We just heard an interview from Nevada (the location of the final debate), where the interviewer talked to two neighbors (one supported Trump and one supported Clinton). The Trump supporter built up her ethos by mentioning that she is a teacher who worries about educational resources who also lived in Mexico for some time. She also does a good job when it comes to “concession and refutation” when she says “I know he’s not my dream date”. This class has taught me how to work on assignments more than the day before they are due. This has improved my quality of work greatly. It has also taught me during argumentation that it is important to acknowledge the opposing view points.
Monthly Archives: October 2016
Process Work
I feel as though I worked a lot harder on this paper than I have on any other in college so far. I am satisfied with my grade and I believe it is an accurate representation of my work. The feedback is very helpful, from things as trivial as grammar or typos to the word choice in my rhetorical analysis. I don’t see any feedback that confuses me because most of it is pretty straightforward. I can see typos and careless errors in both of my papers, which shows that I can proofread more before I turn in a final draft.
Introduction
The human genome is a very complex thing. Until very recently in human history, we knew very little about it or even about its existence. However, with the incredibly rapid advances in modern science, we not only know that the human genome exists, we also know its functions, what it is made of, and even how to edit it.
Editing the human genome, as one can imagine, is a very delicate matter. There is an entire debate behind the ethics of such a thing which deals with whether or not it is right to alter a human being’s natural blueprints. Another fear arises in the fact that science potentially has the power to create a “master race” (Adams). On the other side of this argument, many people believe that this practice can be very beneficial in eradicating diseases passed down through these genes.
Timed Writing
Both of my sources are from the very reliable website “CQ Researcher”. However, one of the sources is much better than the other. One of the articles was written one year ago and is ver relevant, while the other was written in 2001. Both concern my topic (manipulating the human genome), and both information is good; however, one is much more reliable based only on time. My other sources for this piece should be more recent than my article from 2001.
Daily Write
Well it is hard to find a topic that interests me enough to write about that I also do not have a strong opinion about. I think at this point I will write about the Islamic State weaponizing drones by planting explosives in them and why the U.S. military is doing nothing about it.
Unit 2 Reflection
Unit 2 focused on understanding and applying rhetorical analysis. There are many many forms of rhetorical analysis devices and seem to occur very often in many columns for the New York Times. At first, recognizing and analyzing these devices seemed to be an impossible task. However, after several assignments, one night it seemed to click for me. One assignment had us read five separate articles in the New York Times, and at first the task seemed hard. But after about three articles, it seemed to become more like second nature to me. This may have been because the third, fourth, and fifth articles had more examples of rhetorical analysis than the first two, but it also had to do with the experience I acquired. The more I seemed to practice, the better I got and this seemed to help me the most in writing my paper because finding examples took no time at all.
Weekly Write
This week was a hectic one. I had lots of school work due along with several meetings scheduled all on top of formal rush being right around the corner. The impending formal rush does not add much work to my schedule but it does however add lots of stress. This on top of several tests and papers and very little time to accomplish this causes me to stress out some. I also had a mid-term this week for a class that had no other grades in it, so I spent a significant amount of my week studying for that. All in all I am glad that the week is coming to a close. I am glad to have put all the work behind me and can look forward to smooth sailing.
Timed Writing
Ben Daniel
Mrs. Amber Buckley
Writing 101
10 October 2016
A Handful of Skittles:
A Rhetorical Analysis of Roger Cohen’s “The Worst of the Trumps”
The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “I urge you to celebrate the extraordinary courage and contributions of refugees past and present”. The Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, Roger Cohen, is a man who is fascinated with politics. The ethos of a columnist is the credibly of the author. When it comes to political affairs, Cohen this author is definitely more than credible. He has been writing for the New York Times since 1990, where he started as a foreign correspondent. It wasn’t until 2001 when he was promoted to the foreign editor of the newspaper. He then moved on to writing columns for the International New York Times and began writing a column for the New York Times in 2009. He has also written two books about wars, “Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo” and “Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis’ Final Gamble”.
This is an election year. And not just any election year, but probably what will go down as the most eccentric election in American history. The two candidates are very unconventional and are both under their fair share of scrutiny. Also, across the world there are millions of refugees fleeing Syria. These refugees are looking for a safe home and there is a large controversy as to whether the United States should house these people. In this specific article, “Worst of the Trumps”, Cohen writes about Donald Trump’s policies when it comes to housing Syrian refugees. Cohen uses pathos by making the reader feel guilty about the millions of refugees very effectively. He also utilizes logos when citing the large numbers of refugees in need and the small percentage allowed in the United States in order to persuade Americans to take action and actively help resolve this Syrian refugee crisis. Finally he reinforces his point to the reader by using rhetorical questions.
