Collaborative Proposal Student Papers
I think that the group that was most effective with their collaborative proposal paper was Kritika and Emily’s group on mistreatment of animals. Their ideas all flowed together from paragraph to paragraph and the writing style was unique, but fitting for their audience. Their paper was more formally written then some of the others, but because their topic was more serious and trying to be persuasive in a way, it worked well for them. I liked how their paper was full with relevant information and was more fact heavy than most because it helped back up their ethos as writers. If they had simply said, “don’t eat meat, its bad for you,” then no one would take their group of college students seriously. Another effective technique the group uses is by giving us scenarios that made the reader think about what they had eaten that day and compared it to how the eggs or meat that we had eaten were produced. The writers did not intimidate or put down the readers by saying all meat eaters are unhealthy and unethical people, but rather quite the contrary. The main point of the paper was to inform people of the mistreatment animals go through so that we are able to have meat on our tables. They even stated in their paper that their goal is not to encourage everyone that is reading their paper to become a vegan, but instead to take into consideration how the meat is produced and how the animals are treated. The exact wording that they used to convey this message was, “We do not want to preach on being a pure vegan and neither do we consider eating meat as totally unethical and wrong; however we just want to draw light on the cruel behavior on the animals that have been raised by the humans for their self motivated needs and how we can contribute to make a change on this behavior.” The most heavily used rhetorical technique this group uses is logos. Because the audience is not necessarily informed on what “free range” or “grain fed vs. corn fed” means, it is necessary that these are explained through different sources. There is not much room for personal stories like some of the other papers, but the facts that they state weighs heavily on the heart and appeals to pathos in many sections. I would give their paper about an 8 out of 10 so far. There is only one place in the entire paper where the voice changes from “we” to “I” and we stated in class it is more effective and appropriate for their group to stick to “we” since there are no personal stories included within the paper. I think that after a few minor changes and revisions, their paper will be very effective and will appeal to their audience. I don’t remember what this group said they were going to do as a visual, but I think a powerpoint that showed their main points would be most effective for their audience.
Collaborative Blog Proposal
For our collaborative proposal project we want to explore the ways that society interprets domestic violence involving women and how the media affects women. Both of these have adverse effects on the way women see themselves and how they function in today’s world. We will break our paper up into separate sections and we may group sections on women and sections on teens separately.
Katherine:
My topic for our group project is body image and the effect on teen girls. I wanted to see if there were any campaigns out there that influence teen girls body image in positive ways. I wanted to look into the dove campaign for real beauty and the influence it has on young girls. There have been several commercials and ads that promote the idea that being beautiful is being yourself without trying to fit into stereotypes of ideal, cookie cutter beauty. I also want to look at the statistics of young girls with eating disorders and see how the numbers have fluctuated over the past years. I chose this topic because body image has always been interesting to me and in today’s society it especially affects teen girls. This is something I can relate too. I can remember being a young teen and reading the articles with the perfect models and wanting to look just like them. And I can also remember seeing the first dove campaign ad and how excited I was to see normal women in magazines. The effect of the dove campaign had a powerful influence on me and helped me see what it means to truly be beautiful.
Caitlin:
My topic for our group project is how the media creates a certain mold for women to fit in. The media tells us we should all be tall, skinny, blonde, and unintelligent if we want to be like everyone in Hollywood. My group could use advertisements showing skinny women with tanned skin and long flowing hair, or pictures of the most popular celebrities in our culture today in order to show examples of how women are portrayed. This idealistic image can then be compared to how normal teenage girls are and show how these celebrities are the role models we strive to be like. When we strive to be like these role models, we feel like we all need blonde hair, have to be super skinny, and have golden skin. We not only feel pressure from other girls to fit this mold, but because men see this on TV and in magazines, they start to look for women who fit this idealistic image as well. This topic would allow us to interview people who have struggled to change themselves from the pressure they felt from the media, or we could even interview guys and ask what they look for in a girl as far as looks go and compare them to the majority of the stars in Hollywood. For paper research, we could look up statistics on the amount of girls that feel pressured by the media, or the average weight of celebrities/models compared to the normal teenage girl. There are several dimensions such as TV/movie stars, models, girls in advertisements, and even popular girls in high school/sorority girls that we can use as examples of the media effecting.
