Tow #28: Documentary Rhetorical Analysis (Part 1)

Psychopath is generally a negative word. However, most people overuse the word, so it has strayed from its true meaning. They joke around and call any crazy person a psychopath. However, psychopaths are not as common as people make them out to be. "Psychopath" is a documentary that was published in the year 2000 that was used to explain to the average adult about common misconceptions about psychopaths. The main purpose of the documentary was to emphasize that psychopaths can be found everywhere and that not all psychopaths commit horrible crimes. However, they do show that much of the violent crime seen in the world today is committed by psychopaths, therefore something should be done to stop this behavior. "Psychopath" uses interviews of real-life psychopaths, expert psychologists' studies, and comparisons of normal people and psychopaths to educate the British and American population about the truth behind psychopaths. Two psychopaths were interviewed and used for this documentary, but one man in particular was effective in explaining what exactly a psychopath is. This man was a prisoner named Wayne (his last name was not given) who had already been in prison for ten years for molesting young boys and killing his brother. When this man spoke, it was chilling because his tone was so calm and convincing. He seemed really charismatic and was able to make the viewer believe that killing his brother was justified. The inclusion of this man's honest thoughts was crucial in helping the viewer understand how the psychopathic mind works. Experts can explain the psychopathic mind as best as they can, but showing an actual psychopath's thought process was much more effective in gaining an understanding about how these types of people think, and therefore helped educate the audience about all psychopaths. However, an expert's facts about psychopaths was also very helpful in explaining the misconceptions about psychopaths. They provided plenty of statistics and explained how psychopaths are diagnosed. For example, one statistic was that 20% of the prison population is made up of psychopaths, but about half of violent crime is committed by psychopaths. This shows that there is a problem with likelihood of crime being committed by psychopaths, therefore their behavior should be altered to better benefit the world. Lastly, comparisons of psychopathic people to non-psychopathic people was able to show why psychopaths commit horrible crimes. In the documentary, there were two images of brains held side by side; one was a normal brain, the other psychopathic. The normal brain's emotional part was much more activated than the psychopathic brain. This illustrated the fact that psychopaths do not experience emotions the same way non-psychopaths do, and so they lack empathy and compassion. This helped the audience gain a better understanding of the psychopathic brain and therefore helped educate them more. After watching this documentary, I will never use the word psychopath to describe a crazy person. Psychopaths are not crazy and it is insensitive to associate the two words with each other. Hopefully, in the future, as a result of this documentary and other's like it, people will refrain from over-using of the word.

Tow #27: TOW Reflection

After reading through some of the TOW's I wrote throughout the year, I noticed that I have made a lot of progress in improving my writing. First of all, I got much better at introducing my topic. With my first marking period TOW's, I went right into information about the author or evidence from the article. Towards the end of the year, the TOW's started with a general statement to better introduce my topic. I also noticed that my TOW's gradually became less formulaic. Although I never fully got the grasp of breaking away from a certain structure, I think I at least improved in that my writing became more natural. Overall, I think I mastered identifying the purposes of texts, whether it was a short article, a full length book, or a picture. At the beginning of the year, I struggled a bit with misidentifying the purpose of what I was reading, especially with the visual texts. As the year went on, I definitely got better at finding the purpose of texts, and I started to find it more quickly with practice. I could still use a lot of improvement with other aspects of writing TOW's. For example, when I analyze rhetorical devices, I find myself repeating a lot of my analysis. I will say that one rhetorical device gives the same effect as another, when in reality the effect may be similar, but I need to make the distinction between the two devices. It is important for me to work on seeing each rhetorical device as an individual tool that helps bring together one single purpose in its own effective way. While these TOW assignments often seemed tedious, I think that I benefited a lot from doing them. It was good way to practice writing analysis type essays throughout the year. This helped with the AP exam because analysis was the first essay we learned, so when we shifted into argument based essays, we could still practice our analysis skills. I also think I benefited from these TOW assignments because it improved my writing. With so much practice, it is almost impossible not to improve. The only problem with the TOW assignments was that I think we did them too often. Had we done them once every other week or once every ten days, I think I would have written better TOW's and benefited even more from them.

