TOW #13- "Political Party Meltdown" Kevin Baker

At first, I thought this was going to be yet another article ranting about how much Donald Trump has ruined the future of America.  Most articles that are swamping the news nowadays include some sort of completely biased analysis of Trump's elementary wording and how the candidates never answer what they were asked during debates.  And although it is difficult to remain entirely neutral while discussing the current presidential primary race, Kevin Baker takes a different view on America's political situation through analysis of historical events and through intelligent sentence structure that shows his audience that what is happening now has happened before.  His ultimate purpose in his article is not to persuade the American public to vote for a certain candidate but rather take a step back and examine the American political party system as a whole.

Through his article, Baker sways in between historical anecdotes and current day issues.  In the beginning, he draws attention to a time when Roosevelt and his republican opponent joined sides to eliminate any influence of party and to have a vote on ideological ideals alone, and not the demo graphical borders that the parties had already claimed.  All of a sudden, he writes about Roosevelt saying, "He was wrong."  This added emphasis on Baker's views, but I actually had to go back to the beginning and read the entire historical reference again that had taken up a good portion of the page.  The use of historical references helped Baker later in the text when he was explaining what actually made our American system work, but in many cases, it led to confusion on whether Baker was arguing about the past or the current day.

Baker's purpose became most clear in the closing paragraphs, when he wrapped up his thoughts by writing, "We [America] are divorced... and in this state we can hardly expect to work together...It almost destroyed our nation then, and we cannot afford it now."  Luckily for him, I had an assignment to write about this essay, so I kept on reading it to find the purpose.  But, an average American looking for an interesting article may not give Baker the time that he takes to develop his argument after he spends too many words going on about historical happenings.  Perhaps this is why the articles that aren't going into depth and that are just ranting about Trump, are the articles that are getting the most public attention.

TOW #12- IRB Post "Lincoln" by David Herbert Donald

The IRB that I chose to read this marking period was the biography of Abraham Lincoln, written by David Herbert Donald.  I chose it mainly because I am interested in historical fiction, and had seen amazing reviews of the book.  To my surprise, the book has almost no focus on Lincoln's professional life, presidential life, or role in the Civil War, but has rather taken a closer look at his personality, friendships, child hood, and how he got into politics.  I has gone into this text thinking that the author would be preaching like a text book, but have found that Donald is much more interested in how and why Lincoln has made certain decisions in his life and how he got there.  It has painted Lincoln in a way that makes him seem more human, rather than the best American President who has a 19 foot tall statue in honor of him.  

Although Lincoln is pictured in a top hat and outfitted in a professional suit, he did not have an easy road to presidency.  In fact, Donald's purpose in the first half of this book is to prove to the audience that Lincoln was as human as the audience, and had to go through several failures to reach any sort of success.  To achieve this, Donald spent a solid portion of his text explaining that Lincoln did not even want to run for presidency.  Donald used imagery and a primary source that knew Lincoln personally and retold to the audience that when newspapers started showing their want for Lincoln to run for president, he responded by, "Just think,' he exclaimed, wrapping his long arms around his knees and giving a roar of laughter, 'of such a sucker as me as President." That was the same person that is referred to as the best American President of all time.  Even though Donald does not juxtapose between two written ideas, he completely goes against what the typical image of President Lincoln would be.  In today’s world, one has to be extremely confident (almost too confident) to run for President.  By showing how ridiculous Lincoln thought it was that he could be good enough for President, shows just how human he really was, a very contrasting idea from the popular god-like statue that all Americans know and love.  

TOW #11- "Engineering a Better Future for Girls" Amy Fleischer

As a young woman trying to go into the engineering field, this article made me realize that not everyone is so lucky to have had encouragement to explore and pursue careers and education in scientific and technical fields.  Amy Fleischer, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University, argues that the United States as a whole needs to make it known to young women that STEM (scientific, technology, engineering, and math) fields are not only for men but for everyone.  In her article published in U.S. News, she uses rhetorical questions along with statistics to persuade her audience of Americans first that there aren't enough women in engineering and then that we need to recruit more women into STEM fields.  

