When a spot opened up in my ninth grade schedule, I needed to pick an elective. “Just choose something you are interested in” the counselors guided. This was exceptionally unhelpful as I had no clue what “I was interested in” and I did not even know where to start Typically, I would have been drawn to any type of quantitative math or science class, but as I had already scheduled Biology and Algebra 2 for my freshman year, my search radius broadened. On a whim, I choose Woodshop.

From my first day of school, I could smell the transformation, walking lengthwise of the building from my biology class with its Cloroxed, sterile countertops to my Woodshop class with its toasty, snug aroma of charred wood. On the surface, the teacher changed; from my ultra-organized biology teacher to my casual easygoing Woodshop instructor. The materials also changed; from sharpened pencils, crisp paper, and tacky calculators to malleable wood, soft saws, and soothing sanders. More substantially however, the values of my classmates changed. In Biology, I was used to students prizing their unblemished 4.8 GPAs, which they were quick to explain were only achievable by taking all of the unweighted high school classes in middle school. In Woodshop however, I noticed students valuing the unblemished rounded curve on the edge of a chair and the wafting aroma of charred cherry, apparently unconcerned about the negative impact Woodshop was having on their GPAs. The contrasting nature of the conversations I experienced in these two classes was certainly refreshing.

In my three semesters of high school Woodshop, I learned from my classmates and my environment how to evaluate my work in a non-quantitative way. Instead of studying enough to pass the test or answering the question to get an A, I learned to benchmark my success against my own standards. While this may have made it easier to slack off, I quickly found out that meeting self-imposed standards was more difficult than meeting any number. In a math class, I would have stopped trying after I had a test score that confirmed my success. But in Woodshop, I threw out countless pieces that had errors I knew nobody else would ever notice.

While, I have always consider myself in the numbers kid category and three semesters of Woodshop did not change that, it made me believe that while everything can be described in numbers, numbers cannot describe everything. There are intangibles. There is the fracturing of lumber heard when you try to take off too much wood with the planer and there is the gentle sawdust emitting a gentle aroma, that clings to you in a not so gentle way for the rest of the day. There were no numbers to describe these feelings and no quantitative measure could ever accurately describe the unending significance Woodshop has had to me.

Reflecting on my Ted Talk, I think I could substantially improve my delivery. I feel like I could have used pauses and changes in tone and pitch more effectively to make my presentation generally more interesting to listen to. Furthermore, I think improving eye contact and lightening my disposition in order to achieve a more conversational and friendly tone would have improved my Ted Talk.

Frankly, I am glad that I did not completely forget any major sections of my presentation. I was worried that without any flashcards or words on the presentation, I would end up missing a major section of my talk, but fortunately I touched on all of the topics I intended on discussing. I think I can attribute this to practicing my Ted Talk with a clicker and with an audience the night before.

In terms of content, it took me a while to settle on a topic. My paper was on a shift towards deregulation sentiment, but I thought it would be difficult to make an engaging argument surrounding this. On the other hand, everybody knows people with political views that oppose their own. I knew I could relate to this feeling through my personal anecdotes. Eventually using my data and anecdotes, I built to my conclusion. I think in terms of content, my favorite part of my speech was the conclusion, as I deeply believe what I was saying was true. So once again, I will end with my message that especially right now, avoiding jumping to conclusions and instead listening to each other is of the utmost important.

TED Outline Format

Oral Content

Topic: Loss of trust in government/political system/ and each other

Purpose: Describe the unnecessary losses in trust

Thesis Statement: In the recent past, the American populace has lost trust in their government, political system and people with different political ideologies.

Introduction

Attention Strategy/

Orienting Material:         How will you begin this presentation in a way that appropriately garners audience attention?

