“Media is one of the most important places where this kind of analysis needs to happen.” This sentence is a pivotal theme presently in our social media frenzy. The author validates that rhetorical analysis is extremely important in everything that is were are subjected to in the media. Whether it is advertisements, academic sites, pop culture, politics, religious and cultural programs, blogs, tweets and music, how it is presented and way we can discern the information can be helpful or harmful. Consumers need to be knowledable about the facts, take from many sources that are reputable, entertain different ideas and views before making an informed decision. The material that is out in front of us has to be meaningful and have a value to us or it will be discounted. Today more than ever, there is tremendous exposure to all because of social media and while this is viewed as a benefit to the present audiences, it is extremely fast paced and requires more skill to keep up with all the information being presented. I believe that in order to make an informed decision about any subject matter, that rhetorical analysis is extremely important. Our opinions have to be informed opinions because it affects everything we do whether it is buying a food item in the grocery store or choosing the best car insurance. It’s crucial to how we interact with others and lead our daily lives. More importantly, it will create our future programs help solve many social programs and curtail recurrent problems. It is important to learn from the past and move on towards achieving greater accomplishments. One way to do that is to fully understand the process of rhetorical analysis and apply it to everything we can.

In my opinion, the sentence that most stuck out to me was ‘In other words, most of our actions are persuasive in nature.’ This concept was important to the piece because it sets the framework for the rest of the piece and also sums up the base idea. Rhetoric in an academic sense may seem daunting or complex at first introduction, and it is by no account easy. However, it is naturally occurring. We use rhetoric in conversations with our friends, parents, teachers, employers and more. We do this to subtly get what we want. We subconsciously know by observing social interactions that being blunt and abrasive does not always give the best result. Even small children use rhetoric when attempting to behave and give compliments in order to get something they desire. They learn this through experience and observation. When I was in the third grade, my grandfather taught me the meaning of a ‘rhetorical question’. Being nine, I assumed rhetorical only meant you did not have to actually respond to the question. Upon growing older and learning the definition of rhetoric and seeing examples of it I understand that a rhetorical question is used to further make someone’s point.

The one idea that really stuck out to me was the importance of context in rhetorical analysis.  What may serve as effective rhetoric in one situation may not serve as effective rhetoric in another.  In terms of writing, this idea has very insightful implications.  You’d write a legal brief very differently that you’d write a poem.  What may be very effective poetry writing would be very confusing legal writing.  And what would be very effective legal writing would be very dry and boring poetry.  When writing, and when analyzing rhetoric, you have to take into account the broader context in which the rhetoric occurs in order to understand whats happening.

“You’ve probably been in a situation where you arrived way under- dressed for an occasion.” The context of any rhetorical situation is always the first place to start. In “Backpacks vs. Briefcases,” by Laura Bolin Carroll, the author set out to define how rhetorical analysis can be accomplished in simple terms.  Firstly, analysis cannot begin unless we realize where the discourse occurs, she says. We don’t realize, but whenever we make observations, we classify them in our minds based on any significant information, such as appearances, and we draw conclusions on people almost instantly. In relative terms, she writes, this is rhetorical analysis. We make quick observations based on context, and using these interpret the information. This I all too similar to text based examples, and I applaud Ms. Carroll for her basic explanation of the term.

Laura Bolin Carroll’s concept that “the more we know about how to analyze situations and draw informed conclusions, the better we can become about making savvy judgments about the people, situations and media we encounter,” essential to her main points. She believed that understanding how to process certain situations properly is the to success. Knowing the audience, purpose, and restrictions of the rhetoric you are being exposed to could help make the correct informed decisions; potentially saving you a lot of trouble. A good example of why understanding the audience could help you is with “sports gambling websites” (Draft Kings). If you’re relaxing on a Sunday night, enjoying a good football game, you need to understand that you are the prime target audience for sports-betting commercials. They know that people who watch sports are more likely to fall into their online trap due to them being more competitive, emotional, and willing to place money on their favorite teams. A sports fan armed with this information might think twice before foolishly pouring his savings into their pockets. In addition, knowing the “purpose” of the rhetoric is also extremely helpful in making best informed decisions. In the case of sports betting websites, obviously their purpose is to lure people into their scheme, create an addiction, and to acquire as much profit off each individual as possible. Since their main purpose is to take an individual’s money, it is almost certain that said individual is going to lose any investment he puts in in the long run. With this information in mind now, no sensible sports fan would be willing to start betting their money. Lastly, but most importantly in making good conclusions on rhetoric is knowing it’s limitations. Sports betting sites in particular are limited in the fact that they can not false advertise. So, knowing that they can’t say “every individual will profit off their bets,” they had to improvise. What they came up with is commercials that show one “lucky winner,” who managed to bet the odds and take home the jackpot. Obviously anyone in their right mind would want to play this game too if it was actually that easy; but what they don’t know is that this “lucky winner” spent months calculating specific algorithms to try and predict which players will help him bring home the jackpot. With that information in mind, the “lucky winner” scheme doesn’t seem so appealing anymore, right? Being armed with the ability to decipher rhetoric for what it really is can be the difference between making a good decision and a life-ruining one.

