Eportfolio

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-GtPqJAfPhOWmNLTnBmN2ZYbTg&usp=sharing

My Course Goals

The goals I created at the beginning of this semester were to:
1. Get  a 90% or better  in the class
2. Learn to be a better writer and create papers that flow better and sound more official.
3. Use these writing  skills that I will learn  in this  class  in other  classes  to  achieve higher grades.

Group Presentations

The first group that presented had the topic of marijuana.  I think they did an excellent job at preparing an interesting Google presentations that had great pictures to keep us entertained while  they went  through all their  information.  Something I believe they could work on is knowing  what slide and information  each person was going to talk  about I  noticed when the  slide changed they would briefly look at each other waiting for one to speak.  A question I had for the group was since marijuana would now be legal wouldn't  the amount of supply increase greatly and in turn the amount of profit drop due to the supply rise?


The second group presentation was about  how collegiate athletes should  be paid for playing since it takes as much time as a full time job and it brings in so much revenue.  This group did excellent at adding personal experience to the presentation  to provide good evidence especially  since  two  of  the presenters are on  the football team.  Something i would improve would be  the  same  as the  first presentation, which was they would pause  looking at each  other because they didn't know who was covering what information.  The question i had  about this presentation was already answered  but it  was would all the players on the team be payed the same even if they didnt play as much?

Reflection Paper

Throughout this project as I researched and made a PowerPoint with my group, I experienced several struggles and successes.  My role in the group was to find two academic journal article sources to use as evidence in my group project as well as organize the presentation so that it would flow nicely.  While trying to organize the  presentation I began to find problems that had me stumped.  I wanted to have around twelve or thirteen  slides at the most since our project was twelve to thirteen minutes and we could allocate a minute to each slide.  I arrived at my first problem when I started counting  how  many slides I needed to fit all my information and I had eighteen slides which was way too many slides for our presentation.  I decided to not count the title page, question, and problem since those slides  would take minimal  time to go  over but this still  left me at about sixteen slides.  I talked it over  with my group  and we  decided that we could just use one  slide for the study and that way we would eliminate three slides from our presentation  leaving us with thirteen  slides.  Another issue we came across with this project was deciding  what information  to put in out presentation  since we had so much from all of our articles and sources.  A success we had with our project was finding plenty of good information and also finding a study that we could do with  the class.

 I believe both my group and I deserve an A on this assignment.  Not only did we complete all seven steps  of  this  project, but we did so with quality sources that provided evidence for  all our  information.  I also found an  interactive study  that we could use during  our  presentation to  inform the class of  our problem.  My group spent countless hours  working  in  the library at school  as well as individually over the weekend to provide a great presentation.  

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1baqOYlWeFX03wvjObKVHBO5LXo1ebPIrWTX7IETvgLo/edit?usp=sharing
Matthew Haulot
Jose Ramirez

Response Paper #3

Lin, Carolyn A, Yi Mou, and Carolyn Lagoe. "Communicating Nutrition Information: Usability and Usefulness of the Interactive Menus of National Fast Food Chain Restaurants." Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 4.3 (2011): 187-199.

            The author of this article is an associate dean and also the founder of the Communications Technology Division at the Association of Education and Journalism.  Carolyn also has obtained a Distinguished Research Faculty award and conducts research on health communications and also social marketing.  The author brings up the fact that unhealthy dietary habits have had huge effects on the increased number of obese people in our society.  The main argument that the author talks about is that the nutritional facts provided for consumers are not fully utilized and can sometimes be confusing to people trying to comprehend it. College students are this articles intended audience.  Students were selected to put together a breakfast lunch and dinner for one day from three different fast food chains that they would normally choose to eat if they had gone on a normal day.  They then had the students conduct new meal plans for a day without exceeding the normal calorie intake and sugar intake.  The conclusion of this study showed that most nutritional menus are usable but not necessarily useful because people had a hard time putting those menu items into a recommended daily food intake.  This text is very reliable since it comes from a dean from a graduate school and because the author has several awards and publications to back up her research.  Graphs of the sugar and calorie intakes of the meals planned from each task were helpful to see some actual numbers from the study.  Some strengths of this article are that it applies to a huge audience of people and that the information from the article is very useful.

            This text connects to my research because it talks about how fast food nutrition can be hard to understand for most therefore leading to consumption of more calories or sugar than most people need.  I found this research stunning considering that most fast food places put the calorie count right on the menu items and still people don’t understand the choices that they are making.

Castonguay, Jessica, Christopher McKinley, and Dale Kunkel. "Health Cues: A Content Analysis Of Health-Related Messages In Food Advertisements Targeting Children." Conference Papers -- International Communication Association (2011): 1-29. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.          

