ToW #16 - IRB by Meg Jay: "The Defining Decade"

        The bulk of Doctor Jay's book on seizing one's third decade of life is occupied by her tips on fully developing a career, a love life,  and one's own brain and body. These tips vary greatly -- from using social media to make one's self look professional to taking relationships slow in order to ensure that one does not dislike her or his friends and family down the line. Despite having a huge range of subjects to explore in her writing, Jay employs only a handful of rhetorical strategies throughout her work -- as I read it, I overwhelmingly noticed two major devices: telling of anecdotes and use of statistics as evidence.

        Jay's use of anecdotes to describe the plight of the twenty- to thirty-something is extensive; in all, I estimate that 80% of The Defining Decade involves some personal story of a patient and how Jay treated him or her. In fact, you would be extremely hard pressed to find a page outside of the Introduction that does not either mention a patient by name or have a direct or adapted quote from a patient. I'm going to turn to a random page right now and type out the first anecdote that I see: "Danielle ... imagined that people at work either had confidence or they didn't, so that any little thing that went wrong on the job suggested she didn't," (157). They are literally all over the place, and for good reason. Jay uses anecdotes because they're both inherently relatable and solid pieces of evidence. If she were examining the scientific aspects of third-decade insecurities, then perhaps statistics would be better suited -- but after all, Jay is trying to help humans get over their feelings of insecurity, so anecdotes reign supreme. Then, there's her secondary use of statistics, which serve as objective backings to what would otherwise be a purely subjective book. Without them, Jay's tips would only hold as much credibility as the believability of her patient's stories.

        In retrospect, it was quite clever of Jay to primarily use these two devices; it made the reading more coherent and understandable than if there were to be five or six main devices. However, there is a danger in only employing a few devices: the author risks monotony and boredom of the reader. At times, I'll admit, Jay droned on so long about her "clients" that I skipped a few paragraphs ahead only to enjoy some more anecdotal evidence. Still, Jay is pretty successful with her work; what she lacks in rhetorical strength, she more than makes up for in well thought-out and interesting messages to her readers.

ToW #15 - Advertisement for a Smartphone: "Samsung Galaxy S4 - Airplane"

        As a commercial designed to be aired on a popular medium, this Samsung spot advertises the fairly new (its debut was about seven months ago) Galaxy S4 Smartphone in a bit of an overused way: posing it as an object of interest on a crowded airplane. This idea has been used enough before to seem like a bit of a cliche; off the top of my head, the products that I remember to be advertised like this range from underwear to car insurance to, of course, airline tickets. It even shares a few of the key components of these aerial advertisements -- a few stereotypically bothersome passengers who obsess over the product, the obviously annoyed passenger who the audience is supposed to relate to, and the flight attendant who points out the absurdity of the situation.
        Obviously, the purpose of this commercial is purely commercial; Samsung wants to sell more of their shiny Galaxy S4s. Other than being a bit tactless in its contribution to the overuse of the airplane experience in advertising, this commercial is very well crafted and directed -- again, not out of the norm. The question of credibility is tricky here, as the advertising company that Samsung hired to author this commercial does not have to be reliable to be successful. However, it can be said that they craft a fairly believable social scenario in this commercial, making it as credible as the audience wants it to be. Along with the strategy of setting the commercial in a common situation, the advertisement creators urge viewers to buy the Galaxy S4 by listing its key features in casual conversation. In doing this, the commercial makes it seem like your friend is telling you about his own new upgrade. "Hey, look at this, my phone pauses videos when I look away from it," your friend says. Well geez, that's neat, you think in reply. Then, there's the final line, "I am sold", which embodies exactly what Samsung wants you to think after this commercial; because being sold on something means that you either intend on buying it or already have. And, to be honest, that's the final impression that the commercial left with me. I thought, Hey, if that guy wants to buy the phone after he hears about all of its key features, why wouldn't I? And, if I did not know better about advertising rhetoric thanks to my parents (who work in advertising) and my APELC class, hey, maybe I would be pondering the price of the S4 right now.

ToW #14 - Article from The New York Times: "50 Years Later, War on Poverty Is a Mixed Bag"

 

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        This article by Annie Lowrey depicts the long-fought "War on Poverty" through the usual New York Times media -- exposition, statistics, quotations, and speculation. Clearly written approximately 50 years after Lyndon B. Johnson declared the War, the main operation of this article is to catalog the current state of poverty in the United States of America. As this article deals with a fairly sophisticated issue, has logic-oriented media, and is published by the scholarly New York Times, it is clear that it is intended for an intelligent and socially aware audience. Its author, Lowrey, seems to be of the economically conscious grain -- the operative words of many of her articles vary from "wage" to "unemployment". Her credibility in writing an article on poverty reform is also aided by the fact that she is a graduate of Harvard University who has previously worked for The New Yorker, Slate, and Foreign Policy.

        In presenting the state of U.S poverty to its audience, this article succeeds thanks to its appeals to primarily logos and secondarily ethos. With its consistent spread of statistics, historical facts, and analytic conclusion-drawing, its evidence-craving audience should be pleased with the read, allowing them to learn more from their trusted teacher. One outstanding display of logic in this article manifests itself in two statistics: one straight-forward decrease in the poverty rate from 1964 to 2014 followed later by a reevaluated decrease adjusted for government aid. This display is exactly what the analytical audience of The New York Times wants to see; going beyond a single statistic and finding a more truthful one does a lot for an author's credibility. And credibility is not only gained with a scientific evaluation of evidence; it is also gained with numerous quotations from Presidents, university professors, researchers, and economic advisers. In her appreciation for what an analytical audience desires, Annie Lowrey is highly successful in educating her readers about both modern and decades-old poverty reform.