Week 6 // Everything's an Argument (Cont.)

            I must first say that I enjoyed the humour in the reading. Right now I'm taking Pop Culture and it's crazy how hand in hand these two classes go together. In Pop culture we are analyzing ads and we are asked to identify and answer some of the questions in this weeks reading; What is the purpose? What does it hope to achieve? Who is the audience? What appeals (logical/ethical)? What is the effect? etc. So, that made it somewhat more (but ever-so slightly) more appealing to me.

            Anyways, It was harder for me to gather examples of Pathos in reading, but the more I thought about it I can definitely see how writers can use it. But, as soon as I read about Ethos I became confused. Are they used together or separately is my question, I guess. For example, in the reading one of the examples for Ethos is, "We will not let fear break us!..... evil can kill a single person, but never defeat a whole people..." Isn't that playing off emotions as well? I mean, I see how it plays off of "character," because of the whole patriotic thing, but I don't know, it seems like it was designed for us to feel a mixture of things (scared, fearful, upset and then patriotic, strong, hopeful). I feel like that was a bad example. Rewording an example for Pathos, I believe that,"Filling the tank of an SUV in the U.S. has now crossed the $100 mark, stretching the wallets of families even farther than before," is a better example to me, but I don't know, now that I think about it, the same thing happens in my head, but for the most part I think it is Ethos. I just feel like you can't do one without the other without it becoming an entirely informative piece of writing, unless that's what Ethos was all along and I confused myself for no reason.

            I kind of feel like I'm running in circles at this point, someone ignore everything I just wrote and tell me blatantly what each is...... I think I understood everything else, like the logo's and such, but I'm so stuck on trying to understand this I don't even want to touch on it right now.


Good Vibes