9/12/17
Timur Tashmukhamedov
Today, there was a Baruch Writing Center workshop held during my English class. Carin from the Writing Center came and showed us the significance of comparing and contrasting. She began by showing us a Venn diagram, the quintessential compare and contrast tool. After that, she handed us a pair of ads from the famous sportswear brand, Nike. One of the ads was targeted towards women and one towards men. The one targeted towards women portrayed a woman’s gluteal area and had a piece of text next to it talking about why it is okay for women to have a big butt. The one targeted towards men portrayed NBA star Kobe Bryant and had the simple slogan of “Prepare For Combat” next to him, with “Nikebasketball.com” written underneath the slogan and a short quote by Bryant in the bottom right corner of the ad. We were told to fill in a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two ads and then we shared what we wrote. Next, Carin handed out an ad by Dove body care products. This ad portrayed 6 women dressed in white underwear and said something along the lines of “For women with real curves”. This time we had to compare and contrast the Dove ad with the women’s Nike ad, again using the Venn diagram. At the end of the session, we discussed how creating those Venn diagrams and finding the similarities and differences in such seemingly simple advertisements could help us develop a thesis statement for an essay about the ads. We came up with ideas for essays about women being objectified and women’s body image issues. This workshop was very helpful because it opened up my mind and made me realize how easy it is to find something to write about and come up with a thesis statement about something. I look forward to working with the Writing Center again in the future, perhaps to help me complete some of the assignments for my current courses.