E110 FA19 Class Blog

In Maya Walker’s “To Meme or Not to Meme”, she explores the possibility that memes are more damaging than they are helpful. She presents her argument that memes seem to normalize bad behaviors and as a result people suffer in silence because they are under the impression that their depression is a regular thing. She builds this argument effectively by appealing to the audience’s emotions with the discussion of sensitive subjects as well as urging them to fix their behavior with backup from an authority figure. 

As a result of using authority figures such as Ryan M. Milnerand Loughborough University, Walker she builds a trust between the audience and her. This trust will impact how the audience will interpret her message when they finish with her work. They will be more likely to trust Walker’s argument and side with her. 

Her argument however, is not only strengthened by her use of ethos but goes deeper to pathos. She creates a significant emotional connection to her audience when she discusses her personal story of how she came to find memes damaging her mental health. By doing this, Walker is able to gain sympathy from others and makes them more likely to believe.

Despite using both ethos and pathos, her work lacks proper evidence that memes are linked to poor mental health. She presents basic blanket statements but no logical data or patterns. 

However, her urgency to fix the situation allows the audience to bypass the idea of whether or not this is logical. They have already been drawn in by professionals and emotion that they feel they are able to act quick. 

Walker effectively uses appeals to build trust, therefore writing an effective argument, as an argument is only as good as the audience interprets it to be. 

John Bachman-Paternoster, the author of “Antibiotics & Superbugs: The Future of Health,” lost his father due to two superbug infections in March of 2017. This is what set off his curiosity and anger towards the overuse of antibiotics and the resulting superbugs. A superbug is a bacteria, like MRSA, that is resistant to antibiotics so it is incredibly hard to treat and slow down. These superbugs are impossible to stop due to over prescribed antibiotics and insertion of antibiotics within our everyday food production. Throughout this essay, the author did a good job structuring the way he used his emotional and logical reasoning in order to inform the readers of this topic. Once you have caught the reader’s attention with the facts, it is best to connect with them through an emotional appeal. This helps the audience fully understand the concern and have them possibly relate it to their own life so they actually listen and take caution to the issue being presented. In this case, it is best to provide a fact from a researcher or medical based professional about a superbug and then connect the idea to a personal story like the writer did with about his father. Also, through his word choice and sentence structure, he did a good job controlling his overall tone which helps maintain the connection between the author and the audience. One example where the author utilized these key ways, was when he informed the reader of what a superbug actually is and the danger of it, and then connected it to the death of his father. By using a logical appeal and then connecting it to an emotional appeal, it helps to further push the point and get the reader thinking. 

In his essay, Progress Built on a Wasteland: Electronic Consumerism & the Dangers of E-waste, Ben Schlusser writes about how the consumption of electronics is negatively affecting the environment. Schlusser establishes a strong sense of authority and credibility through his paper by always supporting his claims with evidence from highly regarded sources. As well as building credibility through evidence, Schlusser effectively appeals to the readers’ emotions by making them feel overwhelmed and saddened by the state of the environment as well as a sense of responsibility to create change. He does this especially well in the opening paragraph when he instills a sense of fear in the reader which catches their attention and creates a want to know more. “‘In Ghana, fires smolder and spew thick smoke across a blackened landscape littered with shiny green circuit boards and the emptied plastic shells of laptops (McElvaney).’ These scenarios seem apocalyptic, but they are real, and they are cropping up around the world every day.” 

Schlusser’s essay is successful in educating society on the problems caused by E-waste. His use of evidence is effective in supporting his thesis and inspiring the want and need for change. Overall, Schlusser writes a very moving and well-written essay.

In this paper the author who goes by John Bachman-Paternoster makes the point to stop using antibiotics so much. The reason for this is he shows how that antibiotic are prescribed when they are not needed a lot of the time and that antibiotics can hurt people. They hurt them by destroying their good bacteria and by possibly creating super bugs from the surviving bacteria. In this paper the author demonstrates all of the forms of argument. The strongest parts of the argument that is made is the ethos and the logos. The author makes a strong point using a lot of research and medical facts to make you take his point seriously. The logos used is also very strong and persuades the reader that what he is proposing is common sense and that it is very logical. The weakest part of the arguments. The problems with the argument come with the pathos part. The author uses a personal anecdote and fear to try and persuade the reader to agree with him. This argument relies to much on trying to pry on readers emotions than facts and logic. Though this may work on some people it did not on me and I found it to be very useless in this piece. The author makes a good enough case for himself using all of his medical research and other facts to make a compelling case. The pathos of this paper just seemed unnecessary.

The essay entitled  “Antibiotics & Superbugs: The Future of Health?” by author John Bachman-Paternoster, is a well written essay does that an excellent job of conveying the purpose to the audience.  Bachman-Paternoster argues that this is causing bacteria to evolve into superbugs, which has become a crisis, requiring action to be taken in order to prevent this crisis from worsening. He utilizes the four main appeals of rhetoric: logos, pathos, ethos, and kairos to affecting convey the crisis to the reader. For example, the use of recent research regarding superbugs is utilized throughout the essays creation, showing the audience how relevant this issue is worldwide. Bachman-Paternoster includes a statement made by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1945 stating, “Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant,” (Bachman-Paternoster qtd. Fleming) This adds to the authors argument as the relevance is increased if it has been a fear for over seventy years. This is the work or kairos, which is the appeal used to show relevance. The excellent use of this appeal, as well as others, results in a well-crafted essay that is effective in spreading the word on these superbugs and antibiotics.

