Our multimedia project is currently coming along rather well. We currently have several gigabytes worth of recorded footage that we are considering inputting into our final video. While this may seem like a lot, a large majority of it is about ten minutes worth of footage showing people walking around and into the HUB. This footage will be sped up to 800% and will act as B-roll for whenever Austin is narrating at the start about how few people at Penn State actually voted in the last election. We also have at least three interviews with other Penn State students regarding their views on voter ID laws, vote significance, and the Electoral College. We hope to have more student interviews as well as some professor interviews coming soon. We also have a survey in the works for our English class to fill out so that we can gather more everyday sentiment on our topic. While our script is not yet fully fleshed out, we do have some inklings of where our video will be heading after the introduction. While we will start out talking about voter significance and ID laws, we will eventually expand outward to cover the broader topic of the Electoral College in general.

While we have already made significant headway into our project, there is still much to do, More interviews and B-roll footage will hopefully be added in the coming days. We can hopefully flesh out our script more and record the narration soon. Finally, editing and rendering the whole video will likely be a very time-consuming process that still awaits us in the future. Despite how much still needs to be accomplished, we are feeling pretty comfortable and content with where we currently are with this project and hope that it can be a resume-worthy video that we look fondly upon for decades into the future.

For my multimedia project, I am joining forces with Austin, Nick, and Michael Trowbridge. This past Friday, we ruminated together over what controversial topic our project should focus on. Austin had initially proposed the Electoral College and all its flaws. I had also broached the topics of perceived conflict between science and religion and discrimination in the college application process and in the job market. Another team member (I can not remember whom) also brought up the idea of standardized test scores and whether or not they should continue serving as a metric of education quality. We eventually merged and/or narrowed down our list of ideas to just three: perceived conflict between religion and science, standardized test scores and how they tie in to reverse discrimination and affirmative action for college acceptance or vice versa, and the Electoral College and whether or not individuals’ votes (particularly those within firmly red or blue states) truly matter anymore. In the end, after much discussion and a little bit of input from Kyle himself, we settled upon the third topic regarding the Electoral College and voter significance.

Our project will start off asking random college students if they voted in 2012 and if not, why not. Hopefully, at least some will respond that they felt that their votes didn’t really matter. We plan to interview professors specializing in political science and other such fields related to our topic and insert their videotaped input into our project. We also plan to gather students’ opinions and the topic and do a bit of research into the Electoral College and current voting policies (such as voter photo ID legislation and/or laws) and summarize these in the final project. A brief history of the Electoral College will also be provided.

In order to ease the progression of our project, we have decided to divide up the tasks involved. Some of us will help perform the interviews, which we hope to have completed by the end of the first week of classes after Thanksgiving break. Others will help with narration, script writing, and research into our topic. Finally, one tech savvy and experienced person will perform the editing necessary to complete our final project. These tasks are not set in stone, and in reality, we will also likely be doing at least a little bit of each task.

At the very beginning, we might start off by showing a bunch of students exiting a building after class has finished. This will be fast forwarded thanks to the magic of iMovie editing. Whenever a students stops for our interview, we will then slow down the video back to normal speed so that we can coherently hear what they have to say. While this is merely a rough idea, it is certainly a plausible one that might make its way into our final project.

If you’ve seen Jurassic Park, this is probably your idea of Velociraptor:

But if I told you that is our modern interpretation?

Well preserved fossils of Velociraptor arm bones show where the feathers attached to the arms, and other raptor species have been preserved with fossilized feather impressions. As such, we can conclude that Velociraptor too was heavily feathered. Some may find this new vision of Velociraptor to be unpleasant. Our minds have become too used to common tropes of dinosaurs that anything contrary to these conventions we turn away from. Some may argue that all too often science ruins the fun. I beg to differ:

Even with these new limitations, we can still have fun with science and art. Don’t believe me? Look @ Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park:

It’s doing what you expect it to do: eat tall trees. However, why not picture it rolling in mud?

