Bailes~Composition 1

We've been talking in class about a range of arguments--a range that falls between the use of coercion or force (such as in war) versus the use of persuasion or seduction (such as in advertising).

Between these two poles are various degrees of both, with the use of rational argument or law (such as in a legal case) in the middle of this range.

The use of persuasion concerns us now. And one of the best to teach this human art is the psychologist Carl Rogers. Rogers discovered in his counseling practice that the best way to help others was through being "client-oriented" or "person-oriented." This meant listening and reflecting what another was doing or saying, empathizing with and respecting him or her, and finding some congruence with this person.

You will be using the Rogerian Argument in your next essay. This method prefers dialogue over debate. The goal in this method is not winning an argument; it is instead creating effective communication. Please identify the four parts in the Rogerian Argument (click on the link). Why is the Rogerian Approach so effective in emotionally charged arguments?

It's hard to ignore the constant advertising coming at us every day--maybe because it's everywhere! Our lives are flooded with advertisements from the radio and television, from websites and emails, from magazines and mailings, from outdoor signs and billboards, and even from objects used to hold products (as with this old Coca-Cola "cold box" ) and even from the products themselves.

I believe that if we don't know how to deal with advertisements, they will suck us into deals we should avoid. How do I know? I've been sucked in many times because I thought a product would make me feel better or make me more attractive. Yet the best way to deal with the amazing wooing power of advertisements is to step back and start with analysis. Analysis is a powerful thinking tool that we can use to break apart its object and in this case, advertisements.

I've always believed Aristotle was the best place to begin with analysis. As I have emphasized in class, start by using Aristotle's topics of invention to break apart any object or idea and you will have success.

But there is more. Analysis of an advertisement requires understanding its appeals. And since advertising is essentially a persuasive argument attempting to convince a person to buy or do something, I say we should begin with Aristotle's three appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos). The Greek philosopher identified these appeals as the core elements to any successful argument. Study these appeals, for they are critical to any final analysis of an advertisement.

With advertising, I believe we have to look at some other tricks of the trade too, namely the kinds of hooks advertisers use to engage their audience. Some of these are the following:

• Emotional Transfer Appeal~the process of switching emotions from person to product happens all of the time in advertisements. For example, Levi's shows a couple "walk the line" in a television advertisement that is intense, using a famous Johnny Cash song to enhance a bond with brand product and a romantic experience. In this advertisement, Levi's takes a male-female coming together and blends it with a renewed product line of straight-legged jeans.
• Appeal to Fear~this emotional appeal is directed to an audience's own fears and insecurities, which usually mean some type of loss, potential harm, or even death. In this Think UK commerical, fear of harm and death in a motorcycle accident is used to communicate the importance of safe driving.
• Appeal through Humor~for example, this Windex commercial uses humor to remind us that Windex's glass cleaner is so good that it can be risky for those not paying attention to glass doors, as with the man in this advertisement. But this advertisement takes humor one step further by having a bird trick the man and then laughing it up with his bird friend. The trickster bird happens to be a magpie, a member of the raven and jay family. This group of birds are often associated with playing tricks in various myths.
• Sex Appeal~often advertisements appeal to sex by appealing to humor, as in this Bud Light commercial. This commercial begins by giving us a hint of what is to befall the new guy in a four-man race of street luge, for we wonder why his three contenders have high soprano voices. And we won't know that until later. We soon find out. So what is it? Sex. An attractive female waitress serving Bud Light diverts a luge racer's attention just as he is about to win. Not only does the distracted racer lose the race, he also loses his manly voice. In this clever advertisement, sexual attraction is linked to Bud Light beer.
• Hype Appeal~this appeal uses exaggerated claims about a product or service. Thousands of instances of exaggerated claims flood our market everyday, promising to shave off pounds in 30 days or kick smoking in 60 days. One diet product has been challenged for making such claims; it is called Slim Down and promises to absorb up to 20 grams of dietary fat a day without changing your diet or exercising. It even claims that you will "Lose 10 Pounds And 2 Inches In 30 Days Or Your Money Back!"
• Peer or Bandwagon Appeal~nothing like doing or buying something so that we fit in, so that we feel we're on the same team. Advertisers know how powerful this urge can be. Creating such a social incentive if we buy a product can often guarantee a sell. Haven't you bought something or done something just because your friends or a group with which you identify did? I have. Last year, XBOX 360 used this appeal, telling people that everyone will have one. My son has XBOX but wanted XBOX 360 because everyone was getting the new and improved video/computer game. I held my ground. Just waiting for the price to come down, right?

You may now be at the stage in your research ready to draft a paper. You'll probably already have some good notes to which you can refer as you draft your paper.

You'll need an outline before you rough out your paper. So if you click on the word "outline" in the last sentence or click on this link you should get some assistance. Your outline is meant to help organize your paper logically and effectively.

If, on the other hand, you have not finished your research or just want to continue digging along the way, you can do some serious work by clicking through the references on Diana Hacker's website, an online gold mine that can get you to numerous sources in the humanities, social sciences, history, and sciences.

(In fact, as an exercise right now, click on Hacker's site. Then roll your mouse over the words "Finding Sources" next to the heading "Social Sciences." A menu of subject areas should drop down. Click on the word "Sociology." When you have a new page, scroll down to the link "SocioSite," and then click on it. This should open a new window for "SocioSite." Now click on "Subjects," and you will be navigated to a page titled "Sociological Subjects." Find the word "Work" and click it. You should be directed to a page titled "Sociology of Labor." Now I will leave the rest to you. Scroll down and look at all the various links related to labor or work. Click on those you're interested in. Make sure you bookmark it so that you can return for research.)