Kirsten:
I am centering my topic around the fact that relationship abuse and dating violence are so prevalent among teens and young adults. The common statistic is that 1 in 3 of teens has experienced violence in a relationship. This can seriously affect both the boy and the girl in the relationship: he thinks it is okay to be controlling and she is emotionally scarred. There are several videos that I could use for the visual aspect of the project such as the Rihanna interviews, which were amazing, and a domestic violence video starring Kiera Knightly. My section will be about telling the signs of domestic abuse and getting help for these young people because injuring someone else is not okay. I chose this topic because of the incident with Rihanna and the video that Kiera Knightly has done. I think that these strong women can be an example to girls struggling in abusive relationships that they are not helpless, and that they can find help for themselves. I am not a victim of domestic violence myself but I am interested in it. Things I want to find out are, how does the violent occurrences affect the rest of that girl’s life? What can we do for young men to educate them about what violence is and how it can be prevented? I mean to answer these questions in my section of the proposal as well as advocate that we need to help both the boys and girls who are part of these relationships.
Ebony:
My topic is child abuse. I am a child development minor, so we study development in children a lot. I have learned about the ways abuse affects families. I want to look at the trend between spousal abuse and how often it trickles down to the children. It is usually a cycle prevalent throughout families, unfortunately. A lot of people don’t like to talk about child abuse because it is so sad. However, it happens, so I want to bring this to the forefront of everyone’s attention. In my child psych class, we saw pictures of children taken to hospitals and it nearly broke my heart. Children are some of the most innocent creatures on Earth. The fact that people consciously choose to hurt them should not be overlooked.
Paper 4 Ideas
The two ideas I have for project #4 are the problem the media portrays women and the problem with still allowing smoking in restaurants. I think that both of these issues can have two sides and pros and cons that come along with each argument. I think that there can be interviews or polls as well as articles or print sources that can be used to support these arguments.
My first idea about how the media portrays women is problematic would be something that guys and girls could see the argument to. Even though it is mainly about girls, the problem the way the media portrays both men and women is a problem, but to narrow it down, I’d want to focus on just women. For the other side of the argument, you could argue that people should realize that celebrities aren’t real everyday people and are strictly there for our entertainment, not as someone we should strive to be or look like. My group could use advertisements showing skinny women with tanned skin and long flowing hair, or pictures of the most popular celebrities in our culture today in order to show examples of how women are portrayed. This idealistic image can then be compared to how normal teenage girls are and show how these celebrities are the role models we strive to be like. When we strive to be like these role models, we feel like we all need blonde hair, have to be super skinny, and have golden skin. We not only feel pressure from other girls to fit this mold, but because men see this on TV and in magazines, they start to look for women who fit this idealistic image as well. This topic would allow us to interview people who have struggled to change themselves from the pressure they felt from the media, or we could even interview guys and ask what they look for in a girl as far as looks go and compare them to the majority of the stars in Hollywood. For paper research, we could look up statistics on the amount of girls that feel pressured by the media, or the average weight of celebrities/models compared to the normal teenage girl. There are several dimensions such as TV/movie stars, models, girls in advertisements, and even popular girls in high school/sorority girls that we can use as examples of the media effecting. I think that having the viewpoints of guys and girls in a group would be very interesting and would make for an effective paper. Maybe boys don’t agree that women are affected by the way they are portrayed in the media? (yikes!)
