixed yet no one is doing anything about it.

I believe him to be effective in making his argument for multiple reasons. Willes begins by being pretty general and narrowing down so we can clearly see the point he is trying to make. He illustrates examples of the difficult situation that immigration is but also hits hard that we must do something rather than nothing at all. In the end, he plays into pathos by referring back to our ancestors who immigrated here and even talks about the Mormons immigration to Utah.

We need to pick a stance, as complicated as it may be about immigration. “What we do about immigration will say more about ‘us’ that it will about ‘them’ (Willes, 40).

Immigration is about us.

The article, "Immigration Is About Us", caught my eye and my thoughts. The rhetorical purpose of the author, Mark H. Willis, is calling for those debating the issue of immigration, to reflect on who we are and what we want for our state and by doing so we all will be better prepared to make the hard decisions that lie ahead of us. I thought the articles arguments were well made. I feel the author was successful in his purpose of making his audience reflect on his or her own views. I like the comparisons made again help his audience reflect and define his or her own views. The author also presents the complexities of the issue very well too, giving the audience a fair and honest look at the complex decisions that will need to be made.

Ignorance is Bliss

I've never been one to care about things that important people care about so I'm not huge into the whole globalization thing. Or the whole politics thing. Or any of the other big words that are used in all of these fancy writings. I did happen to enjoy "Buying into the Green Movement" by Alex Williams though. He's kind of sassy, and I like it. The authors purpose is to let people know that buying "green" stuff or building a massive house made of "green" stuff isn't going to save the planet and bring back Adam and Eve's impeccable Earth. I do think that he succeeds in convincing his intended audience. I believe that his audience includes those who believe that they are "buying into the green movement" and those who are just seeing the "green" movement happen before their eyes. It basically surrounds us now due to the increase in popularity of organic foods and hybrid cars. A good example that he uses talks about how it is not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber because the real solution would be to only own one home. He uses a funny analogy when he says that these millions of people are just like a person who would sit in front of a box of fat-free chocolate cookies and eat the whole thing, avoiding fat but taking in a ton of calories. He really proves his point about the fact that so many people think that they are doing fabulous things for our Earth when really, they are just quitting one thing to start another hurtful thing. He definitely uses numbers to also prove his point when speaking of the amount of products purchased and the amount of Americans who purchase them. I'm exciting to dive into this article and see what else I can criticize and learn about! Ignorance will no longer be bliss I guess.

Hollah Back At Me Brotha

The title is just because this relates to my OpEd essay so I'm loving this author already. The PG article I picked is called "Put Your Money Where Their Mouths Are." This article is about international labor and the restrictions that our country puts on it. Kristof, the author of the article, argues that we shouldn't be pressing so hard to keep children out of work and then stop there. By doing that, we honestly make matters worse in any country where they allow child labor. But, we force these kids not to work so they have no job and nothing else to do. This article suggests the reform that we encourage as many years as we can of school to kids who are raised up in these areas and reward them with food. They will go to school if they get food because of it. But we can only encourage the kids to go to school as long as they can. Some schooling only offers 4 years and then the student is done after that. So, there are 12 year olds that are done with school that can't work because of the laws we create that make us feel good about ourselves. When truth is, we just don't know enough and we're causing more poverty. This article at the end encourages us to do the right thing and sponsor meals for kids who go to school. That way, we're actually putting our money where their mouths are. Very clever title if you ask me. I think the author does an extraordinary job at making his argument by addressing the bad things about his argument but why they are actually better than the system going on now. He connects to me very well so I feel like he could connect to most readers just fine. I'm already a fan of this article and I can tell that I will enjoy writing about its effectiveness for our next rhetorical analysis essay.

Blog Post 5

The article I'm using is Thoughts on Illegal Immigration. In this article, Jack Kerwick's purpose is to show everyone the seriousness of illegal immigration. However, we counter this problem by doing nothing or by creating illogical solutions. Kerwick uses the government's past decisions related to illegal immigration as a foundation for his argument. For example, during elections for government officials, the people who campaigned may respond to the topic of immigration by giving amnesty to the immigrants, so they could receive more votes for their campaign. Kerwick uses these actions to support his argument that something needs to be done about illegal immigrants by claiming that officials are not helping to solve this but instead are adding fuel to the fire. This is effective because it affects the audience in an emotional method. However, this article isn't as effective as it could potentially be because Kerwick doesn't clearly state why illegal immigration is such a huge problem. Overall, Kerwick is convincing in some areas of the article, but doesn't give all the points to his argument.

Wal-Mart sucks

I was reading through all of the different articles in "Perspectives on Globalization" and was feeling pretty decepcionado. I wasn't really feeling any emotions, neither positive nor negative, about any of the articles. his I came upon the article "Wal-Martian invasion". Personally, I had never shopped at a Wal-Mart until my mission, and I got so mad at Wal-Mart during my mission for making my investigators work on Sundays that I really never want to go back. Basically what I'm trying to say is: I'm writing my Rhetorical Analysis on "Wal-Martian Invasion."  Yep-yep.