While explaining how few women make up STEM fields, she writes that "...young women currently make up only 18 percent of engineering majors..."  Through this statistic, she shows that she isn't just ranting about something that only she thinks about.  It's not only that she doesn't see many women in her classroom, but also that, on average, women don't make up a big portion in engineering in the entire country among all schools.  Without statistics like these, the audience would not be able to truly take what Fleischer was saying as credible. This helps to show that she truly did her research before writing this article and that this issue should really be taken seriously.  When the audience takes her writing seriously, they can take her purpose more seriously, and truly consider pushing women into STEM fields like engineering. 

Through rhetorical questioning, Fleischer not only keeps her audience interested, but also allows them to engage in more a conversation with her writing.  Without feeling like they are being talked down to, the audience can accept Fleischer’s ideas more effectively and feel like they are taking suggestions from a friend or colleague rather than from a boss. 

Fleischer makes many good points throughout her article, making it clear to her audience that more women should be going into STEM fields.  However, to make her purpose even more effective, she could have used her rhetoric to push her audience to truly act upon this rather than just to think about the issue. 

TOW #10- Kim Kardashian's T-Mobile Super Bowl 2015 Commercial "Save the Data"

T-Mobile not only humors the audience while making fun of the famous Kim Kardashian but also persuades their audience that T-Mobile is some sort of moral cell phone provider that truly cares for the well-being of their precious data in the commercial that they played for Super Bowl XLIX.  They do this through the use of humor and allusion to other, more seriously emotional commercials.

They expertly make their audience of American football super bowl fans very protective of their cellular data, because without it, Kim brilliantly points out that they would not be able to see the posts about her "outfits, my vacations, and my outfits."  Even though the company is clearly making fun of the life of a Kardashian, it creates a sense among the audience that they would be missing out on the world without their data, even the parts of their world that include the Kardashian family.  This humor also allows the audience to view T-Mobile as a light-hearted, friendly company that is up to date with the world.  T-Mobile is more likely to be successful with their purpose of trying to get Americans to join T-Mobile when they use the device of humor.

This commercial is also extremely successful, because the entire time, the  T-Mobile is alluding to commercials such as the ASPCA commercial, commercials that would make your grandmother or little sister cry over the animals that so desperately need their love and support.  Playing sad, slow music in the background makes it even more humorous that the commercial is about cellular data and not something that the audience actually needs to save.  When Kim K walks across the completely white stage, saying the word "tragic" one can truly feel the emotions surging in the audience in sympathy for the data that is being lost due to cell companies that just ruthlessly take it back from their customers.

T-Mobile clearly proved that they were the one and only cell company that would save the data.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzQ6a2UKlGM

TOW #9- "Medical Research: The Dangers to the Human Subjects" by Marcia Angell

Dr. Herta Oberheuser being sentenced to twenty years in prison at the Nazi Doctors’ Trial, Nuremberg, August 1947

Click here for article

Marcia Angell makes it very clear throughout her entire essay, "Medical Research: The Dangers to the Human Subjects," that she is completely against using humans for scientific research.  She does this to both educate her audience on human experimentation and to get them to start considering the topic themselves as an issue that still needs fixing.  By using examples of the acts of Nazi Germany, Angell shows the audience that even scientific research in recent years uses the same excuses as people like Dr. Herta Oberhauser (pictured on the left) to justify their use of humans in extremely unjust experimentation.

The fact that the NIH and the CDC were using subjects in sub-Saharan Africa to justify giving a placebo to a group of pregnant mother with HIV instead of the medicine that would reduce the risk of passing on the infection to their offspring completely goes against the rights any human should have while being a part of scientific research.  They said that since the subjects in the control group would not regularly have access to such medicine, because of where they lived, that they were not harming them by giving them a placebo instead.  Angell points out that  Nazi Germany also used a very similar excuse, saying that "their human subjects were condemned to death anyway" (Para. 15).