My second idea is about the problem of smoking in restaurants. Though in Texas it is against the law to smoke in public places including restaurants, where I am from in St. Louis, it is still allowed. This means that my family and me have to purposely go to certain restaurants to eat because the cigarette smoke is bothersome to me. With all the negative effects of secondhand smoke, you would think that everywhere in the United States would have smoke-free public places. But no! While many states are slowly banning smoking in public places, other places are arguing against it. St. Louis actually has a lot of publicity about the people being AGAINST banning smoking because they think it helps the businesses and would be bad for the economy if we ended up banning smoking. This could be used as part of the other side of the argument- the idea that banning smoking would eliminate some of the smoking crowd that go to these bars and restaurants specifically because they can smoke there. The argument of course is the harmful effects of secondhand smoke and how it is dangerous for the workers and for the customers to eat or be in a place where people can chain smoke all they want in a closed area. I think the visuals could be a healthy persons lungs compared so someone who has never smoked, but worked in a restaurant where smoking is allowed that got cancer from secondhand smoke? The visuals could vary and be creative! We could interview people that have dealt with secondhand smoke in public places and see how many people would go to a restaurant where smoking is allowed. There are also lots of statistics about the dangers of secondhand smoke and what it does for businesses so paper sources shouldn’t be a problem.
Creating Your Own Mold
Though I am not transgendered and have never, nor will I ever have to experience what Jamieson went though, I still feel like I can relate to many of the feelings that he had. Especially as teenagers, we all go through a stage where we try to “find ourselves”. The “finding yourself” stage is a common theme in movies and books because as cliche as it sounds, its true! All throughout our high school careers and before, we built up our character and shaped ourselves into who we wanted to be. Then, college came along and we had to be on our own and had the opportunity to become an entirely different person. To start over. For me, this was a scary experience because I was completely starting over when I came to TCU and I had to define who I was going to be as Caitlin Cockerline, the TCU student from St. Louis, Missouri.
There are many molds that people try to categorize people into, even in college. Because I am in a sorority, or I am a girl, or I have blonde hair, this automatically comes along with stereotypes of who I am. I had never experienced what a sorority was or what they did until I went through rush before my freshman year. Rush was one big judging session to me. You don’t know how or why people pick your or cut you from a sorority, but the one you end up with defines your friends and organization you are to be a part of for the rest of your college career. I felt that I did not fit the stereotypes that came along with my sorority, so I considered quitting. Like Jamieson, because I felt that I did not fit in a specific “category” of person, I was confused about how I should act and what my true identity was. Once I realized that I can still be my own person and be a part of an organization such as a sorority at the same time, I felt a sense of ease with myself. I believe it was similar to the sense of ease Jamieson got once he fully changed himself from a woman to a man, which he knew deep inside was how he was meant to be born. I realized that I don’t have to go with what people saw of me on the outside, which was my sorority letters, but if I was truly myself, they would recognize me for me and not as a Tri Delta.
The molds and categories that society tries to put us in are pointless because not everyone fits into a mold. Jamison was forced to be part of a certain “gender” or “sex” and he felt that these did not match up with how he felt on the inside. I learned from Jamieson that you don’t have to be part of the stereotype that society tries to put you in, because there are variations to every category. Girls typically try to please everyone around them, boys and girls alike, so they will do anything to fit in. If someone expects something out of you just because you are a girl, or in a sorority, or a freshman in college, doesn’t mean you have to live up to this expectation. Like Jamieson, once I discovered my true identity and how to convey it to other people, it was a lot easier for me to be happy with myself.
Definitions About Me
“blonde”- define how people view blondes and how they are treated differently. Interview girls who are blonde and who are not blonde, ask guys if they notice a difference in personality (interviews), magazine articles
“midwesterner”- explain how people from the Midwest are percieved to the rest of the world, interview people from my hometown in St. Louis as well as people in the South or North to see how they view the Midwest, online definitions or stereotypes of people from the Midwest
“sorority girl”- explain how the definition that people have created on campus is different than the one that is shown in actual dictionaries. Interview people involved in sororities, fraternaties, and people who are not involved in Greek life.
The “Oprah Effect”
This is Oprah on the cover of her magazine.
