TOW#3: IRB Analysis, A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard

                                                     How Did She Not Go Insane?
Imagine living as a prisoner for 18 years. And this isn't an actual prisoner, but it is an 11-year-old girl. Her name was Jaycee Lee Dugard. She was just an ordinary girl walking to school on a sunny morning when all of a sudden a man pulls up in a car for directions. Next thing she knows, she is grabbed and paralyzed from head to toe by a stun gun. There is no doubt about Dugard's credibility. She is writing her experience of the way she remembered it. This is from her point of view. It can't get any more credible than that.

Anyone who reads this story would have one word in the back of their minds: kidnap. Kidnapping has existed years and years before it happened to Dugard. People have tried to stop kidnapping for generations. Unfortunately, kidnapping still occurs today.

The mind-boggling question is, why did she write it? Most people would be embarrassed of sharing what they have been through. But not Dugard. She felt that keeping her story from the world would be protecting her kidnapper. She wanted to show the world that kidnapping isn't a joke, that it is nothing compared to how it is portrayed in movies.

Her intended audience was everyone. However, she wanted to reach out to those who have been in a tough situation before. She wanted to show that people should appreciate their lives and that a "C" on a math test doesn't matter. Throughout the memoir she conveys that if she can live through something that she did, then other people should fight through any of their struggles.

Dugard mostly appealed to pathos because everything she wrote in her memoir was true. Every emotion, every thought, every pain she had was real. She often says the word "lonely" in her memoir, which can bring people to think sadly about an 11-year-old girl alone for 18 years. The fact that every thing was true makes her appeal to pathos, because people could read it and think, "Wow, that is just awful! How did she live through that?" But no matter how people try to understand how she felt, they will never be able to explicitly comprehend everything she went through.

Jaycee Lee Dugard wanted people to see what she went through and that kidnapping is no joke. From reading this story, I was absolutely able to receive the message. It is amazing how she remained sane. She believed that if she went crazy, then her kidnapper would have won. She doesn't use any phony language to sound smart; she just wrote the way she would have told any story. Her goal wasn't to be pitied, but for others to see what a real kidnapping was. By being 100% credible, appealing to pathos, and writing in a first-person account, Dugard accomplished her purpose.

                                    11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard

TOW#2: "DOES IT REALLY ‘AD’ UP?" by Andrea Kempfer (Visual)

Power Over People: Advertising

68 million people consume McDonalds everyday; that is a lot of people! Everyone knows that McDonalds is awful for anyone’s health. But why do so many people eat from this place everyday? It is inexpensive and delicious. People drool all over their television when they see a McDonalds commercial even though they know that the food is not as “pretty” and clean as it seems. Advertisements are very manipulative.

Andrea Kempfer, the author, must be really familiar with McDonalds and their marketing system. She probably really disappointed with how different the real and advertisement burger looks like. The author is therefore credible because she has a picture of the advertisement and an actual picture of what a typical burger from McDonalds really looks like.

So why do people buy McDonalds despite all these lies? It is because it is a brand. Most people are familiar with the brand so they feel “comfortable” buying it. So it’s not because the food is good, but that the food is famous.

The context of the advertisement is that it is food brand-company that many people are familiar with, which makes the topic and situation in context of the current world.

Andrea wanted to know if people go into McDonalds knowing that the food is going to not be as good as the advertisement and if so, why? Her goal was to probably say, “Do you realize that this is what you think you are eating verses what you are actually eating?”

This was written to all the manipulated people who have ever consumed McDonalds. Andrea wanted to ‘wake people up’ and show them what they are putting into their systems. She believes that people aren’t even aware of how bad the burgers are because people have this pretty picture in the head of the burgers from the advertisements.

Andrea is very sarcastic. In the picture, under the “actual Big Mac”, it says, “Rotated to most attractive angle”. She is trying to show that the “actual Big Mac” burger was placed as nicely as possible to resemble the advertisement burger. Still, the burger on the left is completely unattractive compared to the advertised burger. So she shows that even if the actual burger is fluffed up to look as pretty as it can, it is nothing compared to the advertised burger. This proves that the advertised burger goes through a lot of photo shop and angle distortion to make it appear as delicious as it looks.

Andrea didn’t just compare in words about the two burgers. Instead she placed pictures two burgers side-to-side for others to truly see the difference. By doing this, she was able to achieve her purpose in showing people who eat McDonalds that the advertised burger is nothing like the actual one.

 

http://blog.lab42.com/does-it-really-ad-up#comments

TOW #1: NYTIMES- Myths Surround Breakfast and Weight by Anahad O’Connor; IRB Intro "A Stolen Life" by Jaycee Lee Dugard

           On September 10^th, 2013, Anahad O’Connor posted an article on New York Times about how eating breakfast has an effect of whether people may gain weight or not. He talks about how people skip breakfast in order to lost weight. In actuality, it causes people to not lose but stay the same or even gain weight. Why? He says that if people skip breakfast, they get hungry throughout the day and snack on a lot of things and eat much more than they would have if they had eaten breakfast. However, he mentions many contradictions that other researchers have point out, which was that breakfast might actually help people lose weight.

            The author is credible because he uses actual facts that he had researched. For example, he uses Dr. Allison as a source and quotes many of the things that he claims about eating breakfast. In the article, as one of the contradictions, the author mentions that Dr. Allison said “But of 72 subsequent research articles on breakfast and weight loss that cited the registry study, about half overstated its findings”.

            Several things mentioned in the article are out of context. For example it states that, “…then measured the effect on their body weight was published in 1992”. This is out of context because it mentions a trial that was published in 1992. Those trial results could be completely different compared to if that trial was redone in 2013. Basing other results on the trial in 1992 is inaccurate and the outcomes would be misleading.

            The author purpose of this article was to show two different sides of whether breakfast was a necessity or not. It wasn’t to argue a side but to analyze different views of eating breakfast.

            The audience for whom the article was meant for would probably be towards people in general who care for their health and want to know ways in which they can be healthy. Since the article is not fighting for one side, it is a more informational piece. Therefore it is intended towards people who want to know which route is the right way to go.

            The author uses personification in his article to achieve his purpose, which is emphasizing several points. For example he says, “…their findings drowned out by dozens of large observational studies that have found associations between breakfast habits and obesity but no direct cause and effect”. The large observational studies didn’t actually “drown” the findings. What he meant was that the observational studies overpowered the other findings. The studies were better than the findings that the findings are ignored for that reason.

            The author achieved his purpose because he used factual evidence from actual scientists who are reliable sources for his article. He showed both sides of an opinion in order to show the possible doubts of a thought. He uses rhetoric, like personification to show emphasis in what he is trying to say. As these examples of his strategies show, Anahad O’Connor accomplished his purpose.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/myths-surround-breakfast-and-weight/?ref=health&_r=1

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard

This book is about a girl named Jaycee Lee Dugard who write about her experience as an 11-year-old abducted and imprisoned for 18 years. I chose this book because I have always heard stories about little children being kidnapped and were never found. But this girl survived all those years and was able to retell her story of how she remembered it. I have always wanted to know what really happens to children who get kidnapped. I would always hear that a child was killed. So no one would be able to hear the child's story. 

I am looking forward to be able to feel the feelings that she felt and put myself in her shoes to get a better feel of the story. What I hope to gain is the truth. I want to know if crazy things do happened to kidnapped children like movies portray, or if it is all exaggerated and kidnapping isn't as "exciting" as it seems. I am very excited to read this book!