The author's purpose of writing this article was to argue the point that the way Wal-Mart treats it's workers is unhuman. She uses a lot of different literary devices in order to accomplish this. In this article, the author begins her argument by stating two differing opinions about Wal-Mart by politicians. This was a very effective way of introducing her topic because she openly recognizes the opposition to her argument in the very beginning. She then talks about the growth of Wal-Mart and some of the evils that have developed over time. Once accomplished, she focuses on the effect that the company has on it's individual employees and gives some statistics. She does so many effective things that I don't even know where to start and what to write about here in this short review. Overall, I think the article was very effective because of her hyperbole, her comprehensive ideas (Use of a TON of literary devices to convey her ideas), and finally, her ability to relate to the reader and draw sympathy for the Wal-Mart workers really take the cake.

"Buying Into the Green Movement"

That moment when your out of class and gettin ready to go out and have fun on a Friday when you realize you forgot to post on the class blog.. Yep this just happened to me! So bare with me, this post may be a little rough.

So I choose to write my Rhetorical Analysis on the article "Buying Into the Green Movement". I was just skimming along through the Perspectives on Globalization book and I had read a couple of dry articles when I came across this one. I personally though this was really interesting to read! The author's, Alex Williams, rhetorical purpose was the show the audience that buying super expensive things that are "green", or environmentally friendly, does not necessarily mean you are saving the rain forests. In fact, you are probably doing more harm than help! I thought he was effective in making his argument for a few different reasons. First of all, I am not a tree-hugger, but I love Earth. It's pretty cool, and i support people trying to make a difference. So he had this article appealed to me in that sense. Second, even if I didn't feel that way, he still makes a good, valid argument. My favorite tactic that Williams used to support his claim was interviews with important people. That gave him so much credibility because if it was just some random dude named Alex William telling me about this problem, I would question how legit his thesis is. He also uses interesting analogies to make his argument understandable to the reader, such as comparing people who buy super expensive "green" products to someone who gets fat-free chocolate cake and proceeds to eat the whole box. I think it will be fun to write my RA about this article.

Put Your Money Where Their Mouths Are

I decided to write my rhetorical analysis essay on Nicholas D. Kristof's article "Put Your Money Where Their Mouths Are".  I chose this article not only because I thought the title was clever, but because I am interested in humanitarian interventions, but not overly passionate about this subject, so it would be easier to more effectively remove my bias from the article. The other subjects in the book were either not remotely interesting or a topic that I have a strong opinion about.
The purpose of Kristof's article is to convince his audience that they should invest money in school meals in third world countries to promote education and lessen child labor in that way, instead of forcing child labor laws on those countries that get a worse result than child labor. The audience he is addressing is people who are politically aware and involved in humanitarian work, mainly college age students. He does a marvelous job of convincing his audience because he uses a series of successful rhetorical devices. He uses a lot of pathos with specific stories and examples of child labor that really tugs at the readers' heartstrings. Like story about the ten year old from eastern Chad; how heartfelt was that? Kristof also uses logos by using a lot of statistics. It makes us think logically and understand his argument. I think that the article "Put Your Money Where Their Mouths Are" is very effective in convincing college age kids like us to help out child labor in a different more effective way.

Blog Post 5: Buying Into the Green Movement

The Perspectives on Globalization article that I chose to write my rhetorical analysis on is the article by Alex Williams titled Buying Into the Green Movement. In this article, Williams tries to persuade readers that simply consuming less is more effective than spending money on environmentally friendly products. He also shows how the trend of living an eco-sensitive life is more of a social statement, much like the Kony 2012 or an Anti-War movement, He (she?) did a beautiful job at making what was written credible by quoting sources from 10 different people. Of these, 3 were people from his counter argument group that were high up in environmentally friendly organizations whom he was targeting. By doing this, the counter argument was addressed and proven faulty in a proper way. The writer also did a brilliant job of using imagery and analogies to further develop his arguments. One of my favorites was talking about gas mileage and how hybrid cars are not worth it. The desired object was to show that purchasing one car would make a greater impact. He described how a specific Lexus hybrid car gets 22 miles to the gallon on a highway compared to a Toyota Yaris which gets 40. He then compared this to a "snack wells" moment. This company offers fat-free tasty snacks. However, these guilt-free snack create people to eat more and more, avoiding indulgence in fat, but piling on calories. His word choice he uses also allows this environmentally friendly group to appear crazy and extreme, but not to the point where it distracts from his main arguments. For example, he quoted an environmental activist who stated "Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase... The news media and marketers are to blame for turning environmentalism into fashion and distracting from serious issues." I thought that Alex Williams did a brilliant job and i am looking forward to writing a rhetorical analysis on this short essay.