Celebrities have become more influential over the past generation more than ever before. Instead of reading newspapers and watching the news, we are reading gossip magazines and watching E! True Hollywood Stories on TV. One of the most influential celebrities of the present day is Oprah. She can influence millions of people to buy a book and make an unknown author a bestseller and millionaire overnight. Anything that Oprah promotes, it instantly becomes popular everywhere in America. Any cause or new diet that shows up on her show or in her magazine is believed to be legitimate and the newest and best thing to incorporate into our lives. I’m sure if Oprah promoted shaving your head and living off of donuts, my mom would be the first woman with a buzz cut in line at Krispy Kreme the next morning.
While I have not always been an Oprah fan, my mom has been a diehard Oprah supporter for years. It makes me wonder why it seems like every mom in America has one thing in common- they all love Oprah. What is it about Oprah? What’s her appeal? If anyone else was promoting a book or a new diet it wouldn’t be a huge hit across America. After watching a few Oprah shows with my mom, you can see how she connects with her audience, cares about other people across the world, and how she uses or tries everything she promotes herself before sharing it with her viewers. Oprah is one of the few celebrities that people can relate to. She has struggled with weight issues, she isn’t afraid to ask experts questions on issues we all have questions about, and she realizes not everyone lives like her. Most celebrities don’t build schools in Africa or have a “My Favorite Things” episode where they give away hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise to everyone in the audience simply because they like the products and want to share them. Oprah is not simply about the spotlight, but about making a difference in people’s everyday lives. Through her own experiences and connections with other famous people, she has built up her ethos as not just a talk show host, but as a leader to her fans.
Oprah uses more than just one media style to get her message across to a wide range of audiences. She has her show and her own magazine as well. With both of these mediums to get her message across, Oprah also has her own book club and a foundation that goes to build and fund schools for children in Africa. Because Oprah is so involved in other people and improving the lives of others, this helps build up her ethos. Though many people didn’t think Oprah would ever make it when she was just starting out with her career because she was a bigger black woman, she still beat the odds and is one of the wealthiest and most influential people in America today. Oprah is able to get celebrities from all over the world to come on her show and answer questions that ordinary people may want to ask. Oprah does not appear to act like she is above her audience, but instead a part of them. This shows me personally that you have to include other people in your life instead of making it all about yourself if you want people to respect you.
Redefining “Gender”
I have never thought of “gender” and “sex” as two different words. I thought that these words could be interchanged and used for the same meaning. After looking at the World Health Organization’s definition of “sex” which is the physical differences between male and female, I realized they are different. The World Health Organization says that “gender” is the different characteristics we associate with what actions we consider masculine and which ones we consider feminine. When I first read these definitions without reading Green’s novel excerpt, I thought this made sense and was a good way of putting a hard definition into words. Because I am heterosexual and secure with my femininity, I had no reason to question these definitions. After reading Green’s thoughts on the matter, I realized that the definitions the World Health Organization had for gender was more stereotypical of what is “feminine” and what is “masculine” than fact.
Although Green lived most of his life in a female body, he knew deep down that he was a man that was simply living in a female’s body. As a transgender, he struggled with other people “validating” his maleness. He said that once people found out that he was not born a male, they would look for reasons to invalidate his male appearance and gender. Green states, “Until I changed my body I always had to struggle to be visible” (187). Therefore, Green believes that how others perceive you also has to do with gender. You have to be “visible” to others as a male in order for you to confirm yourself that you are a male. I like how he compares the mental struggles of non-transgender males and females with transgender males and females and shows how they are really more similar than different like we may think. Green takes the standard definition of “gender” and says that even after he grew his hair longer when he was in a female body, people actually more frequently referred to him as a male, rather than a female as he would’ve expected. This reinforces that gender goes beyond “…clothing, hairstyles, body shapes, voices, and even the conscious awareness that a body has a particular sex” (189). Gender is expressed not only from the outside, but also from within as well.
