pic analysis: in and out of class.

In our groups in class, we discussed and analyzed certain pictures and text. This was the picture my group decided upon and we found it on Google images under happiness. It is a comical pictures in many ways. It has a funny looking character being happy in the image. So this already points to laughter, but what really makes it even more comical is the text written on the page below it. It asks the question, what is a happiness curve? Then it describes all different ways of calling a person fat. They mentioned beer belly, big belly, breadbasket, etc. They use all sorts of comical terms to express the happiness curve. The picture itself also has a sense of irony. It is saying that people are happy when they are bigger and they like being this way. Most people like this that I know are happy, but they still do not like their "happiness curve." All in all, I think that this is a comical image that provides different sorts of rhetoric to draw attention to it.

Photographs and Knowing People.

A picture of someone does give others a sense of knowing that person. People often will have pictures of themselves playing a sport or doing something they enjoy, which does give the audience a sense of who that person is. When we see the activity the person is doing, we know the an activity that that person enjoys and is apart of their life. On the other hand, we seem to give these people stereotypes. A person will classify others, which can much often be wrong. For example, a person could be playing a sport like hockey. Somebody might think this person might also like golf because hockey players are often associated with playing golf on their days off. This might not be the case at all. Another example is a person thinking another person in a photo has a certain background because of the picture. If a person sees a photo of a family near a beat up home, they might assume that that person is poor because of the beat up home. In all actuality, that person could be very rich. They could be visiting a friend, or it could be their second or even third house. So even though pictures do give us a sense of a person, we do not know for sure who the person is. Until someone actually meets the person in the picture, they can not know that person, they can just make educated guesses about them.

Tourists and Cameras.

I have been occupied taking pictures in numerous locations. I also know that many of my friends and families take pictures on trips too. I do not believe that taking photographs are bad on trips, but I do think people get carried away with taking pictures. People should be living in the moment, and should be enjoying their vacation. They should take some pictures, but a person does not need several different pictures of the same object. Just take a couple with family and friends. Then enjoy the vacation and just think about the objects you are looking at. It can be surprisingly refreshing not having to worry about taking photographs constantly. A person can just sit back and enjoy them self.

anaylsis paper -- exploratory writing

I am doing my paper on hockey cartoons and the many differences in them. On of the pictures I have chosen is to the left. It is a commical picture that expresses color well. Color is an important rhetoric device in pictures. It can show a person the audience, it can represent things, etc. In my picture to the left, It appeals to kids. There are many different colors that are thrown at the audience. The fact that the cartoon characters are also kids, crabs a child's attention even more. There is really no sign of movement or sound. There is no lines that suggest action is taking place. One of the two though has to be saying the bottom line. One is informing the other about the team they are playing tonight.
The genre used in this comic is like a newspaper, a cartoon, or a comic book. It is about humer. The texts suggests something funny that will draw the audience in. The text is small though, which means it is aimed towards kids. Children will not pay alot of attention to the text, they are more involved with the picture. There is no represantation of time, other than the audience knows it is during the day some time. They know this because they are playing hockey outside, and you usually can not do that in the dark. Also, there is a blue sky in the background with a cloud. This proves it was day because if it were night, there would be stars in a black background instead of whats there. This is just one of the pictures I am going to anylise even further in my paper. I will use most of the things I talked about above to show the differences in the cartoons.

Pop Tarts!

I chose POP tarts as my "package" for Tuesday's class. Is has a persuasive box that comes with three packages in it. I am going to talk about the box and the rhetoric it implies. First thing you see on the box is "POP tarts" in words. The "tarts" is more towards the center of the box, but the "POP" seems to stick out more because it is capitalized. They also use fast moving beams of light to make the observer think that it has just fallen on to the box. Like it was not there before. The box uses several words or pictures that are of importance.

The words Brown Sugar Cinnamon is surrounding the box. Not only are the words all around the box, but pictures of them are too. They have over twenty pictures of these "Brown Sugar Cinnamon" sticks all over the box. This has a crucial effect on the observer. It is their main persuasion. If a person likes Brown Sugar Cinnamon, then it sticks out immensely. The box not only uses the Cinnamon as a rhetorical devise, it also uses color.

The box has all sorts of persuasive colors on it. In fact, that is why it is attracting. It has multiple colors and people like this. It is different from an ordinary thing that only has one or two colors. The main background color is blue. With the effect of falling (from the beams of light previously mentioned), It kind of looks like the POP tart is falling from the sky. Like it was something given to us from heaven. There is one last persuasive example that is presented on this box and that is the characters.

The characters are cartoon characters. So the box has a better attraction to children since children watch more cartoons. The kids see that the cartoons look like they enjoy the POP tart and they always look happy. This makes a kid think that POP tarts are "good" and will make them happy. The child will then persuade his parent into buying the POP tart. Therefore, it is a weird, but very persuasive technique. The box has many qualities that catches human attention. These were just some of the numerous examples of persuasion the box gives to common people.