There’s no real evidence to support this, but modern animals play, so why not dinosaurs? The new science shows how much we used to not know about extinct animals, but it also suggests how much we still don’t know. So why not picture Brachiosaurus rolling in mud. Also, some might argue that the art is not @ all realistic, but after Jurassic Park, no artist can ever compete with the hyper-realism present in that film. As such, they don’t need to try and can be more free to play with style and more unconventional ideas such as this one. Now let’s take this concept even further. Here’s the T. rex most people are familiar with from Jurassic Park:

Now here’s a different view on the giant flesh eater:

Here we see two heavily feathered T. rex mating while the male bites the female’s neck. There is not enough evidence to confirm either a fully scaly or heavily feathered T. rex. We have evidence of at least small patches of scales on T. rex and its close relatives, but relatively smaller relatives of T. rex show fossilized feather impressions. Given the range of options here, artist Mark Witton chooses to go for the more unconventional view because why not? Also, T. rex skulls often show bite marks on them, and modern vertebrates have been shown to engage in neck biting during mating, so why not dinosaurs? Science is as much about how much we know as how much we don’t know, so why not have a little fun and break convention? This isn’t just limited to dinosaurs and art though. Back in the day, the ancient Greeks believed that everything was made of one or a combination of 4 elements: earth, fire, water, and air. They believed that these elements were controlled by the gods, like Zeus:

Today, we know what the elements really are and we put them in a table, and we know their properties well enough to know that they are not controlled by supernatural forces. This might mean that all the fantasy of mythology has been killed off, but fear not! We can still have fun with the elements. We can make the world’s smallest periodic table:

It’s located on a human hair. This guy’s, in fact:

But why stop there? People used to believe that all sorts of mythological creatures were possible, such as dragons:

We now know that dragons never existed and practically biologically impossible. Killing the fun of mythology again? Fear not! We can create our own epic creatures to make up for this, such as glow in the dark rabbits!

But if we take genetic engineering even further, then don’t we just end up @… Jurassic Park? Our journey has come full circle, and the one thing we’ve learned is that while science may appear a restraint and a buzz kill @ 1st, it still leaves open plenty of room for fun.

Going from a simple essay with pictures to a full-on presentation with no visible script and a wide range of audio-visual support available, some things are bound to change as I shift over from my paradigm shift essay to my TED talk. One thing that I’d like to add is just a short clip from Jurassic Park simply because it is responsible for some of the major changes in paleoart. In particular, it set a new standard for hyperrealism in representation of non-avian dinosaurs that paleoartists of the present don’t even try to compete with the film and as such focus more on style and other factors beyond realism. While I elaborate on this point quite a lot in my essay, it can be difficult for one to fully grasp without actually seeing the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. As such, I feel that a short clip from the film would be rather helpful for my TED talk. Also, I may put up other supporting pictures beside just the fossils and artwork already included in the essay. There are multiple times throughout my essay where I’m not referencing any art for evidence, and if I’m discussing such a topic, then I feel that I should have some relevant picture available for the audience to see just so that they can have a better grasp on the material being presented to them. Due to how technical my essay is though, I might struggle a bit to reach out to the laity. As such, I will attempt my best at presenting the information in as clear and concise a way as possible so that it’s more understandable to the audience. This may require cutting some material or words out from my TED talk or using more simplified explanations.

*I felt that it would be easier for me to just type a legit rough draft,

For millennia, people have discovered the fossils of extinct animals and attempted to artistically reconstruct them. This is perhaps a perfectly expectable thing to do. We are naturally curious about the unknown and as such we seek to make sense of it through various means, with art being a primary method since it allows relatively easy mental grasp of what is otherwise so familiar. People’s first artistic reconstructions of long-dead animals were, in retrospect, absurdly incorrect. The ancient Greeks possibly interpreted the skulls of extinct elephants, including dwarf varieties, as those of cyclopses and as such the one-eyed giants are frequently depicted in ancient art. The femur of the dinosaur Megalosaurus was initially interpreted as that of a Roman war elephant and then a Biblical giant,[1] helping to inspire artwork of the Biblical giants.The skulls of the beaked dinosaur Protoceratops were misinterpreted as those of griffins,[2] and artwork of the mythical beings began to propagate.

Megalosaurus

Protoceratops

When it was eventually realized that fossils were the remains of extinct animals, people began to replace mythological imagery with more “scientific” imagery. The first recorded and published instance of what we now call paleoart was Henry De la Beche’s 1830 watercolor painting Duria Antiquior: A More Ancient Dorset.[3] While this first rendition of paleoart may appear cartoonish and somewhat frivolous, it was merely a hint of things to come. During the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, numerous professional paleoartists would gain fame for their work, such as Charles R. Knight and Heinrich Harder. Modern paleoart however, is very different from the works by these classical artists. The inventions of the Internet, digital media, more advanced fossil analysis technology, and computer generated imagery, newer discoveries in paleontology, and the increased access to art supplies and education for the laity have all caused a dramatic shift in the very essence and nature of paleoart.