Caroll’s piece touches on one of many aspects that makes American society what it is.  The fact that at one point the average Americans would see as many ads in one year that someone else would otherwise see in a lifetime, just goes to show how prevalent this aspect is in our life.  Everyday, we walk around and may not notice just how much of the environment around us are actually advertisements.  They are as she called “rhetoric” since they served the purpose of getting us to act for their benefit.    One of the main sentences that stuck out to me was “Even if we intellectually agree with something, it is difficult to get us to act unless we are also persuaded in our heart.”  This is actually true more often than not the more we think about it.  Many would agree that many ads are pretty easy to agree with, but unless it really strikes us as something that we really need, we tend to move on with our lives.  Each ad has is put out with the purpose of cornering their target audience, the people that will be persuaded through their heart.  Our mind is what gets us to act logically, and our heart is what gets us to act emotionally.  It is important to recognize that every ad may not be meant for us, and the ones that are, will more often than not persuade us whether we like it or not.

Throughout “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis,” Laura Bolin Carroll describes the many aspects of rhetoric and its role in our everyday lives. Rhetoric is a tool used by large companies in advertisements, by friends to plan a get-together, in YouTube videos, and so on for matters of persuasion. In the words of Carroll, “individuals who understand rhetorical analysis and act to make change can have a tremendous influence on their world.” Considering rhetoric can be seen in a large percentage of our surroundings, especially nowadays with the growth of technology, it is important to not only understand the use of rhetoric and be able to break it down to its meaning, to its purpose, and to its inner workings, but it is also critical to be able to take that knowledge and apply it to other cases. Just as described in the Campbell’s Soup Ad example, the small organization “Dads and Daughters,” one that fights against glorification and encouragement of a negative body image amongst young teenage girls, was able to take their knowledge and understanding of a controversial ad and contact the large company with an argument as to why the ad is inappropriate. By taking such action, the few individuals of the organization were able to make a big positive impact by getting the company to pull the ad from the public, thus taking away the danger that such an ad depicting young girls watching their weight may have on its audience. In cases and situations like these, it is important to be able to interpret and analyze rhetoric, and if necessary, as seen in the Campbell’s case and in many previous actions, to take direct action in support of or in act against the rhetoric.

Emily Weiss

02.11.2016

Laura Bolin Carroll discusses in her essay, “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis”, about the significance of understanding rhetoric and how rhetoric is used in everyday life in advertisement or even in different types of social settings. I found Carroll’s essay very intriguing as it provided many in depth analyses about how rhetorics are used not only in social settings but also in social media through advertisements. She argues that there are certain types of rules of context and argument which include pathos, ethos, and logos for argument and exigence, audience and constraints for context. 

I agree with many of the points made by Carroll regarding the importance of pathos, ethos and logos. When I took a speech communications course one of the most important aspects we had to focus on was the pathos, ethos and logos of the speeches we had to present. She dictated to us that all three of these rhetorics are extremely important when you are giving a speech because it shows the audience that you have legitimacy and that you can successfully build a relationship with your audience that can enhance your speech. She argued that your pathos must be adjusted depending on the type of speech you are giving and the audience. I believe that many of the points that Carroll describes in her essay have a lot to do with learning the fundamentals of speech, which is an excellent skill set to acquire.  

