Response #6:

1.) The creation of a world health reserve that would respond to international health crises.

2.) The proposal prioritizes the solution, this is because most people agree that disease pandemics are a major problem.

3.) The audience knows that disease outbreaks such as Ebola start in poor countries with little health technology. They feel that this could be prevented with modern medicine and international effort.

4.) One prominent resemblance argument was when the author compared the proposed health corps to the UN Peace Corps. This gives the audience an idea of the structure and reputation of the proposed health corps. The writer also listed the severity of the Ebola outbreak as a consistence of the recent cuts in the WHO and lack of international medical relief.

5.) Yes, the author lists how the corps will help bring a more organized and effective approach to international health crises. He also states negative effects during pandemics that will happen if the corps are not implemented.

6.) By proposing the issue and relating to a very current topic, the Ebola outbreak, the author catches the attention of the audience. The author gives good facts and uses solid arguments about the problem to get his proposal to the audience.

PROJECT 3 ROUGH DRAFT:

The Modern College Application: A Genre Critique

Education has been a priority in America since before its founding. Not only did religious institutions offer free elementary-level education to the young children across the country, but colleges and universities also sprang up across the countryside to meet the needs of the more privileged student. Colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rutgers were among the first to give college degrees in America. As the nation progressed, elementary and secondary education were increasingly offered to children everywhere for free, but higher education remained a special privilege. Not only did students have to pay to get their college degrees, but esteemed universities had to limit admission due to high demand. For example, Tufts University limited admission to 650 men and 250 women in 1925 (Ryan). The limited number of spots in colleges meant that students had to compete for admission, and this led to the necessity of the college application. By comparing the applications of multiple students, college admissions advisors could determine which students were best prepared to study at their institution.

Today, the college application has become only more common as thousands of careers require specialized knowledge from a college degree. Modern students may fill out several applications, each of which includes: entrance exams, references, essays, and extensive information about the student's grades and hobbies. These college applications are an important part of the education of students, as they can mean the difference between an excellent college education, and a sub-par one. Thus, it would be beneficial to look deeper into the genre of college applications and their features. From an analysis of college applications, one can begin to critique the effectiveness of their genre conventions: Do college applications give students a fair chance to show their readiness to succeed in college? Do college applications give advisors a clear look at which students will be best fit for their institution? If college applications are not fair to students or institutions or both, then perhaps the genre can be changed to better serve all the communities involved.

The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 2010 there were 2,103 4-year colleges and universities in the United States (NCES). With this huge number of universities, one would have to sample a large variety of applications to get a complete idea of genre. Thankfully, in the modern age, many colleges have decided to standardize their applications through The Common Application, a non-profit organization that allows students to fill out a single application for any number of its 517 member schools. The effects of The Common Application will be discussed in detail later, but for now, it will be used as a general guide for what the modern college application genre looks like.

The Common Application first asks the student to identify if they are a transfer student or a first-time college student. For this analysis, we will assume that the application is being filled out by a first-time college applicant. The Common Application is broken into six tabs: Profile, Family, Education, Testing, Activities, and Writing. The Profile tab asks for basic information about the student, and the student's contact information. The Profile tab then asks optional questions about race and ethnicity, along with mandatory questions about the student's citizenship status, how many languages they speak, and how long they've been inside the country. Although race & ethnicity are optional questions, due to non-discrimination laws, it seems that colleges are still able to pinpoint first or second generation immigrant students from citizenship and language questions. Speaking multiple languages has long been thought to point to greater verbal skills, but other questions in this section appear to add nothing to the goals of college applications in general. That is, knowing students' race, ethnicity, and immigration status does not help a college advisor identify which student will be most likely to succeed in college. This information is thus unnecessary and may point to bias in the genre.

The next tab of The Common Application is the Family tab. This section asks for information about the marital, educational, occupational status of the student's parents. This information is required for all applicants, even adult students or emancipated minors, as stated in The Common Application's Knowledgebase section. Like some of the information in the previous section, this information appears to be unrelated to a student's educational or personal qualities and would not have an impact on the student's success in college.

The Education tab of The Common Application asks for information on a student's educational progress. This includes secondary schools they attended, their grade point average, honors they have received, classes they are currently taking, and college credits they have earned while still in secondary school through dual-enrollment. The Testing tab allows students to report scores they received on important standardized tests while in high school. Students can report scores on: college aptitude tests like the SAT and ACT, college credit equivalent exams like AP and IB, and international tests that track secondary student progress in other countries. Testing and Education information give students a chance to show that they are prepared for a rigorous college curriculum, and gives college advisors a chance to numerically evaluate students side-by-side.

