Assignment
Introduction- Our course on writing for a professional purpose begins with a focus on Popular Culture and advertising. As a base for this assignment, you will learn about persuasive appeals by reading Jib Fowles' article "Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals" and watching lessons on Aristotelian Appeals (i.e. pathos. logos, ethos). These are the analytical tools you will use when completing this assignment.
The concept of an "appeal" is fundamental to the study of rhetoric and composition. In order to persuade, to please and to teach an audience, one must appeal to particular values, emotions, ethics and needs of that specific audience. While writing is usually the medium students expect to examine in this class, it is important to realize that the claim, reason, and evidence that we see in writing are also apparent in visual and auditory forms of communication. As a communicative art, advertising has a specific purpose: to persuade the audience to take some action (i.e. to buy a certain product/service or to adopt an ideal). For this assignment, you will select a set of related advertisements and analyze them for their persuasive purpose. Use the following guidelines to compose your analysis.
Assignment Objectives
• Understand, recognize and evaluate the concept of persuasive appeals
• Realize that persuasion can be both visual and linguistic
• Practice critical reading of academic texts
• Analyze texts using given rhetorical tools (i.e. Fowles & Aristotle)
• Understand thesis statements and topic sentences
• Learn to compose well-structured paragraphs using the MEAL plan
Writing Skills Evaluated- Listed below are the writings skills that will receive the most focus on this essay. Lessons, videos and handouts for each skill are in the Blackboard -Lessons & Handouts- folder.
• Using 3rd person and avoiding, 1st and 2nd person constructions
• Writing, thesis statements & topic sentences (YouTube video and PowerPoint)
• Structuring body paragraphs with the MEAL Plan (YouTube video, PowerPoint and handout)
Assignment Instructions- In a formal essay of at least four pages (double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins), analyze a set of advertisements (ads) using one of the organizational options listed below. Your essay must examine rhetorical strategies by applying the theories from Jib Fowles' article and from Aristotle's three artistic appeals. Use 3rd-person writing only for this first essay.
Select no fewer than two and no more than three advertisements for your analysis. Advertisements must have a common feature and come from the following organizational options:
• Ads from the same issue of the same magazine, TV show, or radio station.
• Ads from multiple magazines aimed at different audiences.
• Ads from a single magazine source from different generations (e.g. 1950s, 1980s & 2000s).
• Advertisements/commercials that consider all the same product (cigarettes, cars, insurance, etc.).
• A single marketing campaign, perhaps one that was a colossal failure (the 1985 New Coke campaign is a good example).
Below are some questions that can help you analyze your advertisements.
• What appears to be the pool of the advertisements?
• Which of Fowless' appeals Appear most frequently? Which of Aristotle's? Why? An ad can have multiple appeals but usually uses one overriding appeal. Does your ad(s) have one primary appeal?
• Do your ads use Foss les' appeals in the same way that Fowles defines them?
• Has Fowles neglected to consider other appeals that you believe play a key role in the psychosocial marketing of your ad products/service?
• What appears to be the target audience(s)? What about the ads tell you that they are appealing to that audience(s)?
• How do appeals change when the audience or subject matter changes?
• How do the graphics, text, dialogue and headlines in the ads work upon our human motivations?
• Which content (text, graphics, white space, color selection, etc) is most successful, and what appeals do they target?
• What assumptions about cultural attitudes do the ads make? Consider such subject matters as expected gender roles or relationships between age/ethnic/socioeconomic groups.
• How do elements such as facial expressions, clothing and posture of the models, physical objects, even the weather affect your advertisements?
• Do they use humor, surprise, fantasy, wonder, human interest, or social concern to achieve final goals? If so, what appeals do these themes reflect?
*NOTE- The MEAL Plan handout is a pre-writing tool. You will turn in a completed MEAL worksheet with your Advertising Essay.
There is no additional research required for this essay. The only secondary source required is the Fowles article: however. you must cite your advertisements on your references page using. Proper documentation according to your professional discipline (APA, MLA, CMS, Turabian etc.). If you are not sure about your documentation style, use the one most familiar to you on this first essay. Do not include copies of your advertisements.