We all judge

Hi Guys, how’s it going??? It’s week 4 already, which is crazy since we just had orientation (at least that’s what it feels like!). 

Today I spent my time reading two articles, one of them is called “Finding Evidence” and the other one is called “Backpacks vs Briefcases”. The first article was mostly about research and supporting your claim while presenting an argument. As we already know, rhetoric (how to present an argument) is already around us all the time and as stated in one of the articles: where there is meaning, there will be an argument about something and in order to be taken seriously by your audience you need to support your claim with evidence. Your evidence needs to match your audience and the situation in order to be effective. There are different kinds of evidence you can use to: You can use quantitative data (statistics), precedence (similar example), doing an interview, reading articles and books on the subject (library research) or observing. I liked the part in this article about how most students are doing a lot of research but not getting any useful information and that the reason for that is that they are not doing the right kind of research. They're just not using the tools in an efficient way. I can only speak for myself but I know that I usually just “google” things and use the articles/websites I find, but if I actually learned how to use the library and different tools online, my research would probably be quicker, easier and better. Well, I might have to change my ways now - better late than never right?

The other article “Backpacks vs Briefcases” was about first impressions and how we usually analyze people the first time we meet them and how we should use the same way of analyzing working with rhetoric and writing. They talked about how we all have a mental database of how things should be so when someone is wearing a formal, professional suit we assume that he or she is someone important working in an office. This is simply because that is the impression we have of people walking around in suits in our mental database. We all judge, and maybe it is the “normal” thing to do to make sure that we get the context right so that we can use our communication in a good way when we talk to that new person. I mean if someone walks up to me with an “Isla Vista” tshirt, a cap and a skateboard I know that I can talk to this person about school, partying and skateboarding but if I meet someone in a suit and tie I would probably not talk about parties and alcohol the first time we talk. 
               Judging people based on first impression is not always a good thing, but it will help us behave in the “right way” towards new people. The bottom half of the article talked a lot about rhetoric and how you can use your ethos, pathos and logos to make your audience trust you and listen to your message. The argument is the heart of the rhetoric and in order to make it efficient you need to use all three parts (ethos, pathos and logos). One way to use pathos (as in the example with Homer on the ad) is humor, and actually, the company I am working with in the other part of this class (analyzing writing artifacts) they use a lot of humor in their lease (the first page of it) so this piece really helped me out with understanding what they were doing. 

So, that’s what I had to say about this week! Hopefully, my artifact assignment will go by just as smooth because after this, we are heading up the mountains to chill with a view better than the one on our balcony (which is like the best view of the complex!).