Merchants of Cool Questions

I consume media in the form of television commercials, magazine ads, and radio ads most often.
I enjoy sports talk television shows, sketch comedies, and many other types of funny shows. Like Sportscenter, Saturday Night Live, and Friends. The bands I like are Nickelback and We the Kings, mostly rock bands. Web sites I enjoy are Facebook and Myspace. I am not a large fan of video games, but Rock Band is good. If I hear that other people like a certain trend, then I am much more likely to like it as well. That also applies vice versa. Commercials don't affect me as much because most teenagers don't respond to them.
"Cool Hunting" is targeted directly at people just like me, but I don't respond to it most of the time. Most of the items I buy aren't publicly advertised. I don't buy stuff based on commercials for it, I buy it based on how good I think the item is going to be. There are many ads that are directed toward teenagers, but I don't believe that many do a very good job. We as a whole don't respond to ads, we respond to what we like and don't like, and nothing is going to change our opinion of the product. "Cool Hunting" supposedly works on people like us, but I don't believe it does.

Illustration Reflection

There were many things on which I could improve on in my illustration essay. My word choice and diction were very poor. I repeated the same word or phrase in the same sentence many times. I also used a lot of slang terms and cliches. Another weakness was my attention to detail. I was vague in many places in my paper. I needed to be more specific about many explanations. My overall wording was very poor. I think that I did well with my topic sentences. They described exactly what was going to be in the paragraph. I also liked my title. It was not boring, but it caught the reader's eye. My main goal going into the comparison and contrast essay is not to be repetitive and to have much better word choice. I'm going to try to avoid slang terms and use more technical and proper wording. The first essay was definitely a wake up call to what I must start to do with my writing, and I hope that my next essay will reflect my ability much more.

Comparing and Contrasting Writings

These two writings argue over the restriction of immigrants allowed into the United States. Both make good points, but the first essay, Close the Borders to All Newcomers, makes many better points. They both give many their opinions on what they think should be done with immigration, but Give us Your Best, Your Brightest makes many points that don't apply to what the author is actually talking about. Only the first essay gives solutions to what should be done. The author thinks that a law should be made to completely halt all legal immigration. The other author thinks nothing needs to be done. That the laws should stay just the way they are. The first author uses pathos and ethos as his persuading strategies to get the audience on his side, while the second uses only ethos to get his point across. Maybe that is the reason why most people would side with the first writing instead of the second. Both use studies to try to prove their point, but the first goes more in depth in the study while the second uses multiple ones but doesn't say much about them. It has a less personal feel with the audience than the first because of that and many other reasons. The two author's pieces have some points in common, but their opinions could not be more different.

Commercial Fallacies

ASPCA Animal Abuse Commercial
In this commercial, there are many fallacies that try to induce the audience into giving money to the ASPCA to assist them in helping animals that have been abused. One fallacy is the slippery slope. It tries to make you feel like if you don't give money then more and more animals will be abused. Until it comes to the large consequence where millions of animals are abused. Another fallacy it the appeal to authority. The commercial includes Sarah McLachlan. She is definitely not an expert on the topic of animal abuse. She is simply a singer. But they include her just to try to make the argument stronger. The last fallacy that is in this commercial is appeal to pity. There are many pictures of abused dogs and cats to try to make you feel bad for them. It makes you want to help them. If you think about it, almost every advertisement has some sort of fallacy included in it. But they work on the audience over and over, so they continue to use them.

My Writing Style

My writing style is very unspecific and vague. I write in almost any place, at any time, with any amount of noise and distractions. Like right now I am writing this blog in my room at ten thirty with very loud music which could be distracting, but it doesn't affect me much at all. Brainstorming is something I do very little of. My ideas come straight out of my head and onto my paper. Maybe thats why most of my writing is so pathetic. I should start doing that more. Because I have such an informal wriiting style, that is why my writing is not as good as it could be. I am going to work on improving my style so it will reflect itself better in my writing.