Practicing Analysis (with Ads)

Writing Exercise: Some Basic Topic Sentences for Analyzing Advertisement (use book examples):

• Make a claim about how an image in your advertisement uses a specific emotional appeal.

• Make a claim about how the slogan/headline makes an emotional appeal. (How does the slogan connect to the emotional appeal? Explain yourself!)

• Make a claim about how the arrangement/placement of objects (words and images) in the advertisement support the emotional appeal you’ve claimed the ad is using…

• Make a claim about why the emotional appeal and specific content in the ad (things you’ve already discussed, perhaps) imply that the ad is geared to a specific audience – and, yes, identify within your claim who that specific audience is.

• Make a claim, reflecting again on the emotional appeal and target audience, about what the ad implies people value. To be even clearer in your claim also mention the product being sold!

***Your answers for each of the above can be what you use to guide your reader through your essay. Logically, if these become your topic sentences you can re-order them according to how you see them clarifying your larger thesis statement. (Each becomes a section of your larger essay, and you can transition between each topic with "hinge sentences"!)

• And you can also make sub-topic sentences for paragraphs that fall under each topic – this is how you can develop your essay. Use paragraphs to get as much in on the topic as necessary

_____________________________________

Writing Exercise 2: Global Introduction to Analysis on Emotional Appeal of an Ad

• Clarify “Who is being targeted in the ad?” and how you see this being the target audience. What does this say about what advertisers think this audience values?

• What emotional appeal is used the most? Identify and also explain why you answer this way by referring to characteristics of the ad.

• What part of the ad most represents the main emotional appeal, and what is the main reason for this claim? (Thesis statement)

Example Practice: Look at the Chris Brown “Got Milk?” ad as an example. Answer the three prompts above in a rough draft analysis of this ad. (We will share. If this Internet is not working we will use an ad from the back of the book.)

Upcoming Schedule

Reminder: We will not have regular class meeting on Thursday, 5/27. The assignments to work on and to prepare for Tuesday's class:

Thursday, May 27, 2010: Library Research Day | Use time to visit your culture and make observations…. Goal: Find secondary source, and if you don’t already have a primary source to analyze, find this!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010:

1. Bring in a guiding principle to use as an analytical starting point for writing on your culture.
2. Read Chapter 13, introduction (654-657) and Jib Fowles’ “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals” (657-674)

Reading HW for 5/13

Read the introduction to Chapter 9 (Psychology): Obedience to Authority as well as the first two essays in our textbook, Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, 10th ed.:

"Opinions and Social Pressure," Solomon E. Asch.
"The Perils of Obedience," Stanley Milgram.

***There will be a reading quiz in which you answer the following question, using your text as support. However, because this is so, you have a very short time limit of 20 minutes, and are expected to have come prepared for the short quiz:

Milgram justifies his experiment by the value of his results. Discuss the extent to which Milgram inflicted suffering on the participants in his experiments.

_______________________________________________________________________________

I also recommend reading ahead, the essay "The Stanford Prison Experiment" by Philip K. Zimbardo, if you have time. We will ultimately read and discuss this essay, as we work towards the next step in research -- putting together an Annotated Bibliography -- which we will start work on Thursday.


You might further be interested in our textbook's website. It has a Student Resource section full of extra insight into the readings and strategies we work on in our class.

Reminder: Midterm due Tuesday

Using Synthesis in, and for, Plan of Attack part of Research Proposal:

1. What have authors you’ve collected (and will have read) said on a subject?
2. From what you’ve read and synthesized, what kinds of sources should you be going after from here on out?

• Have you only read up on one side of an argument?
• What other questions do the authors you have read bring up that you will pursue?
• What type of sources have you found, and what seems to be missing? What types of sources will help you? (Ex.: Perhaps you’ve synthesized three articles, realizing each gives three different theories of why people in a culture act a certain way, but you’ve noticed that historical background isn’t provided. Then your synthesis of read material can help you think and propose what kinds of sources you feel you need to attempt to find.)

Homework: Midterm Research Proposal is due on Tuesday at 2pm. I will collect them in our normal classroom, will hand out the next assignment, and our class will be done at 2:20 or so! Make DARN sure the Proposal is printed and in my hand when I collect them at 2pm on Tuesday! Any late Research Proposals means you’ve failed the class, as I do not accept late major papers (consult the syllabus for this policy).

Research Proposal Drafting Strategies

Quick Workshop of Introductions to RP

• What are some suggestions you can provide them to help them better write about their culture? Give the author a few suggestions to consider – other characteristics they may have overlooked, your own ideas about culture, etc.
• What are two questions you have about their subject of Cultural Inquiry or thesis statement?
• What are some smaller topics on their subject that relate to the thesis? Provide suggestions to your fellow writer on where they could go for research.
• What do you think makes their topic relevant to a larger world – and where can they look for examples to support their research?
• Do you know of any secondary sources (books, documentaries, articles) or primary sources (places or people, organizations in Chicago) they could go to for further research? Provide a suggestion to them.

_________________
Synthesis: a written discussion that draws on two or more sources. Basically, in synthesis you use source material to make a larger discussion of a subject (such as a cultural inquiry), by discussing your ideas on subject along with the sources being used in.

• What is the relationship of theses sources’ main points to your own?
• How are you using these sources to understand the subject?
• What questions on subject are inspired by reading these sources?

_________________
Synthesis and Plan of Attack for Research Proposal

Use your thesis statement you wrote for RP to contextualize what kinds of sources you plan to go after.

• Example: If you chose to look up sexuality in high school culture, what are some key topics that are relevant? What kinds of sources are you, then, going to pursue?

What are some specific sources you have already read, and what are their main points on subject?

• What “side” are the authors on? What are you going to do to find out?
• What function/ purpose does the source serve on your topic? Is the author providing historical information? Are they making theoretical arguments? Are they using theories to persuade you?

What are some other some other general viewpoints on the subject that you want to investigate? Are there other authors you already know about that write on subject? Are there specific texts? (If you have no idea, start plugging away at the computer, at EBSCO!)