It is bothersome to me that the transgender community has been so invisible for all of these years. I find this comparable to homosexuals feeling like they had to be invisible until they started to take a stand and fight for their identities and equal rights. Until transgenders decide to make themselves visible, they will remain invisible and unfairly treated. Unfortunately, I was not aware of the transgender community until seeing shows on MTV that had transsexual people in them. When I saw “True Life” about transgenders who were getting surgery to change their sex, the audience got to see how their friends, family, and doctors reacted to them asking for surgery. Sex change surgery is considered “plastic surgery” and is not covered by insurance. I personally can’t imagine living in a female body knowing that I was meant to be born in a male body my entire life. Then again, I also can’t imagine being a parent of a transgender child who was born your daughter, but then decides to change into a male. After seeing the reactions of the transgender people on “True Life” after they got their new bodies to match their inner identities, it made me realize the definition of gender cannot be put into a tiny box with boundaries.
Paper Planes
I have listened to the song “Paper Planes” numerous times and have never really thought what the lyrics were about. It is so easy to dance in the car with your friends to a song and have no idea what the heck you are singing about, just like it is easy to ignore the bad things around you and only focus on the good things. I personally love finding meanings to song lyrics and researching them online because lyrics are like poems in the sense that there are many different ways you can interpret them. The first time I really thought about the deeper meaning of this popular song was when I saw it being played in the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”. Because the movie is more serious and dramatic, it makes the audience consider what the song lyrics really mean. In the movie, you see the Indian children riding a train to different cities and cheating people out of their money by stealing and making up any job they can find. This makes sense after paying attention to the lyrics and watching the video, because you see the singer MIA constantly handling money. MIA sings about how she is a hustler, if you need a visa- she’s got it, and about shooting people to take their money.
The target audience is undeniably Americans in this video, but most prominently children. The video uses flashes of American buildings, signs, and people. The voices of the little kids in the background followed by gunshots and the sound of the cash register ringing make you think about the message this song is trying to send out. Usually gunshots have a negative connotation and the sound of a cash register has a positive one that reminds us of money and shopping. Consumerism is a huge problem in the United States, and the gunshots suggest that people will literally kill for cash. Because there are little kids singing the chorus in the background, it shows that even little kids are obsessed with getting money any way they can. The sound effects are both catchy and disturbing once you think about it. How did we allow our culture to be so consumed with wealth that we would literally kill another human being or hustle drugs in order to obtain it? There are drug issues even at the elementary schools, there are kids bringing weapons and guns to school, and numerous child thieves that steal just for fun. At first, I liked this song because I thought it was interesting and catchy and fun to sing a long to. After looking deeper into the lyrics, I think that it really does say a lot about American society and how we will abandon our dignity and turn against laws just to make a few extra dollars.
The wide variety of settings that this song is presented in makes it an effective argument. It has been played on the radio, made into a music video, and featured in the popular film “Slumdog Millionaire”. The music video and appearance in a feature film make the audience think about the lyrics in context to how it applies to the individual and American society. The sound effects used in the song also make the audience really listen to what MIA is saying in her song.
This song “Lie In Our Graves” by Dave Matthews does not have a music video because most of his music is performed live. The major argument in this video is that we should not wait until we are done with our lives to think about all that we have missed out on. Basically- he is telling us to live our lives to the fullest. Dave Matthews challenges us to go out and experience new things without wondering what could’ve been. I think his argument is that too many people live their lives without actually LIVING.
Even Paris Can Make Being A Rhetorian “Hot”
“Get in a fight!” is not the typical response you’d expect when asking for back to school advice. This short video is many different clips of celebrities who are promoting back to school, but with a humorous twist. I think that this video is targeting college students around the ages of 18-22 who have a good sense of humor and enjoy TV shows such as Saturday Night Live (this video actually seems to me like it could be an SNL skit). It also targets teens that are highly influenced by celebrities. Not everyone wants to follow any advice Paris Hilton has to give, which may be a good idea. This video clip is not meant for highly conservative or religious teens because they wouldn’t find this clip particularly funny because while there are some serious comments, they are followed up by a joke or the entire comment by the celebrity is a joke altogether. I think that this video would appeal to me personally and my friends because I can recognize the celebrities and I value humor, but can recognize the message behind it. I believe that the main point of this video is to promote back to school and encourage college kids to go back to school. Paris Hilton mentions for back to school, make sure you actually go back to school. While many of the celebrities give advice that is meant to be humorous and not taken literally, there are some serious statements at the beginning of the video and at the end when the subtitle reads “stay out of trouble”. When celebrities are in advertisements and promotion videos, teenagers usually pay more attention to it then if it were older people that no one recognized telling kids to go back to school. I liked that there was a wide variety of celebrities that were in the video and that they could make fun of themselves while giving “back to school” advice, whether it was a joke or genuine.