Tow #25: Visual Text: Don't Drink and Drive Advertisement

Drinking and driving has been a huge issue in America for many years. Due to the amount of car accidents that driving while on the influence of alcohol can cause, many car companies and other organizations have created advertisements to help discourage drunk driving among the American population. These advertisements typically have a strong appeal to pathos and a demonstration of the consequence of drunk driving. This advertisement above is no exception. The picture above uses a statistic paired with shocking imagery to show that drinking and driving is an unacceptable behavior because of the damage it brings to the quality of life of people. The statistic that this advertisement uses is that every forty-eight seconds, another person if affected by a drunk driver and becomes handicapped. That is a lot of people to become handicapped and it shows that it is unacceptable to have so many people be handicapped.  With this irrefutable evidence, this advertisement not only appeals to pathos, but also logos. Someone looking at this advertisement logically will know that drunk driving must stop because it happens to often. In addition to statistics, the advertisement also uses a imagery to show Americans that drinking and driving is wrong. The image that this advertisement uses is a handicapped parking spot. By itself the image is not very shocking, but paired with the words that a drunk driver "makes another person eligible to park here" creates shock value. The image of the handicapped parking spot makes the viewer see will happen to someone if they are hit by a car caused by a drunk driver. By combining an appeal to logos and pathos through statistics that pair well with the image, this advertisement successfully achieves its purpose of making people aware of the consequences of drunk driving.  

IRB Introduction #4: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

For my fourth independent reading book, I chose to read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I am reading this book mostly because I have enjoyed crime shows for many years, but I have never read a crime book. I also chose to read a book about a murder because it could go nicely with another book a read this year called Stiff. That book taught me a lot about what happens to people after they die, so any lingo about the deceased victims should be more common knowledge. I hope to gain from this book a better understanding as to how and why people are capable of being driven to commit such violent acts. Because the book the true, I'm hoping that the story will be much more chilling than other books I have read.

Tow #24: IRB "Me Talk Pretty One Day" By David Sedaris (Part 2)

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris, is a collection of twenty-seven creative nonfiction essays by an author known for his satirical and sarcastic tone. These essays are divided into two parts, One and Deux. One was mostly about Sedaris's life growing up in North Carolina and being forced to deal wtih a speech inpediment as well as other issues that separated him from other children. However, Deux switches into the story of how Sedaris moved to France and the struggles of learning French. The fact that the second part is called Deux, the French word for two, it indicates the shift structurally and creates an interesting effect. Sedaris's overall purpose in Deux is to tell the story of his struggles of learning French, which he achieves by using examples of the some of the unpleasant social situations he ended up in due to a lack of experience with the language as well as references to the title of his book. When he first started learning French, most of Sedaris's sentences were jumbled and made little sense. Sedaris demonstrates this by translating what he said in a humorous way. For example, he would say things like "see you again yesterday" (163) or other statements that made people shake their heads until he was able to "talk pretty one day". By including the exact translation of the wording he used, Sedaris shows the audience exactly what native speakers thought of his speech. This demonstrates the struggle that Sedaris had to go through to learn French. When he uses this to satirize himself, it is entertaining to the audience because it is humorous. Sedaris also alludes to the title of his book a lot throughout this section of the book. In fact, one of the essays is called "Me Talk Pretty One Day." An example of this title inclusion in this essay is after Sedaris tried to comfort a classmate that was feeling depressed about his struggles with French. Sedaris said, "much more work and someday you talk pretty" (171). The inclusion of part of the title of the book and essay create an interesting effect that makes the story more entertaining. It also shows Sedaris's overall purpose more clearly because it is the title of the book. Overall, this book is enjoyable because of the humor through the use of personal anecdotes and allusions to his own title that helps drive the story.