Rhetorical Analysis Blog Post on "Wal-Martian Invasion"

I have chosen to write my Rhetorical Analysis on the 5-A article called “Wal-Martian Invasion,” because who wouldn’t want to analyze an article with such a clever name!  I was glad to see that the article lived up to the high expectations its title set. 

It is written to the whole world, but with an emphasis on Wal-Mart shoppers and associates.  It talks about how Wal-Mart, which started as such a harmless business, has handled matters poorly, such as employee payment, and how these improperly handled matters are becoming extremely serious as the company expands. 

It is written in such a clever way that I know of several things I can use to argue its effectiveness, yet I can do so without sounding like I’m just stating the obvious.  One example of its clever format is how it calls attention to Earthlings warning them of the Wal-Martians, who were harmless upon first landing, but now have become dangerous.  This both sets the audience as the whole world (because Wal-Mart seriously has become so big that it really is a world matter) and explains how Wal-Mart wasn’t dangerous at first, but has grown to the point where it is now. 

Another thing I love about the article is the disposition, they way in which the writer releases information slowly so as to keep up the reader/writer contract and keep the reader interested.  Examples of this include the first sentence, which talks about the problems that have been created without yet saying what created them.  These are just a few small examples of the neat tools that make this article effective, and I hope to use all the best ones to clearly present the credit this article deserves.

Blog Post #5

Politics and Twitter

For my Rhetorical Analysis I have decided to write on an article in Chapter 6-B. It is called, Does Twitter promote democracy? I chose this because I think it is very interesting how social media plays such a huge role in our society. In this article it talks about how the President of Chile and all of his cabinet members have twitter accounts. Their hope is that it will create more of a democracy and include the say of the people. It also explains to us how President Obama 20,000 letters each and every day. They are filtered through and only about ten of those actually make it to the president. With twitter accounts everyone would be able to speak their minds, but there still would have to be some sort of filter. This article is arguing that it would allow constituents to communicate with the community on a more personal level and actually be able to communicate with them over social media. It may only be possible at a local level but they say it would be a good idea. Some politicians used social media to boost their popularity among the voters. It actually did help some to get elected. Although this may be a good idea, there is no possible way that Politicians would ever be able to respond to these tweets and Facebook messages because there would be so many. We need our politician focusing on the issue at hand rather than staying up all night tweeting responses and reading thousands of Facebook messages. I just don’t see how this would be very productive.  

Rhetorical Analysis: Trade brings Security

So this article basically talks about how more free trade in countries brings peace.  The authors’ rhetorical purpose is explained very nicely in the concluding paragraph when it says, “Free trade, free markets, and free people bring not only prosperity, but also peace.  And that’s a goal shared by those who believe in globalization – and those who don’t.”  This statement I think basically shows what the authors are trying to convince the audience of.   I tend to agree with this article but there are kind of a lot of holes in it.  The authors need to give more evidence in their argument.  They argue that those nation’s (particularly in the middle east) that don’t support free trade tend to have more violence, terrorism, and political strife than those that do support free trade and globalization.  I tend to agree with this but I also think there are many other factors that play into this argument like religion that make a huge impact, not just free trade. That’s why I think the authors need to bring in much more support for their argument, particularly more concrete examples.  Also addressing some counter arguments would also help their argument out a lot. Otherwise, I think they actually make a viable argument that could definitely be supported.  

Rhetorical Analysis of The Globalization of Poverty

I was raised to be a hard-core republican. My parents, though well-informed and supportive of my independence, would breathe fire if I ever so much as dared to whisper the words "inequality" or "United Nations" or "elite class." They aren't bad; they know what they believe.
Because I am young, I am slightly more liberal minded, but when I read The Globalization of Poverty, I couldn't believe how strong the liberal voice trumpeted unrestrained.
The good aspects of this essay include allusions to September 11th, quotes from compelling, recent sources such as the CIA, professors of Economic Schools, and The World Bank (which is exceptionally compelling because it's quote against globalization is counter-intuitive), and giving strong statistics on the income gaps and world poverty trends.
If this piece was to appeal to people like my parents, however, serious changes would need to be made. First off, the theme of this essay is that economic globalization is a cause of global poverty and inequality, but it never shows HOW. It states that is exists, but never gives examples of exactly HOW globalization causes social classes to be marginalized, and without proof the entire point of the article seems frantic and unsupported. The article also states that increasing evidence that globalization increases inequality is coming from within globalized companies, and no evidence is given until three paragraphs later. The proof should come faster, and simple organizational tweaks could have quickly remedied the problem. Counter arguments are occasionally mentioned, but more is needed to address to counter arguments of increased foreign jobs and increased corporation wealth would need to be included.