Body

1. Main Idea – The American public has lost trust in the government.
   1. Graph from visual aid depicting declining trust in the government
   2. The people have lost trust because of the Pentagon Papers/Watergate/Iraq war
   3. Media has become free to expose and attack government

1. Main Idea – The loss of trust in government has been accompanied by the American public has losing trust in each other.
   1. Graph from visual aid depicting the loss of trust of the other political party.
   2. People don’t want their children to marry people of the opposite political party

Conclusion

Concluding Remark – In our era of polarized and partisan rhetoric exiting Washington, it can be easy to forget that people want what is best for our country. We should learn from our two past presidents continued and shared commitment to improving the country and planet.

Reference Page(s)

Visual Content

In this column, offer brief slide description and its function alongside the idea it is intended to support.

Slide One

http://www.people-press.org/2017/05/03/public-trust-in-government-1958-2017/

Graph showing loss of Trust in Government

Slide Two

Ideological Echo Chambers

Graph showing the amount of people who view the other political party as a threat is rising

Loss of Trust of people with different political ideology

Slide Three 

Barack and Bush at charity event

First: Ideology

Recycling levels in the US have not changed in the past 20 years despite billions spent on advertising.

Second: How Media choice impacts/restrains/affects/alters use of proofs

Different mediums for presenting their message provide rhetoricians a host of implicit restraints, as well as opportunities, when trying to convey a message. Additionally, different mediums will likely result in different audiences which will respond to rhetorical strategies differently. The first artifact is a TV advertisement developed by the Ad Council and Keep America great, meant to be played in a typical household on any type of tv programming. The second artifact is a webpage on Recycle Across America’s website, where recycling facts are listed. These contrasting media platforms explain the differences in rhetorical techniques used.

Thesis: Using a commercial, the Ad Council and Keep America Great make a strong appeal to Pathos by humanizing recyclable items and attaching traditional commonplaces, such as the underdog story, while building Logos through a cause-and-affect argument. Conversely, on their website, Recycle Across America grounds their claims in strong extrinsic proofs and Ethos developed through celebrities. Both methods hope to encourage the American public to engage civically and recycle.

P1: The Ad Council humanizes recyclable items to generate Pathos by using traditional commonplaces such as the underdog story.

Using a few lines of dialogue, visuals, and music, the Ad depicts a story arc the American audience has seen repeatedly. In the beginning, the protagonist is doubted, “They said I couldn’t dream. Called me a piece of trash and swore that’s all I’d ever be… Give up. Go back to the dumpster.” This is accompanied by (sad?) music, rain, and other obstacles to overcome. However, halfway through the ad, the music switches to a cheerful tone, and the dialogue switches to a much more positive tone, “But I didn’t listen. I made my way.” We have seen this story from Rocky Balboa to Kung Fu Panda, and have traditional commonplaces to describe it, including the American Dream and the Underdog story. In this Ad the Ad Council hopes you associate with and support the plastic bottle like you would support the other protagonists. Attempting to create a bond between the audience and the plastic bottle is a clear example of pathos.

P2: The Ad Council develops Logos by making a cause and effect relationship, hoping to convince the American public of the concrete relationships between recycling and the recycled items created.

As stated by Executive Director of Keep Iowa Beautiful, Gary Schnepf, “If people knew what their garbage could become, they’d recycle more. So, we gave garbage a voice.” While the Pathos presented in the Ad may have been more obvious, the advertisement’s main goal was to use the Pathos created to add strength to their Logos argument. The Ad Council needs this strong Logos argument because you can associate and support your plastic waste any amount, but if it does not result in recycling than the Advertisement was not successful. The Advertisement ends with a clip of a bench, presumably made from recycled material, as the bottle finishes its narration, “and now, I’m what I’ve always wanted to be.” The Ad Council used this language to build a connection between the piece of plastic you throw into the recycling and the products, in this case a bench, that are resultantly built.

P3: On the page of Recycle Across America’s website being analyzed, there is a strong appeal to extrinsic proofs using statistics and data.