Duria Antiquior

Charles R. Knight- Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops

Heinrich Harder- Deinotherium

One of the major changes in the history of not just paleoart, but all art in general, is the shift from art being a technical skill reserved only for those wealthy and elite enough to afford an art education to being a form of creative expression that anyone can access and use. For millennia, the primary medium for visual art was very natural “paint.” Often this meant the use of ground up plant fluids or powdered minerals, all of which had to be picked by hand and properly prepared and mixed in order to attain the proper color and consistency. This was a very time consuming and expensive process. As such, art was something performed only by the grand masters (Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, etc.) who had been trained by professionals throughout their whole youth. The invention of cheap paint in a can or plastic tube greatly increased both ease of creating art and public access to art supplies. In addition, the reduced cost of materials meant art education became cheaper. All this helped art become something that anybody could get involved in. The release of art software such as Photoshop has made access to art even easier for the public. In Charles R. Knight’s day, paleoart was something rather rare and produced at a very slow pace. Nowadays, a quick Google image search of almost any relatively famous or obscure extinct animal will yield plenty of paleoart depicting that animal. There is now such an abundance of paleoart and paleoartists that very few, if any, single artists or works of paleoart gain as much attention as Knight and his works did back in the day.

Another major change in the nature of paleoart did not as closely parallel a similar contemporary shift in art as a whole. The invention of the camera had greatly transformed the entire course of art history, leaving many contemporary artists simply wondering “why bother attempting to replicate what a camera can do more perfectly?” and as such branching off from the path of realism that had guided western art for millennia. However, to this day there still exists no photograph of a non-avian dinosaur. Instead, it was another relatively significant invention that would lead paleoart to follow a similar path to the rest of art: computer-generated imagery (CGI). The 1993 film Jurassic Park forever cemented in audiences’ minds a believable vision of what dinosaurs really were like, even though this vision was certainly not scientifically accurate. As such, paleoart now no longer focuses much on realism anymore, for no matter how hyper-realistic it may be, it will never be as believable as any of the dinosaurs depicted in Jurassic Park. While in the past, artists like Knight were people’s only real source for realistic depictions of extinct animals, modern artists have realized the diminishing importance of realism and have been free to create more stylistic art. John Conway’s depiction of the dinosaur Giraffatitan is whimsical and makes no attempt at hyper-realism, but it doesn’t need to. CGI does a far better job of reproducing a living breathing Giraffatitan than Mr. Conway ever could, so as such he is free to pursue his own unique artistic style, knowing that viewers already have an idea of how Giraffatitan would have moved and lived in real life.

John Conway- Giraffatitan

Perhaps the most important invention to ever impact the history of paleoart though, is the Internet. Back in the day, very few people had ready access to the fossil remains of extinct animals. As such, they could believe a lot more of what they saw in paleoart. This meant that artists like Knight could get away with pathetically minimal, if any, attention to the real fossils of extinct animals as well as what they suggested about the soft tissues of the animal. For example, even though Knight paid close attention to the actual musculature of extant animals whenever he drew them, when it came time to drawing non-avian dinosaurs, he neglected consideration of what the actual fossils suggested about dinosaur musculature and instead just drew them freehandedly.[4] In his depiction of Allosaurus, he gave the animal relatively slender and lizard-like legs that likely would have failed to support the animal’s mass in real life. Knight’s animal also lacks its halluces (big toe in humans, though it’s behind the foot in carnivorous dinosaurs and birds). In modern artist Nobu Tamura’s depiction of Allosaurus, the legs are considerably beefier and the halluces are clearly visible. Nobu Tamura cannot possibly get away with an inaccurate depiction of an extinct animal. The Internet allows anyone to access published documents, fossil photos, and other sources of information regarding paleontology, so errors in depictions do not go undetected for long. In fact, most of Knight’s works on Wikipedia are already flagged as being inaccurate depictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Allosaurus4.jpg). This extensive access to paleontological information also means that anyone with artistic skill can begin to create scientifically accurate paleoart whenever he or she wants to.

