Introduction: Rhetoric, defined.

“The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.” This is how the New Oxford American Dictionary defines “rhetoric.” To many of us, including myself before taking LA101H though, rhetoric often carried the negative connotation associated with the empty fluff and trickery politicians employ for the sole purpose of gaining support and votes. I neither understood it nor believed it was important enough to devote a whole class to the study of rhetoric. As a result, I entered LA101H with a few misgivings, not quite sure of what to expect.

But as my journey through LA101H draws to an end, I have come to realize that rhetoric holds so much more value, misrepresented and misunderstood by so many of us.  Rhetoric is literally everywhere—as we’ve worked through the semester on assignments of ad analyses, motivational speeches and persuasive essays, I’ve learned to find rhetoric in advertisements and seemingly trifling fashion magazines in addition to political speeches. I’ve learned how I can effectively use rhetoric, whether it’s engaging an audience’s attention using pathos, or trying to persuade and motivate them by using pathos, ethos or logos. I’ve learned that while you may have the most convincing arguments, and the most well prepared speech, you’ll be hard pressed to connect with your audience if you can’t convey adequate ethos. As with so many other things though, rhetoric is wielded as a double-edge sword. Though it may be employed effectively to convince people, it can also be used to brainwash or manipulate people—and in trying to persuade someone, an inadequate understanding of rhetoric can ultimately result in the downfall of your argument. This e-portfolio showcases the best work I feel I have accomplished in LA101H as a student in understanding rhetoric and effectively employing it through speech, writing, and blog samples.

You can visit my online portfolio here

TOMS: One Day Without Shoes

How many of you actually think about your shoes when you put them on in the morning? Sure, I’ll wake up, get dressed, pick my shoes--but I’ll pick them based on how cold it is, how much I’ll be walking and--do they match? It’s all a bit sad and superficial when I think about it. Most of the time, shoes are just shoes. I wear them because that’s what we do, never thinking about their actual role--to protect our feet from abrasions and infections.

But in developing countries, shoes are luxuries. In places such as Ethiopia, wearing shoes can 100% prevent a disease called podoconiosis, which causes swelling in the feet and legs because of extended exposure to irritants in soil. Exposed feet are also susceptible to infection, worms, and cold weather illnesses. In addition, most schools require shoes to be worn in class; if children don’t have shoes, many times they also won’t be able to get an education either.

To combat this, TOMS shoes has a “One for One” philosophy: for every pair of shoes you purchase, TOMS will give a pair to a child in need. It was while browsing the TOMS website that I came upon their event, “One Day Without Shoes.” The premise is pretty self explanatory--spend one day, April 5th without shoes to raise awareness about the TOMS mission. As we have learned in class, you can choose to shed light on a problem, but it’s also important to have a policy to help solve it, as well as motivate change in other people. Look at this simple graphic TOMS put up to explain their motivation for One Day Without Shoes:

http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com/learn-more

While I did spend April 5th as a day without shoes*, I didn’t have anyone come up with to me to ask why--I think most people had already heard about it, so they just didn’t bother. Still I think it was a good way to raise awareness and it was definitely a good experience for me--it’s all well and good to learn about how these people are suffering without shoes, but when you actually do it, walk to class, wander around during a random snow shower, trying to sneak into the commons to get food without getting kicked out, you begin to realize (if only a tiny fraction) what these people go through every day. It definitely helped me put my life into perspective in comparison with how other people are living.

So I guess it’s hard to see how effective TOMS’ “One Day Without Shoes” was. On the whole though, I think their “One for One” philosophy is an exceptional idea, and I’m really impressed that they actually care this much about an issue many may not even know about. I don’t know about you, but seeing this definitely motivates me to want to do something--even if it’s just to buy a pair of shoes.

* Okay, so I spent the second half of the day without shoes--I really need to start checking my calendar when I wake up..

(D)evolution of Words?

LOL! OMG!! I ♥ U!!
You might find such a phrase in a text from one tween to another. As of earlier this month though, you’ll also find these initialisms in the Oxford English Dictionary Online.