This comparison to Nazi Germany can both stun and bring realization to the audience.  As I read this comparison, I was shocked that such organizations as the NIH and CDC, that are still in place today, could do such a thing as radical utilitarians did in the early 1900s.  Since human experimentation is not often a topic of conversation in my life, I had no idea that there were barely any laws regulating human experimentation until recently.  Since Angell is writing this essay after this issue is fixed, it is clear that she wants to educate her audience on the topic and make sure that it does not happen again.  By comparing not-so distant events with Nazi Germany, she shows just how important this issue is, meanwhile emphasizing the importance of laws that can prevent it.

IRB Intro Post 2- Lincoln

The IRB that I read for last marking period was "The Professor and the Madman" a historical non-fiction text written by Simon Winchester.  Although I typically like that genre, I found it difficult to stay interested and I often found myself trying to cram as much reading as possible, so that I didn't have to read it more than I had to.  My dad has a small collection of books in his office, and I found the bibliography, Lincoln written by David Herbert Donald.  Abraham Lincoln is one of my favorite presidents to learn about, and he was involved in the Civil war, another one of the topics that I like to learn about.  Although it is lengthier than the IRB I just read, I think that I will still be capable of reading it, as I will most likely be more interested in it and read it over many nights before each blog post.

TOW #8- IRB "The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, And The Making of The Oxford English Dictionary"

Simon Winchester is not trying to examine the impact the The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) had on the English language, but rather he attempts to show the major impact the dictionary had on the people involved with it .  The purpose changes many times throughout the novel, but in the latter half, Winchester emphasizes how much it had helped both Doctor Minor and Murray.  Winchester uses contrast in character personalities from the beginning of the story to show the impact of the dictionary on the people's lives.  In the beginning, we can remember that Minor and Murray were two completely different people, living completely separate lives.  However, Winchester slowly builds throughout that they become more than simply beings on the same planet.  He writes that Murray says to Minor's doctor that, "...Minor was 'my friend,' and said later he was distressed at how frail he seemed, at how the light and energy that had marked him in his dictionary-busy days of the previous decade seemed now to have deserted him" (195).  Murray notices even before the doctor that Minor's condition is continuing to decline, since he hasn't been involved with the OED.  The dictionary had saved Minor for part of his life, someone who may even be considered to have life at its worst.  If Minor could be positively influenced by something as basic as thee dictionary, clearly it was not so basic of a thing.

Winchester continues to emphasize this friendship when the doctor continues to disregard Minor's signs of physical and mental failure.  When the doctor tried to brush them off, Winchester says "But neither Sir James nor Lady Murray was mollified: It was imperative, they said, that their scholar-genius friend now be allowed to go home to America..." (198).  This friendship would not have occurred if it were not for the OED.  The Murray family is fighting for Minor's well-being, since his family seems to not be there for him.  The dictionary created a family of sorts, all through the love of the English language.  Winchester effectively shows his audience by the end of the novel that The Oxford English Dictionary is much much more than a compilation of every English word ever known.

TOW #7- The Special Education Problems We Aren't Solving

This article makes so much sense that it hurts.  Laura Klein is a teacher from New York City, in a school where "more than 30 percent of the students are classified as special education" (Paragraph 1).  In her article, "The Special Education Problems We Aren't Solving," Klein uses real-life examples and rhetorical questions to get her audience to start the conversation about special education and to do something about the horrible standards it is based on.  As she is a special education teacher herself, Klein uses examples of students that have been in her classroom to show her audience that there truly is a problem out there with special education.  She uses fake names to protect the actual students, but it is not the name of the student that matters, but the fact that these things actually happened to a child in the United States' educational program.  After introducing the type of student she had, she starts to explain the problems with her situation.  Klein writes, "Eve has an Individual Education Plan... it is quite evident that Eve is perfectly capable of attaining high marks in her classes. Yet, the I.E.P. says that she can be promoted by meeting only 40 percent of the standards, and so this is what she strives for (or rather, settles for).  Not only does this alarm the audience, but it also shows how drastically something needs to be done.  The audience shouldn't just wait around and let this happen to students, they should start the conversation within society to do something to help these kids that deserve so much more.  Near the end of  Klein's text, she asks her audience a strong, rhetorical question to further pound this issue into their heads.  She does this exceptionally well by connecting Eve's story to the rest of the students in special education.  Klein first states, "Set your standards low, and people won’t fail to meet them" (32), and then asks, "But why don’t we demand more?" (32).  This makes her message clear, that she wants the general public to do something about this.  The use of the rhetorical question allows for her audience to start generating ideas among themselves, preparing a base of ideas that could help make change in the future.  Klein does an excellent job in her article at making her message both clear and powerful.