Jessica Castonguay is a graduate teacher associate at the University of Arizona and she is a communications major.   Most food advertisements viewed by children presently have food that contains high calorie and sugar intakes most commonly known by us as junk food.   The main argument of this article is that fast food advertisements contribute greatly to childhood obesity.  The intended audience of this article is to parents of children and anyone to try and put a stop to the increasing rates of childhood obesity.  The research method that they used was taking all advertisements shown during kid’s television shows during the hours of 7am to 10pm and then counting all the advertisements for fast food and seeing what the other advertisements were about.  Of the advertisements viewed about 56% of the food advertisements contained bad food choices while a third of the ads contained some type of fruit choice.  Lastly only about 6.6% of these advertisements included children showing some sort of physical activity. The strengths of this article is that most people watch  television so this applies to many people although this article does bring up that other advertisements appear on television that include good choices such as eating fruits and vegetables and participating in physical activity.

            This article will be useful for my research since it brings up the rising health problems  with  fast food companies advertising greatly during kids programming to get them to make unhealthy choices.  I think that fast food restaurants shouldn’t have so many commercials during kids programming so that kids can have a better chance of being healthier and fit.   

"Research" SWA Summary

In "The Everyday Writer" the author discusses the proper ways to conduct research for any type of project or study.  Scoping for how long the project is supposed to be and how long you have to do it to make a schedule for when you should have certain parts done for the project is one thing she suggests is a good method.  The author then goes into detail about  how to to find the research information, from finding books at  your local library to searching catalogs online for articles and  websites.  Wikipedia is explained to be an unreliable source to use for research since anyone can post  on the website and so there is a possibility of information being false.  She explains how to properly conduct an interview with another to gain research information by making sure to make an appointment with the person ahead of time, and to have preset questions ready so that you can get as much information  as possible.  The author explains that when researching you  must  always have an open mind and look for research on both sides of your topic so that you can cover the big picture and possibly change your own views.  If you take a side there is a possibility of ruining your credibility and suggesting you didn't do complete research.  When gathering research the author says to always note the title of the document as well as  the author, summary of  information, and  a quote if possible as  evidence.  Summarizing and paraphrasing  is a great way to include research as long as it is done properly.  Overall the author discusses great ideas on researching can help students create great projects and papers.

3-D Object

3-D Rhetoric paper

The Toy Trap

By: Brett Babigian

Mrs. Fliescher

English 1A

March 18, 2014

A 3-D object can convey one or several messages at the same time and is easy to view and touch to get a sense of what you are looking at.  People have been creating 3-D images and sculptures to communicate messages for as long as we know.   This form of art can be abstract and have no defined meaning or it could be concrete with a very specific meaning to it.  Throughout my paper I will describe my object and the choices I made to create  it as well as relate it to my message,  and share the similarities between my  object and the three texts I wrote about previously.

            I created a visual object to convey my message about fast food commercials, I purposely used specific size, materials, colors, and tones to make my message purposeful and stand out.  The object I made was a television set with three buttons, an antenna, a black swirl background and a toy spider suspended in the middle of the box.  I used a shoe box to create the television because the box was the perfect size that I was looking for to get my point across.  Using black sharpie I drew swirls around the back of the television to symbolize a type of brain wash effect that takes place when kids watch fast food commercials with toys in them.  I chose to put the toy rubber spider in the middle of the television and the swirl because that is all the kids see when the commercial comes on, they are instantly lured by the toys that they see.  The reason that the toy is a spider is because I feel like the commercials are a sort of trap and spiders set up traps with their webs and just wait to snatch their prey.  I used very plain colors like black and white and brown on everything except for the spider which I put bright pink colors into because just as  in the commercial, the vibrant colored toy is the first thing you notice.  The intended audience of my object would be parents because they need to know the effects that these commercials have on their children.  Each of these aspects was created specifically to get the viewer thinking about what they child is really watching.

My object was made to reflect the overall theme of the three texts I wrote about previously and it carried a specific message I was trying to communicate to people.  The message I was trying to get out to people is that fast food commercials are targeting our kids with incentives like toys to lure them into buying kids meals or getting their parents too.  I believe I was successful in conveying this message because the black swirly background resembles luring and brainwashing which is exactly what these commercials do to kids.  The toy in the middle also helps prove my message because that is the incentive for them to get the kids meal.  The object is very similar to the three texts I wrote about like the journal article because in the article the author talked about how commercials were targeting kids with these commercials.   The McDonald’s advertisement I wrote about was an image of toys you could get from a happy meal and it didn’t even include a picture of the food.  This is just like my object where all you have is the toy in the television because that’s all the fast food companies want you to see.