In addition to “LOL” (laugh out loud), “OMG” (Oh my God), other initialisms include “IMHO” (in my humble opinion), “TMI” (too much information), and “BFF” (best friend forever).

“♥” also makes an appearance—as a verb, as heart v. As in, I heart drinking chocolate. Or I heart sunny days when I can go on picnics with other people I heart.

While I agree that these “words” have become a large part of modern culture, especially online or through texting, I was somewhat disturbed when I found out about this. I realize, of course that language is ever changing based on time, context, and area, this seemed to me to be moving backwards rather than forwards. These are phrases I used as a middle schooler, when I was lazy and thought that I was cool. I have nothing against the phrases itself, or the people who use them, but to think they they are in the dictionary, that they actually have meaning discomforts me. I think I may just be too much of a traditionalist; after all, if we’re changing our language has to change with us too, right? I guess it’s just that I never really considered them “real words” because I always used them for fun and to joke around.

Either way though, it’s still interesting to see how these initialisms have been modified and have become so popular that they’ve come to be included in the dictionary—sixty years ago, “LOL” meant little old lady! Hopefully kids growing up today will be able to determine the appropriate mediums to use these new words in though—I can only imagine a teacher’s reaction to a book report: “OMG I really liked this book”

Anyway, I gtg—this is definitely going to make Scrabble easier!

Asians in the Library: A Rant

By now I’m sure some of you have heard of the “Asians in the library” rant by UCLA student, Alexandra Wallace. In just under 3 minutes, Alexandra manages to lump millions of Asians into a mass of defenseless, rude, unassimilated and poorly brought up people. If you haven’t seen the video, she complains that “all the asians” talk on the phone in the library, bring their family members over all the time, and and are all-around ill mannered. In quite apparent frustration, she attempts to remind them, “if you’re going to go to UCLA, use American manners.” She relegates every Asian language to three words: “Chingchong, linglong tingtong,” and then goes on to describe herself as a nice, polite, American girl who always asks the Asians in the library to be quiet.

You’ve also probably heard about the recent earthquake followed by a tsunami in Japan--causing indescribable damage, and killing almost 10,00 people so far, with another 16,000 missing. This girl brushes the natural disaster off as the “tsunami thing,” and saying that though she knows it sounds horrible, people shouldn’t be in the library checking on their families anyways--they should go outside and do it.

This is a prime example of pathos gone wrong. Perhaps this girl meant to get--support? sympathy? for her tribulations.Though her video did elicit passion, it was one filled with largely outrage and fury. Like the general public, I wasn’t able to identify with her at all but instead felt sickened by her lack of education and compassion, particularly about her flippant comment about the tsunami in Japan. Coupled with weak logos (are we really to believe every single Asian talks on the phone in the library and no one else does?) and nonexistent ethos (its hard to be persuaded by someone peppering their argument with “like,” and for me, it was hard to even find her character likeable), this video was an overall rhetorical failure.

On a semi-unrelated note, there has been, obviously, a huge, negative response to this girls video; hateful comments and parody videos have sprung up everywhere, and Alexandra has purportedly received death threats. As an assimilated American with Asian heritage, this video was especially provoking for me. Though the video obviously disgusted me, it made me just as sad to see comments such as “she’s blonde...she doesn’t know any better” or “dumb blondes don’t go to the library,” with these people realizing that though she made horrible stereotypes, they are, by criticizing her like this, furthering others.

Revisiting the Past

“friday was a half day =]

we went out for lunch. like

me lea cason molly kimmy. and other people

and then we just like walked around.

(i saw the pole i walked into last time =])

they all made fun of me though. haha lol

and then. i went to leas. and saw her kittens

and guess what.

THEYRE SO CUTEEE =]

like. tiny. and orange. i like the all orange one the best.

because. they were like. really cute =]”

This was just one of the incredibly well thought out and intellectually stimulating blog posts I wrote when I was 14. Over break, I revisited my old blog wayyy back from middle school and…

It made me kind of like, shrivel up in embarrassment. Like. For real.