The Activities tab of The Common Application allows a student to report any number of extracurricular activities they may have participated in during their secondary schooling. These can include activities based in athletics, art, religious groups, employment, music, foreign culture, among many others. This is necessary to the genre of college applications because it allows students to show special skills and hobbies that would make them more successful in the college life, and it allows college advisors to find more well-rounded students with a variety of interests that can balance educational and extracurricular tasks.

The final tab of The Common Application is the writing tab. This section is a personal essay of 650 words of less. These essays are quite open ended and explore topics such as personal beliefs, culture, personal accomplishments, and responding to failure. This is very important to the genre of college applications, as it not only displays the student's aptitude at writing, but also gives insight into the personality of the applicant.

Through looking in-depth at The Common Application, one can figure out what a typical piece of writing in the college application genre looks like. The question that remains is: does the college application genre fulfill the needs of its users? To decide this, one must look at what the college application contains and doesn't contain in relation to the needs of the people who use it.

As mentioned before, the college application contains unnecessary questions about race, ethnicity, and parent background. These questions provide nothing to the overall goal of the college application genre, which is to grant the most prepared students admission to the college out of a pool of potential applicants. Not only are they unnecessary, but these questions may lead to intentional or unintentional bias, when two students apply to a college with similar academic abilities and are separated by family backgrounds.

The college application genre is not only limited by the information it asks for, but by the information it fails to ask for. Much of the information on the college application is based upon impersonal calculations of grade point average and test scores, and only the essay gives insight into the personal work of the student. Part of this could be made up for with essays of recommendation, which many prestigious universities already require for students. Another option would be to require students to submit assignments from their secondary education. This would allow colleges to get deeper insight into how well a student does on their day-to-day assignments, an important indicator of how well a student will fair in college.

The college application genre could adapt these changes to better meet the needs of its users, but it has already adapted some changes that have benefited its users immensely. The Common Application, along with the advent of the internet, has allowed students to more easily apply to the colleges of their choice. It has also allowed college advisors to more easily organize and compare the large number of applicants that they receive every semester.

As college education has become more common in America, so too has the college application. It is used to determine which students are most prepared for a rigorous college education that will allow them to work advanced career fields. The college application genre uses grades, test scores, and essays to compare the academic and personal preparedness of students for a college curriculum. Though, the genre is by no means perfect. It may contain bias of students based on cultural background, due to some of the information it requires students to provide. It also may depersonalize students by relying more heavily on grades and test scores than on the actual quality of their schoolwork. The genre has began to adapt new features to make it easier to use for both students and college advisors, and will hopefully continue to add new features that make applying to college a more fair process for everyone involved. 

Works Cited

NCES. Degree-granting institutions, by control and type of institution: Selected years, 1949-50 through 2009-10. Nation Center for Education Statistics. September 2010. Web. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_275.asp

Ryan, Julia. How Getting Into College Became Such a Long, Frenzied, Competitive Process. The Atlantic. 12 November 2013. Web.

References to The Common Application are made throughout this essay for educational purposes. The Common Application is copyrighted property of The Common Application, Inc.

RESPONSE 4: http://eng1020wayne.pbworks.com/w/page/88084012/Brian%20Sliger-%20Response%204

Third Response: Vidal and Dalrymple present opposing arguments on the topic of the legalization of controlled substances in their respective writings Drugs and Don't Legalize Drugs. Opposing opinions are often scene in the realm of politics, as each side tries to justify the reasoning behind their respective opinions. Each writer uses rhetorical strategies to try to win over their audience, which in this case is probably the informed voting public. Vidal argues for the benefits that will supposedly come out of the legalization of drugs. Dalrymple is arguing for the status quo, and believes drug legalization will do more harm than good. In this response I will analyze the rhetorical strategies that each writer used in their respective articles, and how effective these arguments are to the overall subject of drug legalization. 

     In Drugs, Vidal argues that drug addiction can be combated in the United States by a system of total legalization and honest education about the effects of each drug. He contests that the current system of prohibition of drugs goes against rights laid out of us in the Bill of Rights. He compares the staus quo on drug prohibition to the 1930's US prohibition of alcohol. He draws parallels in the fact that during the 1930's alcohol was sold through a black market, as illegal drugs are today. He says that prohibition is a largely forgotten failure of the US government, and needs to be remembered to make important future policy decisions: "No one in Washington today recalls what happened during the years alcohol was forbidden to the people by a Congress that thought it had a divine mission to stamp out Demon Rum - launching, in the process, the greatest crime wave in the country's history, causing thousands of deaths from bad alcohol, and creating a general (and persisting) contempt among the citizenry for the laws of the United States." Vidal further compares the two when he says people died in the 1930's from bad home-made alcohol, and similarly when the marijuana supply ran low in 2013 NYC and many died from heroin overdose. This rhetoric technique is effective in highlighting problems of black market control of substances, as it is an example that many members of his general audience would understand. It is not a perfect comparison by any means, but it is still an effective argument in this rhetorical situation. At the end of the argument, he reiterates that the stasus quo will only continue to further the problems of drugs in America.