http://www.wnyc.org/story/301679-the-special-education-problems-we-arent-solving/

TOW #6- How to Get Better at Running for President

 In recent months, the United States presidential race has completely taken over the world of news.  Many pin the success of Hillary Clinton on her experience in the field, and Stuart Stevens from the New York Times agrees.  However, his article, "How to Get Better at Running for President", goes a bit further by persuading the audience that successful candidates are the ones that accept their mistakes and show improvement through their career.  Stevens uses similes that connect to his audience of American citizens as well as recent examples of presidential nominees to show the logistics of Stevens' opinion.  Throughout the article, Stevens compares politics to sports by saying  that "Candidates are like sports teams: They are either improving or getting worse... watch your favorite candidate for signs of improvement, and if you don't see it, your'e probably pulling for a loser" (18).  It would be safe to say that most Americans today can connect to some type of sport.  Stevens uses this in his article to make politics, something not many are involved in, seem like something that the audience is familiar with.  This connection helps Stevens point out key elements of his argument.  When he compares candidates to sports teams, it helps Stevens show his audience that politics is always changing, and the "teams" are always either bettering themselves, or getting worse.  He attributes this to the fact that "to be successful, that confidence must be be matched with a realistic self-criticism" (16).  Stevens builds on this idea with the use of an example from Republican Mitt Romney.  He says that Romney "focused on moments he felt he could have done better" (17) making him one of the best candidates for president.  By using this recent presidential nominee as an example, Stevens shows the reality of his argument.  In order to get better at running for president, you need to have experience and try to better yourself.

















http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/how-to-get-better-at-running-for-president.html

TOW #5- Visual Text

In this visual text warning of the side effects of smoking, Health Canada uses contrast, coherence, and blunt phrases to try and stop the audience from smoking.  The audience of this advertisement is very broad, being any one that smokes, knows of smoking, or knows of someone that smoke.  The advertisement features a teenage girl, so that part of the audience would be the most impacted by the image as it would connect mostly with them.  The image of the girl was clearing edited, but the contrast between what seems to be a perfectly normal face and the gross edits make the side effects of smoking stand out in the image.  By emphasizing the side effects, the audience can clearly see that smoking has a negative effect on your image and health.  The coherence of the advertisement also helps the audience to clearly and quickly gain the information from the image.  The words are large and all in order, so that the audience does not need to spend time searching for any explanations.  Although the visual is organized, it does not seem very well-done.  It could be more stylistically appealing, so that it would catch the audience's attention more.  The bluntness of the phrases, "When you smoke it shows" and "Cigarettes are addictive and harmful" helps the audience gain the information quickly without having to look through mounds of words or data.  This advertisement is very to the point, so the audience can understand that smoking is bad just from looking at this for a couple of seconds.  However, most of the population knows that smoking is bad, but there are still people that do it.  This advertisement provides information, but it may not be compelling enough to stop someone from smoking all together.