Tow #23: Article: "Legalizing Medical Marijuana May Actually Reduce Crime" by Matt Ferner

Goals: When reading I would like to take better notes and spend more time with the text to fully understand it. When writing the TOW, I would like to avoid repetition in my analysis.

The debate over whether marijuana, medical or recreational, should be legalized has been an issue in the United States for decades. Matt Ferner, an author of many political opinion articles for the Huffington Post, added to this age-old debate by arguing that the legalization of medical marijuana does not create more crime but actually could reduce crime. In order to support this claim, Ferner uses facts from colleges who conducted an extensive amount of research on the topic, as well as statistics provided by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. In order to show that marijuana does not increase crime, Ferner uses data from Robert Morris, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas and conductor of the study of the effect of medical marijuana on crime rates from 1990 to 2006. Morris told the Huffington Post the he "found no evidence of increases in [...] crimes for states after legalizing marijuana for medical use" and in fact found that for crimes such as homicide and assault, there was "partial support for declines" in crime rates. Ferner uses Morris to appeal to ethos because he demonstrates that the source he used is credible. In addition to an appeal to ethos, Ferner's inclusion of Morris's facts show the audience that medical marijuana could be a benefit to society because there is no evidence to support that it increases crime rates. Along with data from the University of Texas, Ferner uses statistics from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to prove that medical marijuana does not increase crime. This source is used mainly to show that marijuana is not the main cause of violent acts of crimes, but alcohol is. According to a study conducted by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, "25 percent to 30 percent of violent crimes are linked to alcohol use." This is where Ferner's argument becomes ineffective. Rather than proving that medical marijuana reduces crime rates, he shows that alcohol increases crime rates. This a tangent that weakens his argument because while alcohol increases crime, medical marijuana may also increase crime. Although he does appeal to ethos, Ferner does not fully achieve his purpose due to the tangent of talking about alcohol rather than sticking to his original idea to proving that medical marijuana decreases crime.

Tow #22: Article: "America's Creepy, Surveillance-Endorsing Love of NCIS" by Gregg Easterbrook

It has been about 12 and a half years since 9/11 and the tragic event still influences some of our most popular television programs. Gregg Easterbrook, contributing editor of The Atlantic, examines the effect of 9/11 on crime shows like NCIS in his latest article "America's Creepy, Surveillance-Endorsing Love of NCIS." In this article, Easterbrook uses comparisons of NCIS to the real world through the use of statistics and specific examples from the show to prove that NCIS is NSA propaganda that is America's most watched drama due to a post 9/11 audience watching it. The National Security Agency, or NSA, is an intelligence agency of the United States government that protects the security of American citizens. This security includes protection from terrorist threats, which is a prominent subject in most of the episodes of NCIS. Easterbrook uses statistics to prove that unlike NCIS, these crimes do not occur as often in real life and the bad guys do not get caught every time. For example, Easterbrook stated that in 2012 only 1 in 800 officers actually fired at a suspect. In NCIS and other shows like it, firearms are used on a regular basis. This shows Americans an unrealistic depiction of government heroes that must defend our country daily. A post 9/11 audience enjoys this type of show because the government agents or so-called "good guys" are constantly shooting at and defeating the bad guys, which in NCIS are usually terrorists. Easterbrook shows that this is also NSA propaganda because it makes the NSA look almost perfect because they always defeat the bad guys. Easterbrook also uses specific examples from NCIS to prove that 9/11 influences the show. Easterbrook stated that in one episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, terrorists with generic foreign accents had taken three atomic bombs left over from the Cold War and threatened to "kill everyone west of the Mississippi River in 48 hours." It was ultimately up to the government to save America, so it was depicting the NSA as America's ultimate superhero. Easterbrook argues that the reason why this show is so popular is because post 9/11 audiences enjoy seeing our government beat the terrorists even if it is fictitious. With the use of statistics and examples, Easterbrook proved that the connection between popular drama shows and 9/11 audiences is very possible.