     In Don't Legalize Drugs, Dalrymple provides a counter argument to Vidal and other supporters of drug legalization. He offers a two-pronged response to the theoretical and practical arguments of legalization supporters. In the theoretical portion of his argument, Dalrymple argues that taking drugs is not protected under one's rights, because it inherently does damage to those who rely on the drug-user. This argument is sound in theory, but Dalrymple's rhetorical technique of comparing drug use to necrophilia in the seventh paragraph seems shallow and meant only for shock value to his audience. He argues that no one's rights are hurt in necrophilia, but it is still illegal, because some things must be illegal simply to preserve social order. This is where the similarities between the two end, and the argument leaves the reader slightly confused and disturbed. He also argues about the practical effects of drug legalization. He goes against Vidal's arguments and says that drug legalization will not decrease crime, as drug dealers will continue in their cyclic criminal-ism. This is certainly a valid rhetorical technique, as some studies have been done on the cycles of lifelong criminals. Though he shouldn't generalize this to mean that all people who commit crimes will continue to commit them indefinitely, no matter changes in the law.

     Both authors show use of rhetorical technique to try to sway the same audience in favor of their opinion of drug prohibition. Vidal brings up important flaws in the status quo on drugs in America, and uses convincing evidence to show the harm of black markets. Dalrymple, while weak on the topic of rights, does provide a compelling argument that unregulated drug legalization will still cause many problems in modern America. I believe that both of these articles were written to sway a general audience of informed American voters, and if read together, could allow such a person to weigh the strengths and weakness of each side through the writers rhetorical strategies.  

MY MEME: 

Rough Draft: 

     Memes are everywhere you look within the internet culture. You can find them in internet board communities (ie Reddit, 4chan, etc.), in news comment sections, and even on your family's Facebook pages. As you may know, memes are text laden images & .gif files that display reactionary statements or humorous content. Additionally, memes come in several colors, styles, and formats. Memes with similar features can be grouped into genres and sub-genres by their features. An easy way to analyze the features and genres of memes is to choose a single meme and try and group it into a specific genre and sub-genre, and then state why it doesn't belong in the other genres and sub-genres. The meme I chose for this genre analysis is the Obama "Not Bad" face. It originated as part of the rage comic series and is usually posted when a situation looked grim, but everything turned out unexpectedly well. In this paper, I will show why the Obama "Not Bad" meme fits into the genre of memes in general and how it exhibits the characteristics of the sub-genre of rage comic memes.

     First, to better understand the sub-genres of memes, we will look at the conventions that apply to all memes in general. This is very important to my paper because without setting standard conventions for what a meme is, some may argue that the meme I created, or all of the “rage comic” series are not memes at all. The first characteristic of memes is that they are contained in am image format that originated on the a computer, along with text to convey the message of the meme. The next characteristic is that a meme must have a consistent character that the image. This allows sub-genres of memes to evolve, as people begin to expect a certain type of humor from that familiar character. The third characteristic of all memes, is that they all use some type of humor to convey their message. This humor can range from offensive jokes to simple puns. Now, looking at a “rage comic”, one can see that it fits all three of the characteristics to be a meme. Rage comics contain images, consistent characters, and humor. So for the purposes of this paper, they are most certainly memes.

     Now that it has been proved that “rage comics” are memes, we need to look deeper into the structure of “rage comics”, so we can later prove that the Obama “Not Bad” meme falls within their sub-genre. “Rage comics” developed around the same time as other memes, but are formatted a bit different than the other sub-genres. Most memes, take Bad Luck Brian for example, have a single image with two lines of text. One line of text for the set up, and the other line for the punch line of the meme. Rage comics differ because they are a comic book strip that depicts an unusual situation, then they have a humorous ending with a reactionary image. One of these images is the Obama “Not Bad” meme. Other well known examples include an image of Nicolas Cage that states “You don't say?” and the “Forever Alone” rock man. In addition to having a comic strip format and a reactionary image at the end, “rage comics” also have a crudely drawn style that immediately distinguishes “rage comics” from other comic strips and memes.

      We have defined “rage comics” as a sub-genre of memes, now its time to look at the meme I created. It shows a comic strip format, like the other memes of the “rage comic” sub-genre. The slides show a crudely student assigned with an essay that's similar in format to the one I am writing now. He thinks he doesn't know anything about “genre conventions”, but he thinks about the differences between memes, and ends up writing an entire essay on the topic. He then realizes that he completed the entire assignment without realizing, and the Obama “Not Bad” face is displayed. This meme displays all three characteristics that I listed for the sub-genre of “rage comics”: crudely drawn style, comic slide format, and reactionary image at the end.