In opinionated columns such as this one, the us of pathos is usually prominent. Cohen attempts to play on the reader’s emotions in order to prove his point and even persuade the reader to take his side. He does this consistently throughout the piece. In an interview, Donald Trump Jr. compared the Syrian refugees to “a bowl of skittles”. Cohen uses this somewhat cold analogy against not only Trump Jr., but the entire Trump family. He writes, “after more than five years of war 4.8 million Syrians are refugees and 6.1 million are internally displaced and Trump Jr., even with his coddled New York existence, can surely make the calculation that this amounts to almost 2.5 million more human beings than live in the five boroughs” (Cohen). He attempts to use Trump Jr.’s analogy to paint a cold and compassionless picture of the entire Trump family and presidential campaign. He then goes on to compare the analogy to one made by a Nazi propagandist of the 1930’s Julius Streicher. Streicher compared Jews to poisonous mushrooms in a children’s book. When it comes to how to deal with the poisonous mushrooms, the mother says to the son “Just as a single poisonous mushroom can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire Volk” (Cohen). While the analogies are somewhat similar, Cohen clearly attempts to play on the reader’s negative associations with the holocaust by affiliating the Nazi’s with the Trump campaign. Although appealing to the reader’s pathos is a strong tool used by the author, he uses facts even more.
Cohen’s use of logos throughout the column is debatably is strongest persuasion tool. His use of numbers and statistics in order to describe just how vast the number of people in need in Syria are. He writes that “The American response to the Syrian crisis has been paltry — almost 12,000 refugees admitted since the war began, or 0.25 percent of the total. Part of the slowness has come from the rigor of the vetting process. But what do the Trumps care? They are concerned with just one message: Muslim equals danger” (Cohen). He emphasizes the relatively minuscule amount of refugees permitted in the Unites States and even goes on to speculate the thought process of the Trumps. Cohen also uses facts in order to support his argument when citing the beneficial things that immigrants have done for the country and especially the economy. He notes that, of the country’s start-up companies valued at over $1 billion, at least 51 percent have at least one founder who is an immigrant. He also goes on to write that “in 2013 more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, including seven of the world’s 10 most valuable brands, were started by immigrants or their children” (Cohen). He uses this staggering numbers to show how Trump’s refusal to allow any immigrants into the country may not only be a “safe” strategy, but may also be harmful to the economy of the United States (something Trump claims to know how to fix).
Throughout the entire column, Cohen emphasizes his points several times with the use of rhetorical questions. In fact, Cohen asks a rhetorical question on seven separate occasions in order to reiterate a previous point. After bringing up the quotation from Trump Jr. where he relates the millions of homeless refugees to a handful of skittles, he writes “Where to begin? With the fact that human beings are not Skittles?” (Cohen). This is clearly a rhetorical question used to show how insensitive the analogy from Trump Jr. is. He also goes on to write an entire paragraph comprised only of three rhetorical questions with the sole purpose of reasserting his point that he does not believe Trump Jr. has a firm grasp on just how many human beings are in desperate need of aid.
Roger Cohen is truly an expert on rhetorical devices. His entire column is essentially made up of either pathos, logos, or rhetorical questions. He uses these devices very well when attempting to persuade the reader and get his point across. He clearly feels very strongly about this election and this international crisis and is simply attempting to stir up similar emotions in anyone who reads his work.
Works Cited
Cohen, Roger. “Worst of the Trumps.” The New York Times 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.
Daily Write
The gallery walk was a very helpful process. I learned many new tactics and methods about how to approach this writing assignment. The comments I received were not particularly helpful, but reading other’s introductions was very helpful to me. I will edit my introduction based on the other methods I saw today.
Roger Cohen Social Media
Roger Cohen, the Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, is very interested in politics. Not only is he involved and opinionated in domestic affairs, but also foreign politics. He proves this time and time again when he publishes columns for the Times twice a week, almost all of which are about current political events. His twitter account is very similar. He actively tweets frequently and the subject of these tweets are also politics. However, his tone on twitter is very similar. He mainly tweets the articles that he writes for the Times. He will occasionally retweet a tweet about a political current event, but most of these are very formal as well.