SWA #5

1. The magazine that featured this ad was Us Weekly.

2. The topics typically covered in this magazine are celebrity news and celebrity gossip. 

3. The typical readers for this magazine are middle class with an average income around $60,000. The gender of the readers is female. The typical age range for the reader is from 18-49.

4. The advertisements featured in this magazine are just general items. Things that people would use in their everyday lives like gum.

5. Publishers assume the readers value anything celebrities like. 

1. The magazine that featured this ad was Seventeen.

2. The topics typically covered in this magazine are celebrity news and fashion.

3. The typical readers of this magazine are girls and young woman from ages 12-21.

4. The typical advertisements in this magazine are things teenager like, such as gum or clothing.

5. Publishers assume the readers of this magazine value outward appearance. 

Advertisements

1. These are both gum advertisements. The first one, 5 Gum, is from the magazine Seventeen. The second, Orbit Gum, is from Us Weekly.

2. The ad for 5 Gum comes from the magazine Seventeen. The audience of this magazine is mainly teenagers. Its more likely geared towards females than males.

The ad for Orbit gum comes from the magazine Us Weekly. The Us Weekly is an older audience than the audience of Seventeen. Its more likely from about 20 to 40 years old and is more likely women than men.

3. 5 Gum is presented a very exhilarating almost chilling feeling, something that one would not expect from gum. The phrase "Ever tried speed skating on dry ice" is something most people have not done which causes one to think. The pack of gum is almost frozen which gives a sense that this gum is so minty that its cold. 5 Gum is able to "stimulate your sense".  This ad also features a QR code.

Orbit gum is presented in a much different way than 5 Gum. The style of the ad is not modern at all but more of a 50's style. A double entendre is used with the slogan. As the gum package is unwrapped, woman gets partially undressed. The woman is wearing all white which is very clean.

4. I choose these two ads because I have chewed both types of gum before and never really thought about how they advertised themselves. The two ads are completely different in there styles of presenting. The Orbit  gum is going for a more sophisticated approach and style like that of the 50's. The 5 Gum is going for a much more modern edgy approach. It also does not have a model representing the gum in any way which is interesting and makes it more individual. The 5 Gum is trying to appeal to the need to be an individual and to try something different.

SWA #3

Jonny Leon

English 102-111

January 23, 2012

SWA #3

The Use of Arguments

            Arguments can be made in many forms, but two of the most useful are essays and pictures. Every society faces some set of moral or practical issues. The issues are sometimes the same throughout generations but many times different issues faces each generation. Two of the most pressing issues of this generation are illegal immigration and the prison system.

            In Figure 2.1 of Writing Arguments, a man is holding a sign that says, “It’s illegal to hire illegals.” Illegal immigration is one of the greatest issues of this generation. These illegal immigrants come to the U.S. for work opportunities that are not available where they are originally from. By no means do these people come to the U.S. to get rich. They come to support their families, and not just immediate family but all of their family. They could be supporting up to twenty people on pay far below minimum wage. These immigrants have become a major element in the work force of the U.S. and there could be close to twenty million of them here at any given time. The man holding the sign makes a valid point. Not only are the illegal immigrants breaking the law but so are any people that hire them. Unemployment is very high in the U.S. and illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from legal citizens. One major problem arises here, the generally population of U.S. citizens are lazy and proud. They would rather be unemployed than be working ten hours a day doing construction or landscaping. They would never work for under minimum wage but these illegal immigrants are satisfied with many making any money at all. Illegal immigration is also related to another problem the U.S. faces right now and that is the failing prison system.

            In Kwame Anthony Appiah’s essay “What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For?”, some of societies biggest moral and social problems are examined. This prison system becomes worse and worse as more and more people are added to it. The problem is becoming worse not getting better at all. A prison has two main functions. The first is to keep people that are dangerous away from the rest of society and punish them for breaking the law and the second is to deter people from breaking the law. The prisons are overcrowded with quite a few people who do not truly belong there. Overcrowding has resulted in reduced sentences for many prisoners. Someone who was given five years in prison might only spend 18 months because the prisons are too full. This no longer deters people from committing crimes. People who truly belong to be in prison are being set free and those who could be innocent are forced to stay in these overcrowded, violent prisons.

Response to "Get Smarter"

Jamais Cascio's essay, "Get Smarter", praises technology and how it will increase and has already increased the capacity of knowledge for humans. This is in sharp contrast to Nicholas Carr's essay, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". Both essays are informative about how technology, especially the internet, will change the way humans think but they do it in opposite ways.

Carr claims that internet takes away our ability to think properly or correctly. The common person no longer has to search for days, through books, to find the answers he is looking for but can just go on to the internet and find answers within a few minutes. Carr seems to think this a bad thing because it is taking away from man's ability to think for longs periods of time. The average person does not want to sit down and read a long book but wants to browse through short articles on the internet. Carr fails to realize that this is just another step in the evolution of human thinking. With the advent of books, man no longer had to remember every story or piece of history but could find it if necessary, and now with the internet, knowledge is always at our fingertips.

Cascio seems to understand the benefits  of the internet increasing our intelligence, not taking away from it. With things like Google man has access to more information, at any given time, than was ever possible in history. How could that be bad? Certain recent developments, such as drugs like modafinil, can increase one's ability to think and retain knowledge. This will in turn lead to better technology, which will then increase our knowledge even more and that cycle will repeat. This cycle of technology will continually make mankind more intelligent. The internet or Google are not making people more stupid but are actually going to make people more intelligent.