TOW #4- IRB Post "The Professor and the Madman" by Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester uses elements of great suspense and imagery to show the readers of  The Professor and the Mad Man that the making of The Oxford English Dictionary was no simple feat so that his audience of history lovers could appreciate the story behind the useful resource.  Winchester starts his story by introducing all of the main characters through details of their daily lives.  In the preface, Winchester described a shooting a small town of England, something that was extremely rare in the area.  Slowly, as the story progresses, Winchester brings all of the characters together to show how they all played a role in the making on the dictionary.  This adds extreme suspense to the story, because the audience is trying to make the connections between characters as the story goes on, but Winchester doesn't let us know the connections until later in the book.  After telling a civil war story and how Doctor Minor had to brand an Irishman in the war, Winchester explains why Minor despises the Irish which was mentioned as a prime detail in the introduction of the story.  He says, "...he was fearful that Irishmen would abuse him shamefully, as he put it, and this was because he had been ordered to inflict so cruel a punishment on one of their number in the United States (Winchester 64).  Although Winchester effectively makes the story more interesting by adding suspense, the suspense does not have a large effect on his purpose.  It seems the story is merely a bunch of fictional stories one after another, instead of a coherent story about one topic.  The story is definitely not what I imagined it to be before hand, but it seems that Winchester will have the story come full-circle closer to the end of the novel.  

TOW #3- WWF Stop Climate Change Ad

An ad for WWF's campaign to end climate change

At a quick glance, this photograph seems to be a simple portrait of a man.  Then as your brain realizes that this is no ordinary man, the image is astoundingly frightening.  Scanning around the image for some sort of explanation, the caption "STOP CLIMATE CHANGE BEFORE IT CHANGES YOU" jumps out and clarifies that this is indeed a photograph of a man with a fish head as his own.

 Why does the World Wildlife Fund want to scare their audience? Why did they exaggerate the event of climate change so drastically?  Why can't they just tell us to stop climate change without this sickening image?  The World Wildlife Fund uses didactic coherence, fearsome hyperboles, and a distinct use of contrast in coloring in their ad against climate change to overall startle their audience into being persuaded to end climate change.  The fish head looks very well a part of the man's body, making the picture more coherent and believable for the audience. This picture is designed to persuade anyone on this planet to stop climate change as WWF is a global organization designed to help the entire Earth.  By showing the human as a man, the entire world can relate to the image.  By using a black background and shadowy colors on the man's body, the lightened fish head stands out among the rest of the advertisement.  The bold, white, capitalized letters also contrast against the dark background to make it noticeable to the viewers, as it is the explanation for the image above it that helps the audience understand the entire purpose of the ad.  As the audience can understand that a human with a fish head is nearly impossible, the artist wanted to show how extreme climate change is and how much of an affect it can have on humans.  Although the audience may know that this would  be impossible, the inevitable fear in the back of their minds contains a bit of curiosity that could lead them to think that maybe this could happen to them.  The WWF does an excellent job of putting this little bit of fear into their audience and definitely made myself do a double-take and truly think about the effects of climate change on our world.

TOW #2- Study Finds Movie Attendance Declining As More Americans Act Out Films At Home

While scrolling through the number of humorous headlines on The Onion, one can come across on the extremely well-written article, titled "Study Finds Movie Attendance Declining As More Americans Act Out Films At Home".  Although the article does not have a specific author, The Onion is known for its satire and comedic relief on everyday issues.  While the decline in movie attendance is a true problem, the audience can clearly understand that Americans do not act out films at home instead, because they are movie-watching Americans themselves.  This article uses humor to entertain its readers while also presenting an actual problem in the most recent American culture.

In the middle of the article, the author uses examples of logos and ethos to add humor and emphasis on the problem at hand. They write, "In a survey conducted by entertainment industry analytics firm Rentrak... attending the Pixar hit Inside Out in theaters could reach $50, compared to the $12.95 it would cost to run off four copies of the script..." The beginning part of this statement is completely true, but everything after "compared to" is the author's way of adding irony.  The audience understands that going to the movies is expensive, and that there are more affordable ways to watch a movie, but acting out a movie with only scripts sounds ridiculous.  While adding logos by citing "entertainment industry analytics" there is more humor added, because the author is acting as if acting out movies at home is the actual cause of declined movie attendance.  The simple thought that people would be acting out movies at home instead is humorous to the audience.