Rereading what I wrote as a middle schooler definitely opened my eyes to how my rhetoric has (obviously) changed just in 4 years. I just can’t take past Rayna seriously with all her “likes” and random sentence fragments, and walking into poles (at least this hasn't changed). At the time though,  I guess I thought I was just so super cool or something (I guess I can at least be thankful there wasn’t any tYpinG liK3 tHisS). It makes me wonder how our rhetoric naturally just changes like that; certainly, no one sat me down and told me, “Rayna, talking like that does not make you cooler, smarter, or more grown up. Stop it,” though I wish they did. Is it learning more in school? Reading more? Following our older siblings examples? Or just plain growing up?

Maybe it’s just a combination of all these things, and I’m willing to bet it doesn’t just end at 18. Maybe in 50 years 68 year old me will be reading this post and cringing in embarrassment over past me once again.

Or maybe not, because this time I think I’ve really nailed it; I’m just so super cool now.

Ethos failure

“Want to steal a house? It’s completely legal!”

With the deluge of spam email I regularly get, I often guide my mouse to “delete forever” without a second though. Today though, before I could, this one particular message jumped out and caught my eye. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it becomes; according to Merriam Webster, “steal” is defined as “to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice.” Somehow, legal stealing just doesn’t make sense to me. Sure, the different wording caught my attention, which is surely the first goal of rhetors, but after trying and failing at figuring out exactly what they were trying to say by this, I wouldn’t have wanted to give these people my own name, let alone my address and credit card information! This completely ruined any semblance for ethos the emailers of this junk had. In addition, the ad featured no pictures or any other description; just a simple, undecipherable link. As we’ve been talking in class about how images can greatly enhance an ad or argument, this showed to me how the lack of images can completely result in failure.

This makes me think about all the other strange ads and billboards that I’ve seen that have made me think, What were they thinking?! 

case in point: would you trust your love life with this company?

Analyzing Ads: Ethos

Before we talked in class about analyzing ads and the rhetoric that we can find in them, I’d never really thought about them; most of the time, I’ll just tune them out but there are some ads that just stick out. Some that are so annoying I can’t get them out of my head, and others that are persuasive and make me feel involved. I never really thought why this happens though. Now that we’ve done these ad analyses though, it’s a lot easier (and more entertaining) to pick out what advertisers are trying to sell in addition to their product, instead of just sitting there and waiting for the onslaught of commercials to end.

The speeches we heard today and Tuesday really made me think especially about how advertisers use ethos. Almost everyone’s seen the Got Milk? campaign ads depicting celebrities with a milk mustache- if Hayden Panettiere drinks milk, so should I, right? I have to admit though, that celebrity endorsements don’t usually persuade me to buy a certain product; even though they’re famous, I can’t really trust their endorsement, especially if I know they’re being paid for it. I have noticed however, that in Asia, ads feature celebrity endorsement almost everywhere, from cell phones to bread. What makes this use of ethos so much more prominent? From what I’ve heard and seen in the news in Asia, celebrities are held to much higher standards than they are in America--if they’re involved in a scandal, it’s much harder for them to bounce back into the spotlight. Thus, it makes sense that ethos-based celebrity endorsed ads are much more common in Asia; celebrities are expected to be more “role-model” type figures.

So I Guess I'm Going to Hell?

I’m sure many of us by now have heard preachers often found outside of Willard, the Hub, or somewhere downtown and seen the white “The World is Ending” van with its bullhorn accompanied speaker creeping up Shortlidge. A few weeks ago I was waiting to cross College Ave when I noticed a man waving his Bible around and shouting, “SINNERS will go to hell...UNBELIEVERS will go to hell...WHORES will go to hell…” As I was watching him, he paused and we made brief eye contact. It was cold--one of those days where I often feel like I’m fighting a losing battle against the wind and oh! there goes my scarf again--so I looked at him and said, “Aren’t you cold?” He glared at me. “YOU will go to hell.”