Charles R. Knight- Allosaurus

Nobu Tamura- Allosaurus

Since paleoart is meant to reflect contemporary views on paleontology, much of its change is due to how much we have revised and updated our views on extinct animals since the time of Duria Antiquior: A More Ancient Dorset. While even more recent artists’ depictions of dinosaurs such as Velociraptor once depicted the animals as being scaly (Paul Martin’s 2003 drawing of the animal is a good example), it is now confirmed that Velociraptor was heavily feathered, and as such this has been reflected in more recent paleoart, such as its depiction by John Conway. Advances in technology have also allowed us to gain deeper insight into what extinct animals were really like. For example, it had always been assumed that paleoartists had free rein over what color their animals were. However, in recent years, that freedom has been taken away from artists for some animals. We now have to ability to examine the microscopic structure of fossilized feather impressions, and by comparing these to those of modern bird feathers, we can have a much better guess at what color certain animals were. For example, in Heinrich Harder’s classic depiction of Archaeopteryx, he could freely decide on whatever color he felt like making the animal at the time. However, it is now known that at least part of some of Archaeopteryx’s feathers, if not all of them, were black,[5] and this is reflected in Nobu Tamura’s depiction.

Paul Martin- Velociraptor

John Conway- Velociraptor

Heinrich Harder- Archaeopteryx

Nobu Tamura- Archaeopteryx

Finally, given the major leaps in paleontology over the past few decades and how much they have revealed that our previous understandings of some extinct animals was entirely wrong, there is now a greater tendency for paleoartists to perhaps attempt more liberal views of extinct animals. In the past, paleoartists’ depiction of extinct animals always opted for more conservative views. Knight’s depiction of Tyrannosaurus is essentially an overly large bipedal lizard. However, in light of new evidence that suggests that Tyrannosaurus may have had feathers, though there is currently no hard evidence for or against this theory, Mark Witton decided to depict two fully feathered Tyrannosauruses in an attempt to further push the boundaries of paleoart. More liberal guesses at extinct animal behavior are frequently shown in paleoart. Mark Witton’s depiction of Tyrannosaurus also shows the animal engaging in neck biting during copulation. This is based on the extensive number of Tyrannosaurus skulls and those of other large carnivorous dinosaurs that show bite wounds and the fact that head and neck biting during copulation is relatively common in living vertebrates.[6] It might seem like a stretch, but it remains totally within the realm of scientific plausibility, and paleoart offers a perfect mode of expression of such a view. John Conway’s book All Yesterdays focuses extensively on more liberal but still scientifically sound views of extinct animals, showing how much the paradigm of paleoart has shifted.

Mark Witton- Tyrannosaurus

Since people first came to the realization that extinct animals once roamed this Earth, they have always been fascinated by the possibilities of what they could have been like. As such, artists immediately used their talents to give their interpretations on the matter. However, the nature of paleoart has changed a lot over the past couple centuries. The spread of public access to art supplies and education, various new technological advances, and continuous new discoveries in paleontology have all helped to significantly alter the path of paleoart. While the works of the late great masters such as Charles R. Knight and Heinrich Harder can never be ignored, the current generation of paleoartists show how much was truly lacking the earlier artists’ work. Perhaps decades into the future, paleoartists will look at today’s paleoart and view it in the same way that Knight’s work is viewed today.

My two possible topics for my paradigm shift essay both deal with the nerdier side of life. As such, I have the extra challenge of making such niche topics appeal to a wide audience. Anyway, my first possible topic concerns changing nature of technology over time. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson) once pointed out that in the classic 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film), antagonist sentient computer HAL is based on the idea at the time that considering the capabilities of a computer the size of a room, a computer the size of a whole spaceship must have abilities beyond our imagination. As is evident from this observation, in 1968, people thought that bigger technology was better. A larger rocket meant increased ability to transport human beings further out into space. However, this mode of thinking now sounds rather alien to readers in 2013. Computers almost infinitely more powerful than the room-sized computers available in 1968 now reside in our pockets (if you haven’t figured it out yet, these are our phones). The mindset for technological advancement now focuses on packing more into an ever smaller package. Moore’s Law (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore’s_law) provides a perfect underlying paradigm for this. It states that every two years, the number of transistors (switches) on a microchip doubles. Gordon E. Moore originally only predicted this trend for several years, but the trend has continued for decades, though it is now slowing down so the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every three years. The late science fiction writer Michael Crichton’s 2002 novel Prey (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(novel)) is further evidence of our increasing concern with advanced technology on a far smaller scale than anything people could imagine back in 1968.

