Blog 7

Kanika Khanna commented, “I’d like to hear more about the pictoral aspect of this add. You do a great job focusing on the verbal context – why not elaborate on the visual?” This is a valuable comment because it points out a whole other side of the aspect, which is weak in my essay, therefore resulting in my argument having a weakness. Incorporating more on the pictorial aspect of the advertisement will provide further backing up for my claim, and further assimilate the use of immediate visual context.

Rhetoric seems to be the most important term learned in class so far. Rhetoric encompasses a whole world of meanings and situations. As we defined in class, “rhetoric is the human use of signs and symbols to communicate.” Rhetoric is found everywhere in life, and therefore it becomes a form of communication in its entirety. As I stated in a previous blog, “We live through rhetoric or more specifically rhetoric lives through us… Rhetoric doesn’t necessarily need words, sometimes it is just found in the actions of others and oneself.” Therefore if we are a part of rhetoric and rhetoric is a part of us, it can be said to be the most important term, because we live it everyday.

My adnalysis placed a heavy emphasis upon gender stereotyping within advertisements, in which women are portrayed to be the weaker or subordinate sex. The emphasis upon this gender stereotyping is relatable to emotional proof, which “is used to appeal to and arouse the feelings of the audience.” (Wood, 149) I took my interpretation of the advertisement and attempted to invoke the pathos of an audience just like the advertisement tries to invoke pathos. Except I tried to sway the audience into seeing my interpretation that women are subordinate by saying this such as: “The overall body position of the female appeals to the ritualization of subordination; which states that the positioning of the body ‘renders one very dependent on the benignness of the surround.’ (Goffman, 9)” Through that statement I was attempting to pain a picture that the woman was relying heavily on the man instead of supporting herself, therefore providing support, emotional proof, to my claims that women are weak, subordinate and have rely on men.

Works Citied:
1. Wood, Nancy. Essentials of Argument. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.
2. Goffman, Erving. Gender Advertisments. Harper Collins, 1979.
3. Tozzi, Stefanie. "Blog 1." Web Log post. Web. http://www.stefanietozzi.blogspot.com/.
4. Class (mainly Stein, Averick, Lella, and Lehrfield). Rhetoric. 2 Feb. 2010

Blog 6

One comment that I found most useful in my peer reviews was “Part of TRACE analysis- constraints and exigence portion not clearly identifiable.” The assignment for the ad essay was that while writing said essay to utilize TRACE as a key tool in expressing argument. While outlining my essay I defined the portions of TRACE and exigence for myself however it seems that those points in the outline were either not carried over to the essay or not clearly defined within the essay, which is something that needs to be fixed. Utilizing TRACE is an important aspect of the essay; therefore if it is unidentifiable there could be a miscommunication with the message of my essay which would lead to an unsuccessful argument.

According to Essentials of Argument warrants are “the assumptions, the general principles, conventions of specific disciplines, widely held values, commonly accepted beliefs, and appeals to human motives that are an important part of any argument.” (111) Arguments work better when warrants are shared by the arguer and the audience because if they are not they are then “in conflict.” (112) If the audience is to agree with the warrants of the arguer then they (audience) will be more likely to be accommodating to the argument, therefore the argument is convincing. The opposite would be true if the audience did not accept the warrants, such that the argument would not be convincing. (112)

Works Citied:

1. Wood, Nancy. Essentials of Argument. 2^nd ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.