The article, “Antibiotics and Superbugs: The Future of Health?,”  by John Bachman-Paternoster effectively argued that superbugs will be detrimental to world health if necessary actions are not taken to shift the focus of scientific exploration surrounding bacteria to promote beneficial bacteria and avoiding the misuse of antibiotics. The author is successful in arguing his point due to the appeal to the audience and emotion, along with his credibility and rationality he uses throughout the article. 

Bachman-Paternoster constantly challenges the audience to make a difference on the issue and embeds a tragic story into his article, which forces the audience to feel both sympathetic and a sense of urge to take action on the serious issue. The author uses evidence from outside, credible sources to improve his authority and effectively argue his point. Through these strategies, the author is able to craft an article that is productive in proving his argument and leaving a lasting impression on the audience, inspiring them to implement the actions necessary for change.

Furthermore, the author incorporates and intertwines various strategies in order to successfully convey his argument. For example, the article states, “in total, about half of antibiotic prescriptions for respiratory conditions, and 30% of all outpatient antibiotic prescriptions were deemed to be inappropriately prescribed (Fleming-Dutra, et al. 1869).” Using credible sources, logic, statistics, and appealing to the audience and their emotions allows for Bachman-Paternoster to effectively deliver his argument.

In To Meme or Not to Meme, Walker wrote a concise, well supported, and organized article on how memes are playing a role in the epidemic of mental illness. Walker expressed that this new comfort has lead to the growth of dark-humored memes that deals with mental illness. Walker continued to argue that the memes make light of a serious problem, and the memes don’t emphasize how dangerous and unhealthy it truly is. Walker does a fantastic job of formatting, organizing, and researching her article. In the introductory paragraph, she uses pathos to grab the reader’s attention and keep them interested. Walker used ethos to show her audience that what she wrote about means a lot to her. Walker did an excellent job to leave the audience with a powerful topic to think about, and how they can help. The argument is organized in a logical manner, leaving little to no room for the reader to be confused or grasp the severity of the situation. She restates in numerous ways and explanations that people who suffer from mental illness can use memes to cope, and or promote unhealthy habits. If Walker did not show so much vulnerability, her authority would not be as strong as it is. In showing her vulnerability, she shows the audience that this is a topic that can affect anyone and she knows first hand what memes can do to someone with a mental illness. Generation Z is the ones who are going to be affected the most, their entire lives they’ve been glued to technology, and as they get older social media. There is no way to get around it. Walker experienced first hand the severity and potentially fatal consequences of what dark-humored memes can do to someone who is struggling. Not only did she flawlessly do so, but she additionally added evidence from credible sources as well as real memes from the internet to get her point across.

In the essay “To Meme or not to Meme” the author, Maya Walker, does a good job of using an array of rhetorical devices to form a strong argument. Her use of Kairos and Pathos in particular really made her writing jump out to you and make the reader feel the need to change the way memes about mental health are not taken seriously. Maya’s usage of Kairos is seen in the quote “Generation Z is the “most likely of all generations to report poor mental health” (American Psychological Association, 2018), and I would contend that the way we talk about mental health online might just be to blame for that.” The writer chose to write her essay about mental health and the struggles that come along with it because it is very current topic that makes up a big part of today’s society. She wants to get the idea across that satirizing depression isn’t healthy before it’s too late. Additionally, her usage of Pathos in the quote “The internet should not be one’s sole source of emotional support, and the idea that it even could be is wildly ludicrous and incredibly dangerous for suffering teenagers” really tugs at the readers emotions. 

Any average person would be affected by the term “suffering teens” in one way or another.

As a reader, the one thing that needs improvement is the repetition of her writing. She makes a lot of valid arguments, but they are repeated or brought up multiple times and seems to jump back and forth between referring to her arguments. If she discussed one argument in its entirety and then moved on to her next claim I think it would make her writing easier to understand. Ultimately, what we learned from Maya’s essay is that if we don’t break the stigma that satirizing mental health by using it as a source of content for memes is acceptable, then the goal of improving mental health won’t be attainable.

In Marina Smolens’ essay entitled, “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Photojournalism,” she explores the idea of the possibly exploitative and over-beautifying nature of modern photojournalism. Through her balanced use of an emotional appeal in pathos, establishing authority in ethos, and providing many credible sources in logos, Smolens successfully proved her thesis with a strong argument.

According to this essay, “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Photojournalism”, photojournalism is different from fine art photography in some key ways and certain rules apply to photojournalists and their work. There is a lot of pressure and critiques placed upon photojournalists as their job is to tread on a fine line between ethics and information.

Smolens used pathos, ethos, and logos to strengthen her argument and appeal to and capture the attention of her audience.

Smolens utilized pathos in many ways throughout the course of her essay. For instance, when discussing Sebastiao Salgado’s photograph, “The End of the Road”, Smolens uses a lot of emotionally charged language to connect with the reader and get her point across. Using this kind of language allows for the reader to emotionally connect with the piece and it strengthens the argument because the audience gets personally invested which makes them more likely to believe the thesis.  Since the topic of this essay was centered around the beautification and ethical nature of photojournalism, Smolens used an abundance of pathos which served her argument well.

Smolens also used the technique of ethos in her essay extensively. Smolens achieved this technique by researching and citing background information from the National Press Photographers Association and its Code of Ethics in order to establish the fact that she is knowledgeable about the topic at hand.

Personally, there were a few things I would have done differently if I was writing about this topic. I would have focused on more prominently controversial photos for my examples. Using pictures with more cultural weight would have taken Smolens’ argument to another level.

Although there were a few things I would have done differently when tackling this topic, Smolens successfully proved her thesis through her use of many argumentative methods. She appealed to her audience’s emotions using pathos, established her own authority and credibility on the topic using ethos, and provided many credible sources and quotes in logos.