     Memes are well known to internet users around the world, their humor and repetitive structure attract many people to them. The rage comics are a sub-genre of memes that display a story in comic strip format and end with a meme that sums up the feeling of the comic strip. The Obama “Not Bad” meme that I created is one of these memes, and it displays characteristics of the genre of internet memes and the sub-genre of “rage comic” memes as well.

Final Draft: 

A "Not Bad" Genre Analysis of Memes

     Memes are everywhere you look within the internet culture. You can find them in internet board communities (ie Reddit, 4chan, etc.), in news comment sections, and even on your family's Facebook pages. As you may know, memes are text laden images & .gif files that display reactionary statements or humorous content. Additionally, memes come in several colors, styles, and formats. Memes with similar features can be grouped into sub-genres by their characteristics. An easy way to analyze the features and sub-genres of memes is to choose a single meme and try and group it into a specific genre and sub-genre, and then state why it doesn't belong in the other genres and sub-genres. The meme I chose for this genre analysis is the Obama "Not Bad" face. It originated as part of the rage comic series and is usually posted when a situation looked grim, but everything turned out unexpectedly well. This meme has become extremely popular recently, and even President Obama himself referenced the meme in an AMA (Ask me anything) session on Reddit.  In this paper, I will show why the Obama "Not Bad" meme fits into the genre of memes in general and how it exhibits the characteristics of the sub-genre of rage comic memes.

     First, to better understand the sub-genres of memes, we will look at the conventions that apply to all memes in general. This is very important to my paper because without setting standard conventions for what a meme is, some may argue that the meme I created, or all of the “rage comic” series are not memes at all. The first characteristic of memes is that they are contained in am image format that originated on the a computer, along with text to convey the message of the meme. The next characteristic is that a meme must have a consistent character that the image. This allows sub-genres of memes to evolve, as people begin to expect a certain type of humor from that familiar character. The third characteristic of all memes, is that they all use some type of humor to convey their message. This humor can range from offensive jokes to simple puns. Now, looking at a “rage comic”, one can see that it fits all three of the characteristics to be a meme. "Rage comics" contain images, consistent characters, and humor. So for the purposes of this paper, they are most certainly memes.

     Now that it has been proved that “rage comics” are memes, we need to look deeper into the structure of “rage comics”, so we can later prove that the Obama “Not Bad” meme falls within their sub-genre. 4Chan's image board was the place where "rage comics" were first seen, and they were called as such because the first meme displayed a person outraged by a humorous situation in the original comic.  “Rage comics” developed around the same time as other memes, but are formatted a bit different than the other sub-genres. Most memes, like "Bad Luck Brian" for example, have a single image with two lines of text. One line of text for the set up, and the other line for the punch line of the meme. Rage comics differ because they are a comic book strip that depicts an unusual situation, then they have a humorous ending with a reactionary image. One of these images is the Obama “Not Bad” meme. Other well known examples include an image of Nicolas Cage that states “You don't say?” and the “Forever Alone” rock man. In addition to having a comic strip format and a reactionary image at the end, “rage comics” also have a crudely drawn style that immediately distinguishes “rage comics” from other comic strips and memes. This is because most memes use color photographs to represent their characters, take "Scumbag Steve" for example, which originated from a picture of an amateur rapper taken by his mother. The black and white, sketched style of "rage comic" memes is unique to their sub-genre.

      We have defined “rage comics” as a sub-genre of memes, now it's time to look at the meme I created. It shows a comic strip format, like the other memes of the “rage comic” sub-genre. The slides show a crudely student assigned with an essay that's similar in format to the one I am writing now. He thinks he doesn't know anything about “genre conventions”, but he thinks about the differences between memes, and ends up writing an entire essay on the topic. He then realizes that he completed the entire assignment without realizing, and the Obama “Not Bad” face is displayed. Ending with the "Not Bad" face is key to it being part of the "rage comic" sub-genre, and it makes the meme more humorous. This meme displays all three characteristics that I listed for the sub-genre of “rage comics”: crudely drawn style, comic slide format, and reactionary image at the end.

     Memes are well known to internet users around the world, their humor and repetitive structure attract many people to them. The "rage comics" are a sub-genre of memes that display a story in comic strip format and end with a meme that sums up the feeling of the comic strip. The meme that I created is one of this sub-genre of memes, and it displays all of the necessary characteristics of the genre of internet memes in general and the sub-genre of “rage comic” memes as well. This shows how any genre can be categorized by characteristics it displays, then can be further broken up into sub-genres that have their own similar characteristics. Using this method, you can not only analyze the genre of memes, but the genre of any piece of writing in any rhetorical situation.