Category: Uncategorized

Group Members: Ian, Elise, and Lillian 

Practice: 

1. My dog is not only friendly but also playful.

2. We can go to the park or dance in the classroom.
3. Jeremy likes to read historical, realistic, and speculative fiction.
4. When I go to the bar, I want to dance, drink and punch on the rowdy faces.
5. Buying a car is not a decision to take lightly nor be careless about.
6. Tyler is for the legalization, not the criminalization of marijuana.

7. Sally needs a new stove, dishwasher, and knives for her kitchen.
8. My first grade teacher taught me how to write, read, and play tic-tac-toe.

9. She will not admit it, nor will she be apologizing.

10. The whole wheat pasta is better than enriched wheat pasta.
11. Literature classes teach students to analyze texts, think critically, and improve writing.

12. Beets are just as nutrient rich as rutabagas even though they are not in season.
13. Drunk drivers are thoughtlessly taking the lives of other people into their own hands,

risking their own lives, thinking only about their own pleasure and fun, and not considering the consequences 

of their actions

14. In order to convey the information correctly, the police officer spoke loudly to the crowd, 

told people where they should stand, repeated the information to help people remember, and gestured.

Today, I read Elise’s post on chapter 14 of the book, “Everything’s an Argument”. The main ideas of the response are about the use of visual arguments in persuading their viewers. Both of us chose to mention the impact of visual arguments on the tendency to trigger one’s emotions and furthermore, how visual media can help verbal appeals to pathos, ethos, and logos. The difference in our posts is that she used different examples. She used the college instructor example while I used the flags and McLunhan’s statements to support the main ideas. Since we had similar ideas, I didn’t really find anything new. Rather, her post reinforced my claim that visual arguments are powerful and useful in our academic writing.

The person I chose to focus on today is a Youtuber, Cory DeVante Williams. His channel name is CoryxKenshin and has around 11.3M subscribers right now. He posts different content on youtube, but he is mainly a gamer and a reactor. He presents a lot of characters in his video therefore it makes his videos very entertaining to watch. Although most of the time he looks like a very energetic and funny person, there are times where he would be vulnerable to his viewers and tell them the difficulties that he goes through in life, his “Regarding my retirement” videos. Once in a while, he would also post motivational and inspirational videos so that he could motivate his audience; such as his “No limits” video. Based on Cory’s videos, he appeals to ethos because he doesn’t only post gaming and reaction videos but he also presents himself to the audience. By doing this, he appeals to ethos because the audience is able to see himself, despite presenting himself in front of the media, which builds credibility.

Links to the videos that I mentioned:

1. 1. “Regarding my retirement”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j42VFHeptl8&t=221s

1. 1. “No limits”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsHz8k1bD8&t=14s

Group Members: Yuka, Elise, and Lillian 

Part I: Hard evidence or constructed arguments?

Discuss whether the following statements are examples of hard evidence or constructed arguments. Not all cases are clear-cut. 

1. Drunk drivers are involved in more than 50 percent of traffic deaths
   1. Hard evidence
2. DNA tests of skin found under the victim’s fingernails suggest that the defendant was responsible for the assault.
   1. Constructed argument
3. A psychologist testified that teenage violence could not be blamed on video games.
   1. Constructed argument
4. The crowds at President Trump’s inauguration were the largest on record.
   1. Hard evidence
5. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
   1. Constructed argument
6. Airbags ought to be removed from vehicles because they can kill young children and small-framed adults. (Based on the activities in Lunsford, p. 63)
   1. Constructed argument

Part II: Plagiarism or not?

Directions:  Read the following scenarios and decide whether it is a case of plagiarism or not. (Y or N) and explain why._____ 

1. Kyoko needs to write a report on American politics.  She looks up Barack Obama in Wikipedia and discovers he is the 44th president of the United States.  She includes this information in her report but doesn’t mention Wikipedia. Plagiarism, because even though she didn’t use direct quotations, she used a piece of information that she found on Wikipedia. 

2. Tam is writing a paper on a novel for his English class.  Since the whole class is reading the same book, he doesn’t need to use a citation. Plagiarism because he isn’t citing the source. 

3. Sugi wrote a paper for his European history class last semester and got an A on the paper. This semester, his Political Science class is addressing some of the same issues that are in his History paper.  He checks with his professor first who agrees with Sugi, so he uses the material from his History paper.  Self- Plagiarism.
4. Ramiro, Stephan, April, and Chris are working on a group project.  Chris submits his work and the others suspect that some of it came from the Internet, but it sounds good, so they submit it. Plagiarism, because Chris didn’t cite information. 
5. Maria finds a lot of good information for her paper on the Internet.  She carefully changes the wording and prepares a good paraphrase.  She doesn’t copy anything verbatim. Plagiarism, she didn’t cite the source. 

 Directions:  Decide whether the information described in each scenario will require citation of the source (Y or N) and explain why.

1. You clearly identify the source at the beginning of a paragraph that summarizes the author’s ideas about teenage drinking.  Since readers will naturally assume all of the ideas in the paragraph are from the source, no additional citation is necessary. You need the citation because the author shouldn’t “assume” that the readers know the whole paragraph is from the source. 

2. In your paper on the history of aviation, you state the date of the Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. You need a citation because you didn’t cite the source. 

3. In a paper on the civil rights movement, you find some general, well-known background information in an encyclopedia.  It is obviously common knowledge, so you copy the information and include it in your paper. You need a citation because you copied the information, if you didn’t copy it, then it would be fine. 

4. You ask your mother about the steps she went through in obtaining a bank loan for a new car. You include this information in your paper.  If it’s an interview, then you need to cite. Otherwise, you don’t need to.