Because you must seek out a website, RAA can focus less of their efforts on making an emotional appeal to convince their audience of the exigence and can focus more on the magnitude of the exigence. Relating to the artifacts, the Ad Council’s Ad makes no claims about the size of the problem and doesn’t describe how much you can help, but instead states that there is a problem and you can help. Conversely, once one makes the effort to find RAA’s website, they are likely convinced the Exigence exists, and are primed to learn about the magnitude of the problem and how they can help. Additionally, it is much more difficult to convey pathos to another person who did not see the Ad than extrinsic proofs and specifically facts. Returning to the different audiences, if somebody is going to a website to investigate ways they can help convince others to recycle, the website should arm the reader with facts, which are extremely transferrable to others.

On the page analyzed alone, there are 51 different facts, to sift through, until a reader finds something relevant. RAA lists their “Top 5 Facts to Know,” as well as facts broken down into “For the economy,” and “For the environment.” Finally, the rest of the facts are broken down into recycling tips by material. The goal of breaking these down so thoroughly, is everybody who has taken the initiative to go to the website, is interested in a specific benefit of recycling or has a specific material they want to learn about recycling. Breaking these facts down into easily digestible sections makes the page feel tailored to the reader and their interests. This is one of the advantages of the online page when compared to the TV Ad where they must focus on generalized proofs to appeal to a wider audience. Finally, despite the essentially infinite space the web platform provides, RAA made sure not to clutter the page with too many facts, keeping the page neat and readable.

P4: Recycle Across America creates Ethos using celebrities on their website to create more support for their cause.

Conclusion: Tie it back to the effectiveness of each medium and strategy. Will this be able to change the recycling levels? Is the cost of these Ads worth the positives.

Keep America Beautiful and the Ad Council use pathos by humanizing recyclable items and attaching traditional commonplaces, such as the underdog story and the American dream, to help the American public visualize the concrete benefits of recycling, and subsequently, engaging civically by recycling. (Logos Cause and Effect Argument)

Introduction

If the recycling levels in the United States reached 75%, the reductions in CO2 would be equivalent to removing 50 million cars from the road (TellUs Institute). On a more personal level, each metal can recycled saves enough energy to run a TV for 3 hours. However, you can watch the Ad Council’s minute long ad on recycling and not know any of these facts. Actually,  you can go through all of the “I want to be recycled campaign”—which includes two TV ads, a radio ad, a poster, a website, and a game, without finding the use of any statistics to support recycling.

Similar to crying Indian commercial

Orienting Material:         Help audience understand what the topic is; contextualize

Recycling has the ability to have positive impacts on two major exigencies in the United States. Recycling can improve the environment, through the reduction of CO2 used in manufacturing, water used in mining, and waste spilling into the nature, and recycling can improve the economy, through the creation of new jobs. (Recycling creates 7-10 more jobs than landfill management)

Despite the well documented benefits to both exigencies and the billions of dollars spent on advertising campaigns, recycling levels in the United States have not increased in the past twenty years.

Preview:                           Give us a brief synopsis of what we can expect to hear from you—main points

In this speech, you will hear how the “I want to be Recycled Campaign” gains pathos by using traditional commonplaces, as well as their call for civic engagement from the American public.

Body

1. The Ad Council and Keep America Beautiful gain Pathos by Humanizing recyclable items—in this ad, a plastic water bottle.
2. They attach traditional commonplaces such as the American Dream and the Underdog Story.
3. “They said I couldn’t dream. Called me a piece of trash and swore that’s all I’d ever be. Said a bottle couldn’t see the ocean. Give up. Go back to the dumpster. |Music Change| But I didn’t listen. I made my way. Now, I’m what I’ve always wanted to be.”

Using a few lines of dialogue, visuals, and music, the Ad depicts a story arc the American audience has seen repeatedly. In the beginning, the protagonist is doubted, “They said I couldn’t dream. Called me a piece of trash and swore that’s all I’d ever be… Give up. Go back to the dumpster.” This is accompanied by (sad?) music, rain, and other obstacles to overcome. However, halfway through the ad, the music switches to a cheerful tone, and the dialogue switches to a much more positive tone, “But I didn’t listen. I made my way.” We have seen this story from Rocky Balboa to Kung Fu Panda, and have traditional commonplaces to describe it, including the American Dream and the Underdog story. In this Ad the Ad Council hopes you associate with and support the plastic bottle like you would support the other protagonists. Attempting to create a bond between the audience and the plastic bottle is a clear example of pathos.