Now, I’m not here to blast anyone’s personal beliefs, but when I think about it, this man used rhetoric in the least effective way I can possibly imagine. He wasn’t talking to any of us, but rather was talking (or shouting) at us. He did make an appeal towards pathos, probably hoping to instill in us a fear of hell, but this also proved to be unsuccessful, at least for me, because his use of ethos was nonexistent. All I could think of as he told everyone around him that they were going to hell was Who is he to tell us this? How do I know how morally upright this man is? Maybe he is a sinner, an unbeliever, a whore. The very fact that he was screaming at all of us simply hurt his ethos.

We’ve also learned about how important it is to connect with your audience. After all, if your audience isn’t listening to you, what’s the point? This is another mistake this preacher made. He didn’t try to create any sort of closeness with his “audience;” if anything, he pushed them even farther away by speaking down to them and acting condescending. In today’s world, religion can be such a hot topic, and one must be careful how they phrase their words if they want to convince someone. Perhaps his words will hold sway over someone else, but for me, “You’re going to hell” just doesn’t cut it.

"Hi, My Name is Rayna and Blah Blah Blah...?"

After a string of Christmas shopping, back to back (to back) birthdays, textbook buying, and all around spending, it's come to my attention in the past few months that...I've become the typical broke college student.

It turns out I'm not so good at job hunting (Sure, I went and got all these applications- that's work enough, so I think I'll just let them sit on my desk until I feel like filling them out, and what?! They're not hiring anymore??) but after this happened numerous times, I finally forced myself to get an application, fill it out, and turn it in the next day. You can hold your applause.

My job at Penn State Lion Line seems pretty simple; just call Penn State Alumni and chat with them, segueing into a request for not a donation, but a “gift.” I’ve realized that much of my job centers around rhetoric. It isn’t as simple as picking up the phone and saying, “Hi I’m Rayna, wanna give Penn State some money?” Lion Line stresses the importance of being able to connect to your audience--though there is a general gist of what we say to each person, every conversation with every alumni will be different, because they’ll respond in different ways, and we have to use what they say to us to determine the best way to use that to ask for money.

For example, if I ask someone what they studied at Penn State, they might say they studied Psychology, found in the College of Liberal Arts. As a History major, I can respond by saying I’m a Liberal Arts major as well, going off of what I know and like about it (establishing ethos). If the conversation moves onto Penn State overall, I can talk about what a great school Penn State is, and how I love all the opportunities that are offered, and the reason I could come is because I got a scholarship from alumni and am so grateful to them for their generosity (establishing pathos). If this fails to work, I can move on to logos--“Did you know that last year over 70,000 alumni contributed to Penn State, ranking us as the leading university in the number of alumni donors?”

In this sense, rhetoric for my job is really important; from what we choose to say and how we say it to what specific words we should and shouldn’t use. As we learned today in class, our goal is to establish a relationship with our audience, closing the distance between us.

Those Little Things...

Everyone knows by now that President Barack Obama visited Penn State today, urging for a new and more efficient energy plan. Though I would have jumped at the opportunity to see the President speak, his visit coincided with Chinese New Year; a day I have always spent in New York, visiting family.
And so as I spent the day here in Manhattan, I also spent the day experiencing Obama's visit vicariously through Facebook, as friends posted statuses and uploaded pictures. Some expressed dismay and outright indignation at the inconvenience of getting to class, while others e-screamed their excitement at such an event. In the multitude of Obama-related social networking information, one status in particular made me do a double-take.

“Did he really just say “Nittaly Lions” again?”

Apparently back in 2008, Obama referred to us Nittany Lions as the “Nittaly Lions.” At a state school renowned for its school spirit, this undoubtedly caused annoyance if not anger-probably now even more so if Obama really did say it again today. It’s interesting to note that after three years and out of Obama’s whole speech today, this is the one thing the student remembered chose to comment on. This made me realize how much the effect of your message depends so much on how you present it to your audience.