Finish reading this essay or article I can say that I learned something new. Laura wrote down an easy, open and free from hard terminology article. It was a real pleasure to read it. It should definitely helps me in my future when I will try to persuade somebody. From my point of view the most important sentence or I might say the main idea of this article is art of persuasion, models and types. From what I read II want to mention few main (from my point of view) notes I made while I was reading it. I learned three key step in any rhetoric question by Lloyd Bitzer – exigence, audience, constraints. Orator has to prepare each of them well before appearance to receive a positive response from public. I understand what is “rhetorical triangle” – writer, reader and purpose and how PR, media, public people are using it in real life. Now I know that one of the first people who started and implement this science was Aristotle with his – “artistic appeals”, obviously now it’s much wider. I really liked a paragraph about humor as a tool for development of the ideas and thoughts to the ethos. Overall, it’s very interesting and educational article, hope the knowledges from it will help me in my future work.

In the essay, “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis”, Laura Bolin Carroll demonstrates the importance of understanding rhetoric as well the procedure that we unconsciously follow when analyzing. I found Bolin’s argument quite fascinating, considering that I have never thought about the way I arrive to various conclusions. She claims that “as you have interacted with others, you have built a mental database that you can draw on to make conclusions about what a person’s looks tell you about their personality.” I consider myself very observant. When meeting someone for the first time, I tend to dissect each little thing about them. From the way they are dressed to the way they are sitting, I believe that everything has a deeper meaning behind it. However, I am also extremely guilty of overthinking, which can definitely hinder my process of analyzing.

In my opinion, the process of rhetorical analysis is important not only to understand what the media is trying to convey, but also to aid us in understanding ourselves. Being able to decipher our own thoughts and conclusions can help us grow intellectually. I often analyze how my actions as well as words could be interpreted by others, so that I can improve the way I express myself.

In her article, “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis”, Laura Bolin Carroll breaks down rhetoric, and explains how powerful discourse may be if it abides by the rules of context (exigence, audience, and constraints) and argument (which involves logos, pathos, and ethos). One of the sentences that interested me was when she said, “What we choose to wear (tennis shoes vs. flip flops), where we shop (Whole Foods Market vs. Wal-Mart), what we eat (organic vs. fast food), or even the way we send information (snail mail vs. text message) can work to persuade others”. What do these choices “work to persuade others”? Status.

What you wear, says something about you. Where you shop, says something about you. What you eat, says something about you. The way you communicate, says something about you. Some people are extremely concerned with their self-image, always conscious of how their choices might “persuade” others’ thoughts and judgments about them. This got me thinking about how certain producers (different company brands) exploit this weakness of consumers, by investing millions of dollars in their marketing campaigns to push an image (that sheds positive light about their product) unto prospective customers. This marketing is pure rhetorical strategy, as they are ultimately trying to persuade you of something, like how “happy” this product will make you or how “status-superior” you may look with that product. “Advertisement fonts, colors, page layout, types of paper, or images” (55) are all crucial to tapping into and “winning” the hearts of its audience. A font color that’s too bright or an image that’s poorly formatted can adversely affect the reader’s attention and interest in continuing to read the ad.

And the use of rhetoric does not necessarily need to be projected in the form of an ad. Rhetoric, or anything that tries to persuade you of something, is truly everywhere. I appreciated how Carroll enumerated a few types of rhetoric (56) that we may encounter on a day to day basis; it showed how widespread and indispensable the power of rhetoric is.

Laura Bolin Carroll writes that “media is one of the most important places where this kind of analysis needs to happen” and I believe that this is true. Such analysis needs to happen because of the growing presence of media in our everyday lives and to assist in making us informed consumers. Bolin Carroll explains why she believes its important to analyze media and I found myself agreeing with each point she made and understanding why such analysis is important. This is part of the reason why I believe that this sentence is very important. Its critical because it speaks of rhetorical analysis that is currently happening in media and that will be continue for quite some time in the near future. Because of this I find it to be a necessary topic that needs to be further explored and better understood.  To analyze why the media advertises things a certain way, how they came to realize who their target audience is and targeted them through some type or combination of rhetorical analysis seems fascinating and interesting. This includes understanding why certain items or activities are tailored towards certain age groups and what persuades people and captures their attention so much that they feel the urge to buy a product or engage in certain activities. I feel that it is important to understand media rhetoric and not become a mindless consumer who just buys items without having any limits or follows trends because of the persuasiveness and rhetoric of certain advertisements. To me it seems as though the sentence “media is one of the most important places where this kind of analysis needs to happen” allows for the onset of  an important question to be answered and an analyzation of why its so pertinent in our current society to focus and understand this.