By the end of the article, the reader has been hit with so many examples that they can start to think about the actual cause of people staying away from movie theaters.  Whenever the author mentions acting out at home, it could easily be replaced with streaming movies from online.  The Onion does an excellent job of reiterating a common topic of conversation in American culture, while also entertaining their readers with humor and sarcasm.


Click here for Article

IRB Intro Post #1

The Professor and the Madman 

A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the making of The Oxford English Dictionary

by Simon Winchester

This novel that I chose to read for my first Independent Reading Book was recommended to me by Ms. Pronko.  Simon Winchester is a British author that studied at the University of Oxford and has long been writing for The Guardian.  His novel is a historical fiction book based on the creation of The Oxford English Dictionary.  The preface starts off giving the definition of "murder", therefore, setting the mood to a feeling one would associate with death.  James Murray, the editor of The Oxford English Dictionary is traveling to meet Dr. W. C. Minor, someone that had contributed greatly to the creation of the dictionary.  Murray finds Minor at an asylum, surprisingly as a patient.  This book is bound to be filled with mystery and suspense.

TOW #1 - America is Great by Roger Cohen

In the article, "America is Great", Roger Cohen uses the current United States presidential race to examine what it mean for a country to be great.  Cohen tries to convince his audience of American citizens to not vote for Trump throughout all of his writing.  By setting up circumstances when a European nation would use the presidential slogan, "Make (country) Great Again", he explains how European countries are past their stage of greatness.  He says that when the countries reached their maximum point of greatness, their country went to war and lost thousands of lives.  Cohen also uses sarcasm to show that becoming a "great" country again would be impossible.  Near the middle of The New York Times article, Cohen writes, "Or how about, 'Let's Make Italy Great Again!'... Italian interest in greatness is about as deep as its interest in swapping its cuisine for neighboring Albania's" (Cohen).

By using sarcasm, Cohen engages his audience and puts the situation into perspective.  His use of sarcasm tells the reader that it is easy to make jokes about making a country great again, because it is just that ridiculous.  This makes it even easier for the audience to accept Cohen's claim, that Trump's campaign is not one they should vote for.

The author clearly establishes that he does not believe "great" is a word that can be used to describe a successful, stable nation.  After explaining Europe's situation with greatness, Cohen shows that he believes that America is great, but then goes into details that show America doesn't look great at all.  The ending paragraph of the article explains the entire piece.  He writes, "The most dangerous point...of a nation's power is when the apogee of its greatness is passes but it is not yet resigned to decline. That's where Trump's American is.  Which is really, really great" (Cohen).  Previously in the text, Cohen had associated greatness with failure.  I think that he very clearly makes his point that Trump's campaign will not last, and reaches out to his audience not to take him seriously.

"Corn-pone Opinions" by Mark Twain

Public Opinion with the Win

Matt Wuerker depicts exactly what Twain got across in his essay; 

people conform to society's opinion rather than doing the research themselves.

       Not only is Mark Twain a famous historical figure, he can also use his essay, "Corn-pone Opinions", to teach valuable life lessons, even after more than one-hundred years of writing it.  When Twain originally wrote this piece, he was writing to all those in that time period who were being affected by, or affecting the unfair treatment of African-Americans.  A line that stood out was in the beginning anecdote, when Twain is listening to the preaching of a slave.  Twain writes that he had heard the slave say, "You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is" (Twain 1).  Corn pone is a type of southern corn bread, that every house hold would typically have in that time period.  Where a man gets his corn pone shows where he shops or where he is in society, therefore, showing that the slave meant opinions are based solely on where you are on the societal ladder.  Twain develops his argument by expanding on this idea, "...man's self-approval in the large concerns of life has its source in the approval of the people about him, and not in a searching personal examination of the matter" (Twain 4).  Twain is saying that man's self-approval controls his opinions, because he lets people around him judge and form his opinions for him.  His use of didactic phrases help his opinion on the matter stand out.  Twain ends his essay using multiple hypophoras, making his audience leave the essay with deep, final thoughts.  He writes, "Do you believe that a tenth part of the people, on either side, has any rational excuse for having an opinion about the matter at all? I studied that mighty question to the bottom-- came out empty" (Twain 5).  This question was regarding those supporting and those not supporting slavery.  Twain effectively achieves his purpose of getting people to think outside of society's general opinion, and form opinions of their own by asking questions that can relate to their own lives.