We’ve learned how important it is to be able to connect with your audience--after all, you may have the best speech with the most convincing arguments, but if you can’t adequately convey this to someone what good will it do? This one incident, this one tiny slip of tongue made me realize how, in presenting and using rhetoric, everything counts. It doesn’t do to simply look presentable and speak fluidly alone if your audience is invested in what you are saying (though they still are essential in establishing ethos). On one hand, in the grand scheme of things, the one letter difference really doesn’t matter at all. On the other hand, to some people, this simple matter of knowing where you are speaking and knowing what is important to you audience can make or break a speaker’s ethos. It obviously broke it for this student found, who found it most important to comment on this one slip of tongue, especially since it happened twice, rather than anything Obama had on his agenda. For me though, I’d say we’re all human and we’re all going to make mistakes. As long as Obama knows more about his energy efficiency plan than he does about the Nittany Lions, I’d say we can brush off his little mistake.

This I Believe Podcast

Here is the podcast version of my belief statement, "I believe in saying "Merry Christmas""

Rhetoric: Available Everywhere

I used to check my mail everyday. I loved finagling the knobs to the right combination and peering into the little window of my mailbox. I soon realized though, that the girl who lived in my room last year found it necessary to subscribe to a slew of monthly newsletters and though she moved on, they did not.

Usually, upon the arrival of said subscriptions, I'll roll my eyes in annoyance and drop the magazines in the "Mixed Office Paper" bin. Sometimes though, something, usually a picture, on the cover will catch even my own wandering attention, whether it’s Delia’s newest sweater collection, or Alloy’s sale section. Which leads me to think: is rhetoric really so prevalent that it seeps into even the most seemingly trivial pages of a fashion magazine?

While rhetoric may be considered the study of effective language, I believe that advertisements also employ visual rhetoric to draw us in. Pictures can just as easily use pathos, logos, and ethos to convey meaning- after all, most ads are largely picture-based. There's a reason swimming suit ads always picture incredibly skinny, beautiful girls.

Take for example, this ad. Arezzo may be trying to sell bathing suits, but their use of pathos in this sells so much more. When I look at this ad I see not only swimming suits, but girls oozing with mystery, glamour and sex appeal. As with most ads, Arezzo is trying to displace these feelings upon us- buy this swimming suit, and feel sexy.

But if you look deeper, you’ll find more hidden elements of rhetoric. The ad also displays a sort of professional ethos. Everything about the ad is sleek, slim, and glossy. The primary colors are blue, white, and black and combine to showcase a sense of professionalism and class. The ad thus draws on ethos to prove to us that they are an upper class brand and pathos to convince us to buy the suits so that we can live this life. So while we may think we've seen the obvious, in your face rhetoric, there's always a chance that if you dig deeper, you'll find even more variations. 

A Truly Presidential Address

A quick visit to Google, and anyone can see that its signature logo has changed- that Google saw fit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address. Intrigued, I decided to investigate what is clearly considered to be one of the most memorable and important speeches given by any of our presidents thus far. As I read and listened to him speak, it soon became clear why.

First of all, John F. Kennedy's composure while speaking to the people was nothing short of presidential. His voice rang out, cutting through the air with crisp and precise sentences. His tone paralleled his words--promising change and pledging the greatness of America. He was able to maintain eye contact for the most part with his audience, the American people- essential, as his whole speech was designed to exhort them into unity and action.

The speech itself largely uses pathos and ethos. Kennedy used pathos to draw on American nationalism, especially when he famously called Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” This appeal to emotion was especially effective as America was in the midst of the Cold War. One of the fundamentals of American ideology is freedom--the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In this instance, Kennedy used ethos to appeal to the morals of this ideology, declaring,
    “To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds     of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever     period is required -- not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek     their votes, but because it is right [emphasis added].”

Kennedy’s diction constantly used the word “we-” "we shall, we forge, we dare-" effectively grouping Americans together as being on a mission rather than isolating himself as the leader while the people sat back and watched. His goal was to unite the people, not so that they could simply follow his lead. His speech also used rhetorical devices such as alliteration, to allow his words to flow more smoothly (“ whether it wishes us well or ill…”).
Combined, these examples enabled John F. Kennedy's speech to become so effective that even today, fifty years later, it is still just as memorable.You can see for yourself here-