Editorial: Taking note; So Many Screeners and So Little Shampoo, but Are Our Planes Safer

In the article “TAKING NOTE; So Many Screeners and So Little Shampoo, but Are Our Planes Safer” by Juliet Lapidos in the New York Times, she writes a short review on airport safety and how she feels about all of the changes that have been made in the TSA system. To support her opinion and to try to make us support her opinion, she uses a few components of the rhetoric system. Her use of detail, language, and syntax help convey her ideas to us readers.

The first element, detail, helps us think the writer is more reliable through the facts that they provide us with. For example, when Lapidos talks about how “the TSA employs roughly 62,000 people, including 47,000 screeners, at a cost of more than $3 billion a year in payroll, compensation and benefits” (The New York Times), she is including facts to make her sources seem dependable and to help support her opinion and make it seem dependable.

The next element that is used, language, is the way in which a writer conveys ideas to make the reader feel a certain way. How an author constructs their writing and the certain details they choose to use or not to use is what creates a certain feeling in a piece of writing. In this review, Lapidos is trying to persuade her readers that what the airport security has been doing to keep safe is unnecessary. It would be better for the TSA to ban obvious weapons of destruction, because “banning lighters is just security theater-it just makes airports seem safer” (The New York Times). It doesn’t actually do anything. Throughout the article, we are being told how much money has been wasted on machines that haven’t done much, like the “puffer” machine. All of these negative views on what could be helpful machines make us side with her throughout the time we are reading her writing.

The final use of the rhetoric that is being used is diction. Diction is the specific words that are being put to play throughout a text. They help the reader to really visualize what is being said, and the use of good, strong words will help them believe in the same things that the writer believes in. During this editorial, Lapidos helps us envision what the TSA is doing by saying; “the TSA seems like a caricature of a wasteful bureaucracy, spending astounding amounts of money even during a sluggish economic recovery” (The New York Times). Instead of simply saying the TSA spends a lot of money on unnecessary things in hard times, they use strong words such as “wasteful bureaucracy” and “astounding amounts”. These words really deliver the point that the author is trying to get across to the readers.

The editorial shows components of the rhetoric in action. Without these minor details, the piece wouldn’t have as big of an impact as it does on the reader. They all come together to create a specific feeling and to develop a common opinion. After learning about the five parts of the rhetoric situation, I have learned how to further read into pieces of writing and to take notice in the small words formations of sentences to convey certain meanings.

Article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E7DF113EF936A2575AC0A9649D8B63&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Open Prompts Blog

2009. A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

     Symbols are seen everywhere, and a reader can turn most anything into a symbol for whatever they see fit. Symbols don't always have one direct meaning; often times they have multiple. Symbols are used to convey different ideas and suggestions to the plot to help readers understand the text more thoroughly and literally. In the novel The Great Gatsby, we see the use of many, many different symbols; however, the most significant one would have to be the green light that Gatsby is trying to reach out to. 

     In The Great Gatsby, the symbolism behind the green light represents hopes and dreams. Gatsby used to be dating Daisy. After they break up, due to his participation in the war, he desperately wants to get her back. He doesn't realize how everything is always moving forward though, and what they used to have before he went to war is no longer there. Throughout the book he tries and tries to get her back, and for a while we, the readers, were all thinking that maybe she would get back together with him. We see their relationship goes no where though, because she has moved on to Tom and she loves him now. In the very beginning of the novel, Gatsby is looking out across the water and notices a green light. He reaches out towards it, and that conveys an entire new meaning intended for the readers to pick up on.

     Green is the color of hope. While Gatsby is reaching towards the green light, he is really reaching for his hopes and dreams to come true with Daisy. Little does Gatsby know that the green light is actually coming from Daisy's house, which really resembles how he desperately wants to get her back. Reaching out to this light will lead him to his end goal: getting Daisy. As hard as he tries though, the light doesn't getting any more attainable. It's so far across the waters, and all he can do is see it. This goes to show how he can't attain Daisy, all he can do is dream of someday getting her and hope that it comes true, which we see that it never will. 

     If the green light wasn't ever mentioned in the novel, there wouldn't really be a connecting image. Through the light we can see at the very beginning of the novel that there is something that Gatsby wants, but we aren't exactly sure of what that is. As time goes on though, we are told that this light stands at the end of Daisy's dock. Once we know that, as readers, we put the pieces together. There is a light, a green light to be exact, that can just barely be seen across the waters. And as for Daisy and Gatsby, we can see that there used to be a "light" between them, but as time went by it slowly diminished. What he thought was so close and easy to recapture, ended up fading away right in front of his eyes. Gatsby no longer had anything left to live for. 