After your outline, you may want help with organizing and formatting the research paper. One website, maintained by Cynthia Cavanaugh at Kean University, offers a clever way to learn how to format your paper MLA style and organize your content.

For citations in the text of your research paper or essays, you'll enjoy Judith Kilborn's The Write Place. Kilborn also provides these helpful criteria for determining whether or not a website is valid or credible enough to use for a research paper. Finally, Kilborn offers some advice on introductory tags for quotes in your research paper.

If you really want some help putting together your Works Cited page, here's a useful tool called the "Citation Maker" that will actually help you organize the cited works.

By the time you get an outline done, a rough draft completed, and your Works Cited page put together, you'll be ready for the final draft. Here's a sample of a final paper with margin notes.

For blogging, comment on where you are in this process of research and share what successes you have experienced or what concerns you may have.

Let's say you want to know the causes for our current war in Iraq. You could simply rattle off the official reasons that President Bush gave for going to war in the first place (i.e. weapons of mass destruction, terrorist ties to Al-Qaeda, etc.), but those were reasons for going to war, not causes for invasion. And as far as the Bush version is concerned, the official reasons for deciding to invade have been shown now to be false (see this Newsweek article).

Or let's say you believe that the cause of war was getting rid of a dictator, Saddam. That is America's role in the world, you claim. But what do you do with all the other dictators in the world that we do nothing about? What about North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il?

Now let's say you're of that camp who believes that the whole thing was about oil. Sure, oil may have been a strong reason that was not talked about officially. The Bush Administration is made up of lots of oil and energy people. And America does have an overdependence on oil and what better place to find it than in a country we can convince ourselves to invade so that we rid the world of a vile dictator. But we've fought other wars that had nothing to do with oil. Why this one? The American economy has needed more oil for a long time, it is true, but why Iraq? There may be some truth to this argument that oil lubed the way to an invasion in Iraq, but it is not clear that oil is the primary reason for justifying a massive invasion.

Now it gets interesting. And obviously the reasons are going to be debated. That's where cause-and-effect analysis comes in handy. In fact, if a cause-and-effect analysis had been done more completely before going to war in Iraq, then problems arising daily might have been avoided because they would have been predicted (such as post-invasion occupation) and thus allow for preparation. Nonetheless, with things going badly in Iraq, we can still use a cause-and-effect analysis to look back at what caused the crisis so that we may avoid it in the future.

Why can we make these assessments? Because cause-and-effect thinking is the best we have (unless you're some kind of modern-day Nostradamus) of determining past mistakes and future consequences. We may not be perfect or 100% accurate, but we can come approximately close. In fact, cause-and-effect analysis allows us to do two things: (1) Answer to some degree of satisfaction why an event, action, or idea happened, and (2) answer to some degree of satisfaction what happens because of an event, action, or idea.

Now if I asked you to tell me why the Iraq War happened, you might argue that it is because President Bush, as Commander-in-Chief, was decisive. You've heard the old saying that "the buck stops here," haven't you? So the president took the initiative. While Bush's decisiveness was necessary or essential for war to happen, it was not alone enough in and of itself to make the war in Iraq materialize. For the war (as with most wars) needed military forces to accomplish an invasion. No military force, no invasion.

This brings up two conditions in determining cause and effect: necessary and sufficient conditions. A necessary condition is one that must be satisfied for the result to happen. Obviously, the U.S. President's decisiveness was a necessary or essential condition for war in Iraq. The U.S. Constitution gives him that power as president. His decisiveness in the matter of war commanded armies to battle. But his decisiveness was not sufficient to bring about an invasion. He needed an armed forces adequate enough to go into Iraq. A sufficient condition is a one that, if satisfied, will bring about a definite result. In this case, American military forces invading the country of Iraq was a sufficient condition since a military invasion is in fact an act of war.

Were there any other necessary or sufficient conditions for the war in Iraq?

In research, you may look at scholary journals and popular magazines. But of these two categories, scholarly journals carry more weight for a college research paper. Why?

Popular magazines like Time, People, and National Inquirer are not as reliable as scholarly journals because popular magazines do not have the same quality controls. Scholarly journals such as the American Communication Journal or the American Journal of Science demand more precision in research, with detailed citations and indepth explanation. Read this IMPORTANT comparison between the two kinds of periodicals~CLICK HERE~then answer these questions.

1. In what specific ways do scholarly journals prove to be more reliable than popular magazines?

2. Name two more popular magazines (not mentioned above) and two other scholarly journals (not mentioned above).

You've begun your preliminary research by now, and you're probably trying to figure out where to start or where to continue at this stage. Check out these links below to help you in your preliminary research.

1. Internet Tutorials ~ This website will help you decide on the best search engines for preliminary research.

2. Social Science Research ~ Click this link to open up your research to all kinds of social science resources. For instance, at this website, you can access Portals of the World or Social Science Data Collection. You have at least 18 buttons at Social Science Research, links that will offer you multiple directions for research.

3. Google Scholar ~ I like this one because it allows for a more focused and scholarly research than just Google.

4. Google Books ~ I also like this one because you can search text only in books. You can open the books if you have a Gmail account.

5. Sloan Work & Family Research Network ~ This website is incredible! You will find much to read and follow up on by clicking on the Research button or the Workplace button.

Which of these research sites or engines was the most useful to you? Explain.

Look at the pie graph to the right. This is a graph of the main religions in the world and how many people adhere to them. While Christians represent one-third of the world or 2.1 billion people, most of the world (4 billion people) is not Christian. What other religions are represented strongly in the world other than Christianity? And what does it mean to Americans that most of the world is not Christian? How should this knowledge of religious diversity shape our understanding of the world?

Finally, notice the 16% of the world that is nonreligious, half of whom are believers in a God. This 8% of the world may view themselves as spiritual but not religious. Why? Is this a trend?