Reading this article was interesting and I can see some connections with the article that we read, Metaphors We Live By. One of the sentences from her article that I think is important was, “these kinds of questions let you begin to create your own claims, your own rhetoric, as you take a stand on what other people say, do, or write” (55). Laura Bolin Carroll explains to us that with social media we interpret rhetoric. That we use it everyday and everywhere, just as metaphors. Thats one connection that I saw these two articles had. Rhetoric is everywhere and with the help of social media we are more persuade. As she continues to give different examples. Towards the end of her statements, I like how she mentioned that we have to create our own claims and take a stand. Nowadays not many people do and instead they just follow. As her last sentence says, people who understand rhetorical analysis can help influence the world.

I find the most important concept from Bolin Carroll’s piece Backpacks Vs. Briefcases: Step Toward Rhetorical Analysis is that context is crucial. She gives interesting examples such as choosing your clothing depending on where you are going, or viewing a commercial on a specific day. All that is context. The sentence that caught my attention is “One of the first steps to understanding a piece of rhetoric is to look at the context in which it takes place” (52). I find that very true because in order to find the writer’s argument, we have to find the supporting details. Let’s say someone got shot. First of all, the questions asked should be why did he get shot, where was he, or who was there? These questions come up for a good reason. It is the process of understanding what the main idea is and using critical thinking skills.

The author further states “In order to perform analysis, you must understand the context and then you must carefully study the ways that the discourse does and does not respond appropriately to that context” (56). I definitely agree that you have to understand the context, if not, you cannot even answer questions or jot down the main points. The second part of this is to figure out if that sentence or idea fits in the context. For example, if the first paragraph is about the opening of a new park, then in the middle of the paragraph, you write “I like vanilla ice-cream. This does not flow or make sense at all.

I appreciate how Carroll tries to connect with us throughout the piece, especially in the introduction. The YouTube videos, Book chapters, PowerPoint Presentations, and Bar Graphs we have encounter in school is a form of persuasion. I and maybe some of you did not notice that, so I’m glad that the author pointed that out.

Laura Bolin Carrol writes that “understanding rhetorical messages is essential to help us to become informed consumers, but it also helps evaluate the ethics of messages, how they affect us personally, and how they affect society. These are essential reasons for citizens to be able to analyze and dissect persuasive messages that come their way as being consumers in a culture of consumerism. Having products and services thrown at our face daily, we must be able to make informed decisions when it comes to purchasing products or believing various statements. This includes being able to understand the purpose of the messages we receive and how they are tailored in a way to sway us and appeal to us. This is not to say that we shouldn’t be moved or persuaded of anything, I believe Carrol would contend that we ought to comprehend the implications of the persuasion on individual and societal levels. Without being informed consumers, we are just an automatic, passive part of the industrial process which consists of producing goods, selling goods, and buying goods. By being more educated we give ourselves the power and autonomy to decide what opinions we form, what products we buy, and what services we accept. 

As I was reading the piece by Bolin Carroll, it was only towards the end that strikes me the most. Bolin Carroll concludes her piece with the sentence: “individuals who understand rhetorical analysis and act to make change can have a tremendous influence on their world” (57). Throughout the piece, Bolin Carroll informs the reader of what rhetorical analysis is and various elements of rhetorical analysis. Carroll teaches the reader how to identify certain elements of rhetorical analysis.

Though, it is clearly evident that despite knowing what these certain elements are, there is no use unless the rhetor can actually use it in practice. With that, the last sentence, “individuals who understand rhetorical analysis and act to make change can have a tremendous influence on their world” is what I consider the most important sentence in her piece. A good rhetor can actually persuade people to act and make changes to the world. If used correctly, the world can change for the better. We have seen examples of rhetor using his talent for the better of the world such as Martin Luther King Jr., as well as examples of rhetor using his talent for the destruction of the world such as Hitler. They are people that speak and actually influence people to make changes, compared to certain speakers that can barely create such movements. It isn’t necessary for an individual to become like Martin Luther King Jr., but having the necessary skills in rhetorical analysis can certainly benefit any individual’s career and life.