5. You skim a 325-page book entitled Using the Internet. A major theme throughout the book is that the Internet is an important technological achievement.  You include this in your paper.

Cite it because you used the book. 

6. You find an article that takes the same position you have taken on the subject of gun control. To save time you summarize in your paper a portion of the argument from the article since the author’s ideas are identical to your own.

Cite it because you clearly used it from an article

I was thinking about doing a rhetorical analysis essay on either a newspaper article or an advertisement or political cartoon and similar things. I am not sure if advertisements or political cartoons are allowed, but if they are, I would prefer to do them over a newspaper article. I would like to work with something that has visual appeals or both visual and factual appeals.

Group Members: Yari, Lexi, and Lillian 

1. The reality show follows the lives of Bruce and Kris Jenner’s combined family, mainly focusing on the three oldest daughters, Kourtney, Kim, and Khloé Kardashian. 
2. Bruce Jenner became famous for breaking the world record and winning a gold medal in the decathlon at the 1976 Olympics. He has two sons, Brandon and Brody, from a previous marriage who have appeared on their own reality shows. 
3. The Kardashians’ father, the late attorney Robert Kardashian, was famous for representing O. J. Simpson, while his daughters gained recognition as American socialites. 
4. Kim came into the national spotlight in 2007 after a sex-tape scandal resulting in a Playboy appearance which caused the Kardashians’ fame to grow into a profitable reality series. 
5. The main show depicts the daily routine of the Kardashians, on the other hand, the Spin-off shows feature Kourtney, Kim, and Khloé’s attempts to build their line of fashion boutiques. 
6. The Kardashians’ behavior seemed outrageous at first; however, they are a loving family. 
7. The Kardashians often squabble like typical siblings, and Kris, the mother, attempts to hold the family together.
8. Kim’s $10 million wedding to pro basketball player, Kris Humphries, in 2011 was seen by an estimated 10.5 million viewers, lasting only 72 days.

Today, I read Lexi and Samuel’s posts. After reading Lexi’s post, I realize that we both have many similarities about what we have received from the readings. For instance, both of us mentioned how Chapter 4 of the book, Everything’s an Argument, is telling the readers how to analyze logos and how to use them to support one’s argument. We also mentioned the main purpose of Caleb Wong’s essay which is about people’s addiction to social media. I found Lexi’s post interesting because I didn’t think about Wong’s flaws in his essay. Lexi mentioned that even though Wong delivers a strong claim, she feels like “he may have lost the interest of [some] readers” because his paper is “filled with purely facts and statistics”. I didn’t see Samuel’s post.

Group Members: Yari, Ian, and Lillian

Coordination Conjunction: FANBOYS

Exercise 1:

1. Pets are not allowed in Mr. Taylor’s building; however, he owns several cats and a parrot.
2. New legislation prevents drivers from sending or reading text messages while driving, but many people continue to use their phones illegally.
3. The coroner concluded that the young man had taken a lethal concoction of drugs, however, by the time his relatives found him, nothing could be done
4. Amphibians are vertebrates that live on land and in the water, and flatworms are invertebrates that live only in water.
5. Ashley carefully fed and watered her tomato plants all summer, so the tomatoes grew juicy and ripe.
6. When he lost his car key, Simon attempted to open the door with a wire hanger, a credit card, and a paper clip, however, he called the manufacturer for advice.

Exercise 2: 

1. Jake is going to Mexico where there are beautiful beaches in Mexico.
2. Because a snowstorm disrupted traffic all over the east coast, there will be long delivery delays this week.
3. My neighbor had his television volume turned up too high until I banged on his door and asked him to keep the noise down.
4. Jessica prepared the potato salad and the sautéed vegetables while Ashley marinated the chicken.
5.  Romeo poisons himself before Juliet awakes to find Romeo dead and stabs herself with a dagger.

Today, I read Yari and Ian’s posts about “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. Both of them had similar ideas where we all recognize that Tan’s main point is talking about how English isn’t a free language, in other words, a language that strictly follows a certain rule.

After reading Ian’s post, I realize that he also had similar ideas where we directly mention what Tan’s message was. Although I wrote about the emotional appeal that she provided to the audience, Ian, on the other hand, wrote about the credibility and logos that she used. I only focused on writing about how her personal story provided emotional appeal but Ian also mentioned that her personal story also serves as her credibility to the audience.

On the other hand, Yari had a very developed reading response where she used multiple examples and also explain the appeals. Although Yari didn’t directly mention the message that Tan was giving, she provided enough examples and explanations to support her response. One similarity that I found between Yari and my post was that we both used examples of how Tan realized that she spoke Chinglish. Yari also mentioned “Englishes”.

As children grow up, their adolescence grows based on different factors around them to shape their cognitive processing. It is important to be aware of children’s mental state because it can affect the growth of their adolescence. There have been investigations on the cause and effect between mental illnesses and a child’s cognitive abilities. For instance, the article, “Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry” by Samantha Pearcey et al, examines the connection between social Anxiety Disorder and social cognitive abilities. The authors introduce the article by mentioning the hypothesis that different scientists had followed by the researching and experimental research that they had. They conclude the results of the experiments that there seems to be a “significant [connection] between social anxiety and social cognitive abilities” where increased social anxiety was associated with lower social cognitive ability.“ (Pearcey, 2021) As a result, it is important to be aware of children’s mental state as it is correlated to their social cognitive ability.

References:

Pearcey, S., Gordon, K., Chakrabarti, B., Dodd, H., Halldorsson, B., & Creswell, C.  (2021). Research Review: The relationship between social anxiety and social cognition in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 62(7), 805–821. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13310

Link:

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=7115d68b-a652-4db0-944f-02b268f90e3a%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=eue&AN=151156881