My second possible topic is even more niche. Back in the day, artistic depictions of extinct animals was very straightforward. The late American paleoartist Charles R. Knight (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Knight) provides a perfect examples of what paleoart was like at the time. Paleoart consisted of traditional style (for those knowledgeable of art history, I mean pre-Impressionism) paintings done by a few (relatively) well-known artists. They based their art on scant fossil evidence and often inaccurate fossil sketches available to only a select few. Their views on the animals they portrayed were conventional. Mammoths were made to resemble modern elephants, and saber tooth cats were made to resemble modern felines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smilodon_Knight.jpg). Dinosaurs strongly resembled oversized lizards in such old-school paleoart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Laelops-Charles_Knight-1896.jpg). In today’s modern paleoart, the paradigm has changed completely. In order to understand this new direction in paleoart, I suggest you take a look at the works of John Conway (http://johnconway.co/), Emily Willoughby (http://emilywilloughby.com/gallery/paleoart), Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com/), and myself (http://sounder1995.blogspot.com/). In stark contrast to Knight’s work, today’s paleoart covers a wide variety of media, a lot of it now partly or completely digital. The number of artists portraying extinct species is now exponentially greater than before, largely due to art education and supplies being more widely available to the public over the centuries. The necessary evidence for paleoart is now available to anyone who has access to Google and also now is more profound due to advanced technologies that allow us to observe the microscopic structures of fossils. Hyperrealism is no longer important (http://johnconway.co/giraffatitan_mudbath) since films such as Jurassic Park and other CGI-aided videos give us a far more hyper-realistic (though often scientifically inaccurate) view of these animals than paleoart ever could. Finally, as seen in the book All Yesterdays (http://irregularbooks.co/), today’s paleoartists seem to want to go for ever more speculative depictions of extinct life. While feathered Velociraptors and tyrannosaurs might now be scientific fact, paleoartists have put feathers on far more speculative species (http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2013/01/skin-deep-one-skin-fits-all-approach-to.html) or depicted species engaging in far more speculative behavior (http://johnconway.co/ay_plesiosaur).

Before this semester, the only time I had ever blogged before was for my AP English Literature and Composition and AP Art History classes in my senior year of high school. Back then, our blog posts were responses to a preset (and often very cleverly and humorously derisive) prompt created by our teacher (I had the same teacher for both classes). This greatly limited the freedom with which we had to express ourselves, but all this changed in my blogging career once I began to have to type up near-weekly passion blogs for my English 137H class. Now I had to find something that I was passionate enough about for me to be able to write weekly blogs about for a whole semester. It seemed a rather daunting task, and at first I was not quite sure where I was headed with my passion blogging career. Some people might still attempt to make the argument that I do not know where I am headed with my passion blogs, but sometimes in order to know where I should be headed, I have to look at other people’s work. After all, as an engineer, I’m sure that most innovations in the worlds of technology, medicine, and etc. are accomplished by copying off the work of others.

Two people’s passion blogs that I found particularly interesting are those of Austin Steltz and Jesse Weber. Austin’s overarching theme is video games, and Jesse’s is science. More specifically, Austin’s passion blog this week talked about “the power of music in video games,” while Jesse’s talked about the importance of bacteria. Both blogs deal with more niche, somewhat nerdier topics and attempted to make them more interesting so that they may appeal to the more common man or woman. However, in order to accomplish this goal, the authors of these two blogs took very different routes.

Austin’s blog is the noticeably more formal of the two. His blog’s overall tone though, perhaps needs to be this way in order to help convey the significance of video games. Video games sometimes have the unfortunate connotation of being something meant for kids and not something to be take seriously at all. As such, Austin’s reserved manner helps significantly to strike back at this common misconception. He shows that he has done his research through the embedding of an audio track, the input of a link, and the use of specific details from video games in order to convey his message. Austin also speaks directly to the audience and even asks them to engage directly with the link he provided. This shows his willingness to connect with the audience on a more personal level, something that any presidential candidate knows is very important for rhetorical success.

Jesse’s approach to passion blogging is considerably different from Austin’s. Since bacteria is often viewed as a very insipid and dull topic (my time spent learning about bacteria in AP Biology class junior year did not help to break this negative stereotype), Jesse decides to spice things up a bit in order to increase bacteria’s drollness and consequently, its coolness. His tone is very informal and laid back. The title has a hashtag in it as a reference to Twitter, helping him to establish a sense of vicarious understanding with his younger and/or more Internet-savvy audience. The title and supplementary picture also feature puns that are further carried out into the introduction paragraph. This attempt at humor furthers lightens the mood and helps to draw in the audience’s attention. Jesse’s diction and bending of grammatical conventions also helps him appeal more to the common man or woman with usage of more colloquial words (perhaps a rarity in the study of bacteria) and the occasional typing in all caps for slightly comical emphasis. Like Austin, he too reaches out to the audience by directly engaging with them (such as by asking them rhetorical questions) and establishes logos with plenty of facts to support his claims.