1. Main Idea – This pathos was developed to encourage the audience to engage civically and recycle.

The Ad Council waited until the end of the ad, after it has hopefully created a connection between the audience and the bottle to display the way you can help, “Give your garbage another Life. Recycle”

• Main Idea – The Ad uses Logos to depict a transformation of a bottle into a bench, to develop a concrete relationship between recycling and the products created.

“If people knew what their garbage could become, they’d recycle more. So we gave garbage a voice.” Gary Schnepf Executive Director of Keep Iowa Beautiful

Conclusion

Summary Statement – Remind us of the main points you addressed

In this speech, I discussed how the Ad Council and Keep America Beautiful developed Pathos and how they used the Pathos to encourage the audience to engage Civically.

Concluding Remark – A closing statement; last words

Whether this intrinsic approach is more or less effective than an argument based on extrinsic proofs and facts, it is a common technique to create sympathy to a claim.

Other notes: They show lots of visuals of different landscapes to preserve.

Big Dreams Ad: https://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/Family-Community/Recycling

http://www.recycleacrossamerica.org/recycling-facts

Recycling Ad- https://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/Family-Community/Recycling

Peace Corps- https://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/The-Classics/Peace-Corps

Forest Fires- https://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/The-Classics/Wildfire-Prevention

King’s Speech- https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/George-VI-King-s-Speech-September-3-1939

Bush 9/11- http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/bush.speech.text/

A second website, similar to FiveThirtyEight that I find interesting and hope to draw inspiration from is the New York Times’ data analysis page “The Upshot.” As a result, there is a lot of crossover between the two websites, and I hope I can utilize some of the tools both websites use effectively.

One thing The Upshot does very well is they focus on simplifying issues as much as possible. In general, they take very complicated topics and use statistics and information to make conclusions that are startlingly clear. Sometimes, this means they use statistics as data for their claims. However, in other cases The Upshot simply provides data and lets the reader come to their own conclusions. One of their pieces titled “Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours” was particularly intriguing to me. The gross income inequality and inequity of practical access to higher education presented in the findings and statistics were so powerful, the article did not need an opinion column to tell you how to feel about the information. This format allows the reader to delve into the data without feeling the need to immediately respond or disagree with a writers opinion.

Thinking about my blog, I may write some articles based on statistics pertaining directly to the Penn State community. Spanning from the cheapest ways to get a quality meal to the best paths between classes to the ideal makeup of a study room, there are endless relevant statistics to a college student. I am hoping to compile some of these statistics in a logical well-formatted way in order to provide useful information to a reader.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/

I have read FiveThirtyEight pretty consistently for the past few years and with my blog, I hope to emulate some of FiveThirtyEight’s style. The blog began in 2008, when it compiled polling data to make predictions on political races. Ever since then, the focus of the website has been to use statistical data to make a wide variety of claims about an extremely wide variety of topics including: sports, politics, economics, culture, and much more.

One of the main reasons I like this website is the credibility of their arguments is developed almost completely through the use of facts and statistics. While statistics can certainly be cherry picked to fit into particular arguments, FiveThirtyEight does a solid job of avoiding typical political biases. As a result, you get a bias towards statistics instead of liberal or conservative undertones in the articles. I value this aspect of the site when deciding to read this site as opposed to a traditional news outlet. Further, the statistics they use are a compilation of a wide range of polling data, so it is very difficult to argue, for example, that the approval rating they use is biased.

A second vital piece of FiveThirtyEight is their heavy use of graphics to effectively share the data they have gathered. Without the graphics, a lot of their claims seem abstract and difficult to follow, but with the use of a few simple graphics, the statistics come to life. I hope to use graphics in my blogs to help with data visualization in my posts.

My current plan is to focus on making claims involving sports or writing about sports analytics, but similar to how FiveThirtyEight branched out from politics to other topics, I may experiment with using date to make Economic and Political claims as well.