While trying to think of an idea and create my 3-D object I had several challenges and successes that I encountered.  At first I was very stumped when it came to thinking of  an idea, all I could think of making was a McDonalds golden  arch but I couldn’t figure out how that would convey my theme.  When I discovered the idea of making a television out of a shoe box with hypnotizing swirls I knew that was exactly what I needed to do.  A problem that arose though was finding a toy to dangle in front of the swirls.  My mom found an old McDonald’s toy that was perfect for the assignment and it even had a clip to attack it to the box but then my teacher told me that it would be plagiarizing so I had to go back to the drawing board.  Luckily I was able to find an old creepy crawler bug making set in my room that I then used to mold a rubber toy spider out of to put on my project.  This worked even better than I expected because the spider could symbolize a trap as well as a children’s toy.  The final problem that I found myself puzzled over was how to make a good antenna for the television to make it stand out.  I think I deserve an A on this assignment because my 3-D object is creative and represent my theme and message very well.   I also backed up each thing I put on my object with detailed reasons and support so that the reader knows exactly what is there and why it is there.

3-D Rhetoric prepaper description

My message was about fast food companies putting toys in their commercials to lure kids into buying kids meals therefore my 3-D object is a television with black swirls in the background and a kids toy dangling right in  the middle of it.  I used a shoebox to create the television because i felt it fit the right size object that I was attempting  to create.  The background of the box i colored in black swirls to represent the brainwashing and luring of children by a toy. I used fishing line to hang a rubber toy spider that I made with a creepy crawler machine to represent the toys that  kids get excited about  and want to obtain.  I  chose a rubber spider because when I was a kid i would  always play with  toys like this.  It is rubber and kind  of  squishy  because most toys  kids  play with  are made of  rubber or plastic.  There isn't an antenna in  the picture but i plan to put one to make  sure the viewer knows that it is a television set. 

Genre Analysis Final Draft

Brett Babigian

Mrs. Fleischer

English 1A

4 March, 2014

Fast Food

            There are so many different types of writing texts that are seen around the world as we go throughout our daily lives that sometimes express the same topic just in a different way.  A topic can be expressed through several different ways of writing including: academic articles, advertisements, bumper stickers, photographs, and much more.   Each of these different styles of texts applies to us differently, for instance, one may appeal to our logical side while another may tend to focus on our emotions.  Throughout this essay I will discuss the similarities and differences of an academic article, advertisement, and a YouTube clip about fast food and also which one I believe is more effective than the other.

            The academic article “How Television Fast Food Marketing Aimed at Children Compares with Adult Advertisements”, by Amy M. Bernhardt has some similarities and differences as the other texts I will discuss.  The form and layout of the article is long and includes multiple pages of writing about happy meal advertisements and how studies conducted showed that many of these advertisements were occurring during children’s television shows.  The author took a very serious and formal tone towards the issue because it involved our children being targeted by fast food to come and eat at them.  Since this article was about advertisements targeting kids the intended audience would be the parents of children everywhere.  The article went into detail about studies and research conducted about how fast food corporations lure kids to into wanted the meal with incentives such as toys or collectible items.  Both of the texts, the image and the article, have similar messages about children’s fast food meals but the article talks about how incentives such as toys are put in to attract kids. The author felt this was wrong that the advertisement encouraged kids to collect all these toys. The purpose of writing the study was to get public awareness out about advertisements targeting out children to make unhealthy choices.

 The second text about fast food that I will be sharing is a McDonald’s advertisements for toys in the happy meals.  The advertisement is simply a picture with toys of McDonald’s food that turn into little robots and some writing encouraging people to collect all eight.  The tones of these two types of texts are very different because the advertisement is more exciting trying to attract kids to buy the happy meal to collect all eight toys.  Happy meals are created for kids and include a toy so the intended audience of this advertisement is kids. Toys that change shape and look like food are examples of the toys the kids could get if they got a happy meal. The advertisement had the exact opposite message of the academic article of offering kids eight different toys with a happy meal.  The purpose of the advertisement was to provide incentives to kids to buy happy meal and achieve higher sales in happy meals. 

            The third type of text I chose to analyze and compare and contrast was a YouTube video that was titled “Advertising fast food to children and its major shift” posted by sunnyvisa.  This clip has three different adult ladies that discuss when and how the problem of children advertisements occurred.  The tone of the video was similar to the academic article in the sense that they were both very formal and were addressing a serious topic.  The intended viewer and readers of this video would be the same as the research article which is parents.  The examples this YouTube video uses are actual McDonald’s and Burger King commercials that show kids eating happy meals and then playing and  having fun with the new toys they just got with the meal.  By adding popular toys with kids playing and having fun to commercials, kids are targeted and convinced to want a happy meal to collect the toys in them, is a message that is present  in both the article and the video clip.  The purpose of the clip is to produce awareness of how the advertisement of fast food to children has changed.