Response to course material: Sept. 9th 2012

So far in AP lit, we have learned primarily about the rhetorical situation, how to approach the AP test, and how to create an argument. As we all learned throughout the first week, we use the rhetorical situation all the time, and personally I never realized I was using it all this time. When I think back to other pieces of writing I have done in previous literature classes, I notice that I have used some form of the rhetorical situation. Always. Persuasive essays are the jackpot for evidence of how I have used the rhetorical situation without even realizing it. In the past, we have been told to write a certain way, by considering your audience and by thinking about what they would want to hear and how they would want to hear it. That is exactly what we see as one of the main parts of the situation itself. The purposes of the writing (reflect, persuade, entertain, and inform) help link us to how we take the AP test. The main thing to think about while testing is how. How does everything come together? How does one thing relate to another? Well, while taking the test, you have to be able to make these connections. If we hadn't learned about the rhetorical situation, it wouldn't be as easy to tackle. The rhetorical situation helps us connect the dots and make sure we use every piece of information that we can. Of course, this ties in with the use of argument. We have to consider all of this information, plus how to even set up an argument. In the past, I have written many essays arguing something. What I didn't really think about though was how to appeal to my audience. Do I want them to feel what I'm saying emotionally? Logically? or to consider their morals? Putting all of these into mind will help me on future essays and pieces of writing. With knowing how to structure my writing logically, it can make my writing that much more effective. I just have to be able to put all of the elements we learned into play, and with practice, I am sure I will be able to.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

David Sedaris’s essay Me Talk Pretty One Day is a well-written and formatted essay. After reading The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing by Michael Harvey, we learn to see what makes Sedaris’s piece so captivating and easy to understand. Throughout the essay, we see that Sedaris correctly follows punctuation rules, has well formed paragraphs, and uses the tri-colon to make Sedaris’s “prose plainer and more graceful” (Harvey 47).

            Throughout the essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” we come across many uses of the comma. Although it does come up quite often, it doesn’t bring down the value of each sentence it is placed in, rather it helps “create long, complex sentences that are still readable” (Harvey 35).  When a writer has many thoughts and descriptions that are necessary to complete a sentence, they have to be able to use the comma appropriately. Sedaris shows that he knows how to correctly use this punctuation mark when he says, “The teacher forged on, and we learned that Carlos, the Argentine

bandonion player, loved wine, music, and, in his words, ‘making sex with the womans

of the world.’” (Sedaris 12). This use of the comma “allow[s] the reader[s] to follow the dense description [of Carlos] without too much strain” (Harvey 35).

            Another correctly used piece of punctuation in the essay is the use of questions. We see that Sedaris follows almost exactly what is said in Harvey’s section about question marks to “direct the readers attention” to a certain idea (44). Because they are designed to direct the reader’s focus on something, they have the greatest effect when placed at the beginning of paragraphs (Harvey 45). Sedaris places his two questions into the beginning of a single paragraph. He asks, “How often is one asked what he loves in this world? More to the point, how often is one asked and then publicly ridiculed for his answer?” (Sedaris 12). The second, more detailed question leads the reader to think about where the essay is going and what the writer is trying to make them think about (Harvey 45).

            Another guideline that Sedaris follows extremely well is how he sets up his paragraphs. After reading The Nuts and Bolts, we learn that “paragraphs represent pieces of an argument” (Harvey 69). The first sentence of a paragraph is usually a great indicator of what that paragraph will be about (Harvey 71). For example, one of Sedaris’s paragraphs starts out saying “My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards” (Sedaris 14). This makes us, the readers, actively predict that the proceeding paragraph will go into further explanation of what his fears are and how they will carry out into the everyday world. Throughout the paragraph we can see how all of these fears are cutting into his every day life until finally he ends these descriptions by saying “I knew my fear was getting

the best of me when I started wondering why they don’t sell cuts of meat in vending

machines” (Sedaris 14).

            The final piece that adds gracefulness, according to Harvey, is the use of the tricolon. This is when there is a list mentioned that consists of only three items. When lists have three items, they “tend to feel balanced and complete” (Harvey 53). Sedaris uses the tricolon a great number of times throughout his essay. Right off the bat we see this when he says that after he obtains his student I.D, he also obtains “a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland” (Sedaris 11).  One paragraph later, we see that all the students in his class were “young, attractive, and well-dressed” (Sedaris 11). These help give the readers a sense of completeness, as long as making the author feel as if he has completed and conveyed all of his thoughts about certain subject matters.
            Me Talk Pretty One Day is a perfect example of writing that follows Michael Harvey’s guidelines. Sedaris does a phenomenal job using punctuation correctly, explaining his thoughts in organized paragraphs, and using tricolons to complete his lists throughout his essay. Without these elements, his writing wouldn’t be as memorable and simple to read, creating a positive effect on the readers.