Australian Animal Protection Society Logo

The Australian Animal Protection Society is an animal shelter in Australia. I choose this logo because of its visual and rhetoric qualities. Although its not very big or colorful, it still does have a blue that sticks out to people. The name itself persuades people. Lots of people like animals, and this is a place where they help them. They have a cute cat and dog which helps persuade people. It makes people think about their animals or animals they might get. These people would not want anything to happen to their animals, so they are willing to help other stray animals that are hurt or lost.
A person could probably guess what audience this would appeal too, and that would be animal lovers, and/or people who just like animals enough to take care of them. It would attract them because they do not want to see animals hurt, lost, or dieing. After seeing an animal hurt or lost, they might keep it (depending on the kind of animal), or they will know where to bring it for care and shelter because of this organization. People who dislike animals probably would not care for this logo and/or company. They are usually cruel and will leave the animal for dead. Their mentality is that they do not like them, so why save them? All in all, this logo has some good visual and persuasive qualities that would attract most people when an animal is hurt or lost.

Logo argument and analysis.

This is the logo I have chosen for my topic.

5 person interview

I interviewed five of my friends to see the response I would get from the question "Do you think It's possible to take comics seriously?" I was expecting all of them to say no, but to my surprise, 3 out of the five said yes. The first person who said yes was one of my older friends from a different college. He basically told me that people should take them serious. He also told me that he had a class semi-based off of comics (so this helped his decision). The second friend I had cheated in a way. He knew that I had this class, and based on this, he decided that people should take comics seriously. He said, "If there is an academic class about comics, it has to be a serious subject." The third person who said yes did not really give me a good reason. He just said that he felt they should and that they can supply some good information. The two people who said "no" had completely different answers (as one might expect) from the ones above. They both basically said the same thing though. They said that comics are meant to be fun, not seen on an academic level. They said they can not take comics seriously. They have read them since they were small, and they cannot think of them in a serious matter. This interview was a good source of information and it was interesting to see what each individual had to say. In the end, I was surprised by the results, but impressed by their explanations.

group discussion

The people in my group were classified as "group number one." We had to do a serious of questions on a comic related source that looked like it good have came out of a newspaper. We discussed different questions, disputed, and then chose (what we thought) was the best answer. Our picture was of a little girl holding a muffin and even a younger boy staring at the muffin. The younger boy wanted this blueberry muffin, but he did not want the berries in it. Mothers can relate to children wanting impossible things. For example, a child might ask his mom to visit the moon because he saw it on TV, or ask her how to fly because he saw that in a movie. These were just some of the many questions we discussed in our groups. The group work made us analyse a genre (comics/comedy) and made us think about all these questions and answer them logically. This also made our group realize how many things can come out of a simple comic.

Almost attempt smoking, but evidence of harm saves me!

I have never smoked a cigarette in my life, but I did not think they were horrible for your body. One day, I saw some of my relatives smoking. I really did not think much about smoking at the time, and I thought what they were doing was just fine. I actually asked them if I could have a cigarette, but they said no because I would become addicted, just like them. They say they were doing it because of the addiction, and they explained to me that it could actually kill them in the end. They laid down the facts. They told me that it can cause cancer, its bad for your health, and there are numerous bad ingredients put in cigarettes. After this conversation, I went from thinking that smoking was fine, to thinking of it as a sort of evil. It can kill people. If no one had told me the bad facts about cigarettes, I might still think they were fine today and I could be a daily smoker. There was more evidence provided later in life that also influenced my position. Schools always have different assemblies over smoking and the harm it can cause. There are also programs like DARE that can help convince someone not to smoke. Although some of my friends did get me to try and smoke, my other friends just kept reminding me of the effects later in life. All of this evidence proven throughout life has convinced me that smoking is a bad thing and that is why I will never smoke. I went from thinking smoking was fine and almost trying it, to believing that it could be considered a "sort of evil."

visual vs verbal

I would have to choose visual communication over verbal for a couple different reasons. I am the kind of guy who learns more if he sees things, rather than hears them. If I watch a demonstration of something, I get more out of it than if I went home and read a book on the same thing. This visual communication is seen through out my day. I rather see the professor write something done ( like notes) instead of hearing him or her lecture for the entire class period. I just retain more information when I see it. I also use visual communication more than verbal in my non-academic life. Watching TV is a good example of this. TV uses both aspects of visual and verbal communication, but visual seems to "stick out" more than verbal. I can see the television show without sound, but i can not pay attention if I can't see the show. So I can watch TV without hearing it, but I cannot listen to TV without seeing it. I can't pay attention if I am just trying to listen to the information. It is just much easier when I can see it. And that is the main reason I picked visual over verbal communication.