The audience that this video targets values humor, fame/fortune, and simplicity. The video is short and to the point, funny, and includes numerous celebrities giving their opinion. This type of video would not work for an older group of adults for example because they would not find the celebrities of a teenage generation of much influence or importance. The rhetorian that created this video intended to represent the group of celebrities as a whole by having a wide variety of famous people share their opinions and advice on back to school. By using a wide range of celebrities, young or old, black or white, heiresses or comedians, this ensures that the viewers of this video will be able to recognize at least one of the celebrities (hopefully). If not, maybe its time for you to turn on your TV or read a magazine.
I believe that pathos is the main argument strategy used in this video. There is not much logos within the video since much of what the celebrities are saying are meant to be funny and not serious. The only way I see ethos in this video is because the people that are speaking in it are celebrities or famous in some way. This makes the video more credible in the eyes of teenagers because these are the idols that we’ve grown up with. Teenagers find celebrities’ opinions more valid than that of a group of adults, parents, or teachers that could have also made a promotion video for back to school. It is important when addressing teenagers that they are persuaded using pathos rather than logos because most teens go with their emotions rather than using logic and thinking through if someone or something is credible or not.
Camp Bow Wow
I found this advertisement online when looking for pet advertisements. The company, Camp Bow Wow, uses the image of a cute, but sad, looking puppy in order to appeal to the viewer’s pathos. When the viewer sees this advertisement, they immediately feel sorry for the puppy, then they see the list of special offers and treatments the animals get when staying at Camp Bow Wow. The “camp” is designed to be a luxury place for your dog to stay when you are away and cannot take care of your dog. The target audience would be dog lovers or dog owners, because they would be the ones that would utilize this facility. Little kids that see this ad might also persuade their parents to take their puppy to this “camp” when they leave for vacation. This advertisement does not appeal to me directly because I do not have a dog that would need somewhere to stay if I went out of town, but it catches the attention of anyone that comes across the ad simply because of the sad puppy. The dog’s face appeals to your emotion and makes you want to read about the ad and the service they would offer. Because the dog looks so sad, you want to make sure that the dog would be staying somewhere exceptionally great while the owner is away. For example, this ad would not be as effective if it had the same picture and heading, but simply said “dog pound” on the side. This specific company makes the facility sound more like a day camp and overnight camp for your dog. This appeals to dog lovers as well as dog owners because they view dogs so highly, they believe dogs should be treated as well as humans. Camp Bow Wow offers “bedtime campfire tasty treats” and “spacious cabins with comfy cots,” so it seems as if the dog is like a child going to an overnight camp.
I think that animals are commonly used as a way to appeal to people’s emotion, or pathos, because it always draws your attention to the advertisement. Even if you aren’t particularly an animal lover, a sad looking puppy always stands out in a magazine or a newspaper filled with common looking people. I feel that pathos is the most commonly used approach in advertisement most of the time. The only time I see ethos used over pathos is when the advertisement is for something of great importance such as car sales, “do you need a lawyer?” ads, and for hospital care. For ads that are for household products, food, clothing stores, or other everyday items, pathos is most effective because we don’t find hearing about why a Swiffer mop is credible an interesting commercial. While both pathos and ethos are effective ways to persuade an audience, I believe that pathos is most common when dealing with a fast and short advertisement.
Caitlin's Blog 