            This part of my paper will focus on my personal analysis of the three texts and how persuasive they each were and why they chose to add certain things into the text.  I think what makes a specific text more persuasive and effective than others is by the evidence they choose to use.  For example in the video clip one of the ladies talks about how the advertisements target our kids and then they  show a commercial where a bunch of kids are smiling and happy eating their kids meals and playing with a Barbie mermaid doll that they just got out of their happy meal.  This commercial they showed  made me realize that if I were a kid I would see that and instantly want to go and get the toy so that I could be as happy as the kids in the commercial by having the toy.  Another aspect of text that makes it more effective than another would be good imagery.  If an article has a good image of a product combined with a good catch phrase then I would feel drawn into the product more like in the McDonald’s ad that presented a series of collectable toys with a phrase “Collect All 8 for a Galactic Robot Team”.

            Of the three documents I have reviewed I believe that the YouTube video had the most effective message of them all and that the McDonald’s had the least effective message.  The YouTube videos message was more effective to me because the topic on which they discussed is a major controversial topic that deals with children and parents alike.  This video provided direct evidence of commercials targeting kids to eat at fast food restaurants to gain toys and be happy.   The author also discussed how even though the kids may not be old enough or have enough money to buy these items they will bother and annoy parents who will eventually give in to the kid and buy the meal for the child.  Most parents  would likely feel  the same  way to a degree  because no one  wants  their  kids to  be  eating unhealthy or  coerced to buy something that  is bad for  them.  The McDonald’s advertisement, while still very effective, was the least effective of the three texts to me because its target audience was children and was mostly a picture with little writing.  The advertisement included eight different toys that you could get from the happy kid’s meal but there was no writing that specifically told you that by purchasing the kids meal you could get the toy.  More people would be interested in preventing kids from viewing commercials about fast food especially now that obesity in children is on the rise.

            Even though the three texts shared a similar topic of fast food advertisement to children they were not similar in all the same ways.  For instance while the academic article used research to back up  its  argument of how kids are being targeted the YouTube video  showed a commercial of a happy meal to help  with its  thesis.  They hose different way to express evidence because different people react to different types of evidence.  Some people are more visual and react greatly to seeing video clips and pictures while others like to hear the facts and research behind an article to have that concrete support.

            There is a great relationship between texts that have to do with genre, message, and mode of delivery.   The relationship I noticed in the academic article was the genre of academic research was related to the way it was delivered.  For instance since it was a research document the delivery was very formal and academic, it had citations from other articles as well as its own findings.  Because the audience of the academic article would be other professors the mode of delivery would be formal which is connected back to the genre because depending on whom your audience will be decides how the text is delivered.  While some genres have lots of writing others have very little like the McDonalds advertisement.  The ad got its message out with very little writing and a picture because the space is limited because of the genre.  The delivery mode therefore is informal and meant for viewers to just glance at it and not read to into it.

            Lastly I feel that the type of text we read impact us as individuals and sometimes as a society for several reasons.  This topic I am talking about especially is an example because if someone read the article I did about the advertisements targeting kids to lure them in then parents will begin to not let their kids watch those commercials.  When people read articles in the newspapers about new studies that show certain activities such as tanning can lead to skin cancer then much of society moves to not tan for fear of getting cancer.   People begin to put on more sunscreen and go to the tanning booths much less often when there is a health risk discovered from research.

            In conclusion topics can be talked about and portrayed in many different genres to focus on different purposes.  Images and pictures can appeal to those who like visuals while writing and text to those who like the research and evidence behind the statement.  McDonalds used images while the academic article appealed to researchers.  These different genres have similarities and differences to persuade their audience of the message they have.  Throughout my paper I have discussed these similarities and differences as well as offered my own opinion on which is the most persuasive and effective in portraying its message.

           

           

Works Cited

Advertising Fast Food to Children and its Major Shift. 2010. Video. YoutubeWeb. 4 Mar 2014. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tTsU78MO84>.

Bernhardt AM, Wilking C, Adachi-Mejia AM, Bergamini E, Marijnissen J, et al. (2013) How Television Fast Food Marketing Aimed at Children Compares with Adult Advertisements. PLoS ONE 8(8): e72479. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0072479

"Changeables." Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia Foundation, 30 Dec 2013. Web. 4 Mar 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeables>.