My Immigration Report shows that I can write professionally, but I added in this section to show that there is a difference between reporting and writing. I want to show how I have developed a personal voice, which is something I use as a tool to tackle serious problems in order to better address these issues.

I find that one of my greatest struggles is straddling the line between professional and casual writing, and I believe these two samples are excellent examples of my writing balancing on that tightrope.

For this assignment I analyzed  the following Scottish anti-rape TV campaign:

When I first handed in this paper, it was much more analytical, and I was reporting rather than writing. When I rewrote the paper, I developed a voice and used humor *flesh this out, but you get the jist hommie*

This assignment's requirements are described as: "In this 4-5 page essay you will perform a careful rhetorical analysis on a single essay, speech, or advertisement. Choose a short essay, speech, or advertisement and analyze its rhetorical appeals (proofs). The aim of the paper is to make an argument about how rhetoric is working in the text in question. What sort of ethos does the speaker, writer, or advertisement convey? Does it use logical arguments? Does rhetoric operate visually in this instance? Are there appeals to pathos or emotions at work?" on Casey Wiley's ENG 137Hcourse site. 

I especially like how I captured my audiences' attention by mimicking the same technique used in the advertisement I was analyzing. By using this method, I touched the audience in the same way it had affected those who saw it in Switzerland when it first aired. 
I also appreciate the strong language I used to deal with such a heavy topic as rape. Prime example of this tone being used are: 
"completely destroying the idea that a girl can be blamed for getting raped"
 " ...masculinity in it's prime. Then suddenly a girl is basically accusing each and every man in the room of rape... awkward"
"You were not too drunk, you did not flirt too much, and your skirt was not too short. No one asks to be raped, not ever".
 Though, I did take a very informal voice for an analysis and contractions don't give off a very professional or analytic tone. 


Analyzing the situation where the add was first seen, as well as its target audience adds another level to the tv promo. It goes beyond the what, and explores the how and why. Why was this add created? How will it reach its target audience?

While many relied on facts and statistics to back up the ethos in their analyses, I simply stated that the girl's authority over her own mind  was the greatest credibility of all. This is best exemplified by the sentence, "Science can't tell you how to feel, data can't read minds, and when that girl looks into the camera and says "AS IF" there is no doubt who has the credibility in the situation".


Although there was an allotted length of the essay, i wish I had explored more of the topics I listed as "important to note, but there's not enough room here, sorry!". Perhaps I can rewrite the essay with out the constrictions of length. 

Finally, I am glad that I ended the essay on a light, hopeful note, since it is such a dark topic to write about. All in all, I believe this essay shows how I can be very passionate about a subject and my writing reflects those strong feelings. I enjoy seeing myself in my writing, and many people say when they read my writing that they can envision just how I would say that a loud.

The essay can be found below:

This assignment is described as:
"In this 5-page paper, your job is to identify, discuss, and analyze a “paradigm shift” you recognize in our cultural past or contemporary moment. In addition to recognizing a certain kind of change and analyzing its potential meaning(s), you might trace the significant “moments” of this shift as well as discuss possible ramifications in terms of where our culture is “heading” and how we have come to view or value certain things. The change you recognize might be as simple as the popularization of a word or new usage of a term in relation to consumerism, civic life, or popular accounts of science and technology. "


I opened this essay with one of my favorite stories ever. I'll never  forget the first time I sat back to think , "Seriously how the heck did gay go from meaning happy to gay to ice being slippery...". So when my professor proposed this assignment, I knew instantly what I wanted to research. After the intro, I started out by describing how the term "gay" is used today, which I think was more beneficial than going straight into the history of the word, especially since I opened up with a modern meaning in the introduction.
One of the best sources I used was GLAAD, which showed how journalists use. or rather don't use the term gay in order to be politically correct. 
Also, this essay has my favorite joke of all time- " "The late 1700s brought this definition to describe  poetry as the gay science- no, not homosexual people performing science experiments in a lab". I laughed about that one for days.  I also casually slipped in a stab at Tiger Woods, since womanizers were considered 'gay' in the 1920s.

The evolution of the term was easy to track, I did surmise that calling something stupid gay was in tandem with saying that everything gay is stupid. I went further than what was asked of the assignment by going into how our current society is trying to eradicate the use of the word 'gay as a derogatory term. 
My favorite line in the essay is in the closing sentence, "It is shocking to recognize that there was a time where politicians envisioned gays as people with horns, and that homosexual love was once known as the love that could not speak its name. Now it is spoken, loud and proud, fighting against all those who would wish to silence them". 

Though, now that I think of it, I should have used the term "it" rather than "them", but I think I was referring to the homosexuals themselves and not the love that resides between them.