Passion blogging can be a bipolar affair. If one chooses a topic that he/she later discovers is difficult to write about and is rather uninteresting, this will show in the blog itself as a poorly written composition. However, if one chooses to write about a topic that he/she is truly passionate about, it can help make the blogs epic masterpieces (well, not quite, but certainly noteworthy compositions at the very least). Austin’s and Jesse’s blogs embody this latter observation very well and both show great rhetorical ability as they attempt to draw more mainstream attention to more niche and nerdier topics. Through their efforts at bringing video games and bacteria into the limelight, maybe they will inspire a future generation of game developers and microbiologists to enjoy their work and recognize its significance.

On Monday, May 2^nd, 2011, shortly after 1 am local time in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Al Qaeda leader and founder Osama bin Laden was killed by US Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as SEAL Team 6). The attack, codenamed “Operation Neptune Spear,” was coordinated by the CIA’s Special Activities Division and had an immediate international impact shortly after news of it promulgated. An overwhelming sense of patriotism swept over America, and closure arrived for those who had lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks on September 11^th, 2001. The UN, NATO, EU, and numerous governments worldwide all held positive reception toward the event. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda pledged revenge against the US, and enemies of the US, such as Fidel Castro and head of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh, condemned the attack. Tensions rose in US relations with Pakistan since the SEALs was there without Pakistani authorization, and controversy arose over the fact that Osama was unarmed when he was killed. Also controversial was the lack of photographic or DNA evidence released to confirm Osama’s death, and many Pakistanis vehemently denied that the US had actually killed Osama.

At the center of all this, perhaps more so than ever, the man that everyone had questions for shortly after news of Osama’s death spread was Barack Obama. Obama knew that plenty of people would have questions for him after hearing of Osama’s death, and so he prepared a thoughtful speech to deliver on live TV for the American people, and to a lesser extent the rest of the world. He delivered this speech on Sunday, May 1^st at 11:35 pm, about seven and a half hours after Osama died, in the East Room of the White House. His speech made effective use of ethos, pathos, and logos and helped him to make greater appeal to the American people and to the international community. Of course, Obama knew the importance of kairos very well upon delivering his speech, as he only waited a relatively short amount of time after Osama’s death before speaking about the event. This helped him to remain relevant and show shrewd acknowledgement of the importance of timing and opportunity in delivering a speech so that it would have maximum effect.

Obama starts off his speech with a very formal introduction that quickly helps to establish his ethos: “Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world, the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.” While Obama had plenty of ethos to begin with since he was and still is President of the United States, even those of high status must take good care to present themselves in a way that does not tarnish their image, and Obama quick and concise introduction helps him to ensure such a thing.

Obama’s diction that includes the words “murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children” shows that he is immediately ready to appeal to the audience through pathos. These words are meant to evoke a sense of sadness in listeners as they reflect upon the true scope and nature of what Osama caused while he was alive. He then goes on to gives descriptive and emotionally deep flashbacks of the events of 9-11 and even highlights the sadder implications of the attacks. He also makes good use of facts and figures here, helping to connect to the audience with logos, while simultaneously attempting to elicit emotions through pathos, perhaps a very tricky thing to do for inexperienced rhetors.

Obama next helps to establish a deeper connection with the American people by referring to himself and other Americans with the word “we” and describing in vivid detail how united we all were following 9-11. Obama follows this with a relatively lengthy description of the path that the US government took that eventually led to their success in killing Osama. While this part of the speech can be considered rather boring and dull, it does help him establish appeal through undeniable use of logos.

After some brief remarks on the impact of Osama’s death and how it by no means meant that the US’s war on terror was over, Obama then affirms his political correctness by pointing out the US’s innocuousness toward Muslims: “As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.” He appeals to the international Muslim community here through logos by pointing out that Osama also was responsible for countless Muslim deaths, and as such, Muslims should feel a sense of relief from news of his death.