Cartoon source: http://www.politico.com/wuerker/2014/10/political-cartoons-october-2014/002055-029231.html

"What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them" by Gertrude Stein

    

"There's no such thing as magic!"

The readers (pictured on bottom), hearing everything Gertrude Stein 

(pictured on the top) is saying and not believing it one bit

       Gertrude Stein writes unlike any other author, therefore, receiving both extremes of criticism; supporters that dote her and critics that say she is of no importance.  "What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them" was originally written and read as a lecture at Oxford and Cambridge.  The well-known French author tries to explain how master-pieces are related to human nature, the human mind, and identity in order to define them for her audience; her audience being those interested in finding their own master-pieces.

       Stein slowly builds throughout the essay towards her final purpose, but never seems to get there.  At the end of the essay, Stein says that, "If there was no identity no one could be governed, but everybody is governed by everybody and that is why they make no master-pieces..." (Stein 138).  If everyone is governed, and government causes death to master-pieces, then how can master-pieces exist?  By creating an impossible definition, Stein is not only failing to create an argument, but confusing her audience as well.  One would think that her purpose would be to answer the questions posed in her title, but her answers are all too vague for the audience to even take into consideration.  Every so often, in the midst of her jumbled sentences,  Stein repeats certain words in an attempt to clarify what she means.  On the second page of her essay, Stein writes, "It is very difficult so difficult that it always has been difficult but even more difficult now to know what is the relation of human nature to the human mind..." (Stein 132).  By emphasizing the fact that it is difficult to understand the relation between human nature and the human mind, Stein takes away from her main goal of writing this essay.  If Stein's purpose was to confuse her audience, she achieved it with ease.  Whether one agrees with Gertrude Stein's style or not, it is clear that "What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them" is no master-piece.

Picture source: http://memes.mugglenet.com/Harry+Potter+Funny+Pics/Theres-no-such-thing-as-magic/2482

"Okinawa: The Bloodiest Battle of All" by William Manchester

Blood to Stone

Lt. Gen. Kenneth J. Glueck Jr. looking at the names of both the Americans and Japanese that had died in the bloodiest battle of World War II at the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park. 

        During World War II, out of all of the battles in the Pacific and in Europe, William Manchester knows from first-hand experience as a sergeant in the Marines, that the war fought in Okinawa was the worst.  On Flag Day in 1987, Americans and Japanese gathered together in Okinawa for a ceremony for those lost in the war.  Manchester writes to anyone in that time period that was affected by war or people who thought that they knew what war was like.  His purpose for writing this essay, "Okinawa: The Bloodiest Battle of All", was to show that the marks of war never left the men that fought in it, even if the countries had forgiven each other.

       Manchester tries to use personal anecdotes to get this point across.  Although he does eventually get this point across at the end of the essay, he could have done it much more efficiently.  The personal anecdotes are very important to the author, but they have no significance towards convincing the audience to agree with the purpose.  For instance, Manchester was explaining his role in the war, which he had already done multiple times before, by saying, "...I cherish most the Commendation from General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., U.S.M.C., our splendid division commander, citing me fore 'gallantry in action and extraordinary achievement," (Manchester 498).  This detail, like so many others in this essay, was completely unneeded.  With an abundance of these personal details, Manchester shows that he is credible to talk about this topic, but the audience gets so carried away in these mini-stories that they fail to even notice the true purpose of the essay.  If he had wanted to get his purpose across more clearly, Manchester should have used less anecdotes and introduced the true purpose earlier on, rather than at the end of the essay.  When the audience doesn't have time to digest the purpose, the purpose rarely has the potential to have any impact on the readers, making the essay completely pointless.

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