TOW #4- "In Cold Blood" (IRB)

As you already know I decided to read In Cold Blood as my first independent reading book. So far, from what I've read, In Cold Blood is as good if not better than what I expected it to be.

Essentially the story takes place in a small, no-name town, Holcomb, Kansas. In the first ten or so pages, Truman Capote thoroughly and with much detail sets up what will be the main setting of the book. For those who don't know about Holcomb (which is the majority of readers) Capote goes into great detail about the people of the town, the makeup of the town, and what the people of the town are like. First hand accounts of the day-to-day living styles of the farmers of Holcomb. The introductory phase of the book was a very good exposition that Capote created. Not only did Capote lay out the setting but he also shed light onto the characters and the tone that this story is going to be told in. A very ominous tone is created by Capote that strongly foreshadows a terrible outcome for the Cutter's, the main family that is introduced in the first chapter.

Capote sets up the story in a very interesting fashion. There are two plot lines that are developing at the same time but neither plot lines know what is going on in the other. In a sense it is a derived version of parallelism that is built up in a bigger context. Not only is one sentence paralleling another yet with different content, one story is paralleling another that while eventually cross paths. I think Truman Capote does this to install suspense and the want to read more into the reader which is his overall purpose of the first half of the book. As I was reading, Capote would advance one of the plot lines almost to the point where you found something out or one of your questions was answered and then he would switch to the other and do the same thing. Capote does a great job of teasing the reader with these two plot lines that I am assuming, will eventually collide in a dramatic fashion.

TOW #3 "What Happens When A Smoker Quits" (Visual)

I decided to look at an infographic this week that was published by the American Cancer Society not too long ago. The infographic is a detailed yet concise timeline that briefly describes at every time period what happens when a smoker quits. The American Cancer Society is a nationwide voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer. This gives some insight without even looking at the infographic what might be on it and what ideas they might be presenting.

The audience of this infographic is spreads from one end of the spectrum all the way down to the other. Of course this image primarily serves to incentivize smokers to quit and how beneficial it would be for them to do so even after not a long period of time. So the direct audience I would have to say would be any current smoker. A secondary audience for this infographic is anyone that has a family member, friend, or anyone in their life that they care about who smokes. It shows them how helpful quitting smoking can be for someone who smokes.

The biggest and most noticeable rhetorical device that is used in this visual is pathos. The only image used in the visual is a shriveled, used up cigarette that conveys a somber tone that parallels the feeling that cigarettes cause to smokers. For anyone who has a loved one who smokes this is something that they see on a daily basis, an used cigarette. That one small image is so powerful that to people that smoke, that little cigarette is the difference between their utmost health and an early death.

The interesting thing to note is that instead of the normal ads that just show the gruesome and horrible effects that cigarettes have, this one is the opposite. It shows what happens to people that stop smoking. The American Cancer Society has shifted their audience from people thinking about smoking or starting to smoke to people that have been smoking and smoke a lot in their lifetime. They recognize the fact that they need to motivate and emotionally drive cigarette smokers to stop. It's so easy to look at this infographic and see how easily obtainable those goals are.

(http://i.imgur.com/PGYDt67.jpg)

TOW #2- "On the Field, the Babble Is Usually Towering" (Written)

This week for my Text of the Week I chose to read an article published by the New York Times. The article was written by Bill Pennington and it was just published yesterday. Pennington talks about how much communication is used on the football field now a days as compared to the late 90's. Pennington broke down the New York Giants football team by position while explaining what they do in between each play. He explains that the players now have communication systems built into their helmets on both offense and defense to make the play calling much easier. Aside from that Pennington also noted that the Quarterback and other players are still shouting commands and warnings just mere seconds before the ball is snapped.

Bill Pennington is of course writing this article for the interest of sports fans and even the very rudimentary sports fans who are interested by this information. It is unlike your normal sports article which focuses on the sport itself, the people playing it, the match ups, and the scores. Bill Pennington used logos to help support his opinions. Pennington first started the article by stating "About 125 times during a typical N.F.L. game, an official retrieves the football at the end of a play and places it on the turf for the next play." He then went on to use one-on-one interviews that he had with current New York Giants players. “There’s a lot going on in a condensed few seconds,” quarterback Eli Manning said. This can be considered expert testimony because although Eli Manning isn't an "expert" he is a professional.

From what I could analyze, Pennington's purpose was to inform sports fans of the importance and amount of communication used on the football field. By giving perspective's of all the different players, Pennington showed that everyone uses communication and they use it frequently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sports/football/on-the-field-the-babble-is-usually-towering.html?hpw&rref=sports&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

IRB Intro #1- "In Cold Blood"

The Independent Reading Book that I chose for this first marking period is called In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Truman Capote is a highly-acclaimed author who is best known for writing Breakfast at Tiffany's. In Cold Blood is a book about four people who were brutally murdered in a small Kansas town. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. The reason why I chose to read this book is because from what I heard it is very similar to a murder mystery book except the fact that this actually happened! I'm really looking forward to learning more about this bone-chilling homicide. I hope by reading this book it can help give me insights into the nature of American violence.

TOW #1-"How To Say Nothing In 500 Words" (Written)

How To Say Everything In 500 Words is a short essay written by a English professor and professional linguist, Paul Roberts. Roberts used a central analogy of you, a high school freshman, being assigned a 500 word essay on Friday right before the weekend. The essay is on a topic that must students don't have a particular interest in, College Football. Roberts goes through saying how this "essay" that most students end up writing is horrid and by the end of the five-hundred words it really doesn't get anywhere. After using this analogy to represent what happens to most students when they write class essays, Roberts then goes over stuff to avoid and stuff to include. He states that any obvious argument that most other kids would use, should be left out. Another suggestion he presents is that you should use concretized material instead of the abstracts that most students use.

After reading Paul Roberts' essay I can conclude that his intended audience is composed of students anywhere from middle school to college that are plagued with this very common essay writing problem. One rhetorical strategy Roberts employed is a hypophora. In the beginning of the essay Roberts basically asked the reader, what should you do when you are assigned a paper that's due in a few days? Roberts then went on to answer his own question by stating the various things to avoid and to include into your paper.

I feel the main reason Paul Roberts wrote this short piece was to just overall help students understand how to improve their essay writing abilities. He wants to inform the general public about the common mistakes students make when writing an essay. This was the most intriguing and helpful article for me as a student. Roberts accomplished his purpose because he impacted me with what he said. Now when I have to write an essay, I have this piece bookmarked so I can quickly review over what he said to think about when writing.