Obama then attempts to appeal to Pakistan through pathos by noting their mutual cooperation in the hunt for Osama and also pointing out that “Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.” He closes these remarks on Pakistan by describing his call to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and how it supposedly helped continue cordial relations between the US and Pakistan. All this also shows logos toward the American audience by showing that Obama thinks also of how others in the world, particularly those directly involved and/or impacted, might respond to the effects of his actions.

Obama next makes more attempts at connection through pathos with diction such as “senseless slaughter of our citizens” and “service, struggle, and sacrifice.” The alliteration in the latter example also shows his proficient knowledge and handling of the English language, further aiding his ethos. His pathos then takes the form of descriptions of the sadness he feels whenever he must interact with the family member of a 9-11 victim or a wounded soldier returning from active duty overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan.

After this, Obama helps reestablish a sense of unity among the American people with another set of “we” statements: “Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.” He then tries to connect through pathos to service members and all those who helped to make the mission success possible by giving them praise and reminding Americans to acknowledge their hard work and sacrifice.

Obama wraps up his speech with more pathos toward those deeply affected by 9-11 by remind them that the American people will always be standing right by their side and that we are all still one people here in the US. He ends on a positive note with a hopeful message about how much we can still achieve. His final words show attempt to connect to the deeply religious and/or patriotic: “Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.”

With much of the world’s attention suddenly shifted to the US and its role in the war on terror back on that fateful day in 2011, Obama had to carefully navigate through the dark waters of potentially devastating blunders when giving his speech that night. Fortunately, Obama is a skilled rhetor who knew what he was doing. The timeliness of his speech already showed his acumen in kairos and the particulars and implications of his speech showed his profound experience in making connections with his audience through ethos, pathos, and logos. While Osama’s death may now seem like a relatively distant memory that did not really have that much of a significant impact upon the world, Obama’s subsequent speech showed his great skill as a very capable rhetor and may live on to be as famous as speeches such as the Gettysburg Address or John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech. Only time will tell how this well-planned and executed speech will be remembered, or forgotten, by this world.

Perhaps very cliche and expected in a rhetoric and civic life class, former US President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration address is a worthy speech is consider analyzing for rhetorical appeals. The speech’s most famous excerpt “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” has been forever burned into my mind due to the magic of 1961 color film and continuous references by those wishing to cite someone with ethos. The speech is directed to the American people in 1961, as evidenced by JFK’s direct reference to them in his speech. The speech appeals to the audience through ethos (JFK is President at the time after all), logos (Americans don’t want themselves to be blown up), and pathos (Americans fear nuclear war with the Soviet Union). Overall, it seems a very suitable choice for a rhetorical analysis essay. The exact words can be found in the link below;

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html

A speech significantly more recent, fresh, and relatable for us young college folks is incumbent President Barack Obama’s speech following the death of Osama bin Laden. I first heard small snippets of this speech while it was being delivered by Obama live on national television in May of 2011. The speech was directed to the American people in 2011, and to a lesser extent the rest of the world. The speech appeals to the audience to ethos (Obama is President after all), logos (Obama cites plenty of facts in this speech), and pathos (Obama’s diction shows that he’s trying to connect with Americans on a more personal and emotional level). Overall, it seems a very suitable choice for a rhetorical analysis essay. The exact words can be found in the link below:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.announcement/index.html

http://securenation.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/military-ad-campaigns-why-the-marines-still-rule-madison-ave/

I. Intro- My credentials as a Scholar & why you should care (or choose not to), Ad-spamming.

II. Brief Description of Civic Engagement, Goals

III. How It Appeals

A. Ad spamming

B. Delivery (ethos)

C. SSDD… 40+ yrs later (ethos)

D. VIP

E. Sense of mystery (the man shown)

F. Simple

G. Appeal to young African American males

i. My own personal exp. with these ads

ii. racial issues highlighted

1. Tupac quote

H. You have a shot at greatness (commonplace)

IV. Likelihood of Success of Civic Engagement

A. Target audience probably not in SHC

i. Effect on less intellectually profound

1. Appeal to African Americans (pathos)

ii. Effect on more intellectual profound (Harvard)

B. Patriots and those influenced by war, 9-11, etc.

V. Effects of Civic Engagement

A. Stats (http://military.answers.com/military-recruiting/enlistment-statistics-for-the-five-branches-of-military)

B. Est. ethos

VI. Conclusion

A. Know your target audience

B. Est. your ethos

C. Marketing/PR/Propaganda/BS is everything