TOW 24

A Walk in the Woods is a memoir written by Bill Bryson about his time hiking the Appalachian trail.  At the same time it also offers up a lot of information on the subject.  It teeters between telling the story of the author, Bill Bryson, and his friend, Stephen Katz, on their attempt at the Appalachian Trail, and a book on facts about the ecology and simply general facts about the area.  Bryson employs several tactics based on his target audience.  Bryson targets an audience, which is not made up of avid hikers, but regular people.  It is meant to be a somewhat informational book but is more for the readers enjoyment.  For that reason he uses things such as humor and first person to get his point across.  Using first person makes it easier for Bryson as he can simply tell his story, and at the same time it makes the reader feel as if they are there.  It also helps as he can use it to describe things more in depth.  As he is an observer of the landscape along the way he can comment on it.  In this way it is less like you are building a landscape off of what he is saying but off of what he is actually seeing.  Bryson also employs humor in his writing as, understanding his audience, he assumes the text would be lacking without it.  This aspect adds a kid of personality to the text that makes it feel more alive.  It feels more concrete because not only did he actually do this but also he makes the readers feel like they are getting a direct commentary from someone who is directly talking from their experiences.  It feels as if there is no bumper and is also more entertaining for the audience.

TOW 23

For as long as there have been politics there have been people criticizing the moves of politicians.  One way in which people do this is through the use of cartoons.  Gary Varvel has crafted this technique through his 40 years of experience and uses it in criticism of the minimum wage hike.  His cartoon depicts three people in fast-food styled uniforms.  Above them is the caption, “2 out 3 like a minimum wage hike.”  The then has each employee with a speech bubble.  2 of the characters say that they got a raise where as the third is saying that he lost his job to pay for the other two people’s raises.  This cartoon comments on a touchy issue and presents an idea without seeming too harsh.  That is the strength of political cartoons.  Political cartoons are able to poke fun and open the holes in ideas with out seeming as if they are too strong in criticism. They are strong because they are casual enough that they do not force people to become defensive, and instead lull them with humor.  Varvel’s cartoon also works with implied logic.  Without fully saying his point he allows his audience to see the cartoon and analyze it for themselves.  This further distances him from the topic and makes it even safer for him to talk about.  Lastly, the cartoon conveys what words could not.  In showing the audience the failures of an idea it is not thinking hypothetically.  Whereas when someone may say the same idea others could deny it or simply say that it does not make sense.  Varvel’s style of pushing this idea on his audience makes it much more clear and easy to understand for his audience and that is what makes it truly effective in its purpose.

TOW 22

            With so many colleges across the country there is not much to set one apart from another.  Why then would the amount of applications to one school skyrocket going up by 30%?  According to Ashley Schaeffer, a writer for Total Frat Move, it is because of the legalization of cannabis.  Schaeffer claims that it only makes sense that prospective college students would flock to something that they enjoy.  That college students would flock to the legality of weed as they would any school on a top party school list.  He argues this point by constantly citing a Fox article on the same issue.  This proves to both strengthen and weaken his argument at the same time.  The reason it strengthens his argument is quite clear, because citing almost anything increases his ethos and makes him sound more professional.  Also it means that he can use their cited speakers to his advantage without having to go out of his way to find people to comment on the issue.  It is all in one place for his choosing.  If one reads into the actual cited article it comes from more of an un-opinionated angle and takes more of the side of the fact that marijuana is not bringing young people to apply to Coloradan colleges.  This could harm Schaeffer’s ethos because he is using an article that argues against his point to argue for it, but it could also be more effective depending on his audience.  Considering Total Frat Move’s audience of young college students, most people don’t check the source, but for those that do, they could believe that its different opinion shows an openness for ideas by the author because he is willing to use an article that disagrees with his opinion to bolster his.  All in all Schaeffer’s article is effective in transferring his opinion on the situation to his audience with the help of citations from an opposing Fox report.

TOW 21

Seth Rogan is most noted for his roles in comedy movies such as Knocked Up and Pineapple Express, but recently he did something much more mature.  Rogan sat at a congressional hearing and testified on the topic of Alzheimer’s disease.  It seems an odd position for Rogan as he is normally portrayed as a marijuana smoking actor with little care for society, but he actually used this role to further his speech.  Rogan, knowing his commonly thought of persona, made jokes about it.  This and the other humor he showed during the speech helped to hold the audience’s attention and also gain more attention at later points.  For example, it has over 6 million views on youtube.  The problem with this humor is that it harms his ethos.  He seems a bit off base making jokes about how he, “realizes it is not a hearing for the legalization of marijuana.”  Some of his jokes flowed well with his speech, whereas others made it sound like he was joking too much when talking about something as serious as Alzheimer’s.   For that reason it is difficult to understand whether this technique was effective or not.  While it captivated the audience, and at some points strengthened his argument, his persona as a whole with the help of the humor may have done a lot more to weaken his testimony.  His use of a personal story really helped what he was saying though.  Rogan told the story of how his mother in law had very bad Alzheimer’s and that was what caused him to be there.  This heart-wrenching story appealed to pathos and made the crowd feel sad and understand the extent to which the disease can cause pain.  This aspect was a definite help in his speech and was one of the strongest carriers.  It also lessened the strain of the jokes as having a connection to the disease made it feel okay.  As a whole though his testimony was good.  It gripped the audience and helped in his purpose of bringing attention to the issue.

TOW 20

            A Walk in the Woods is an odd book to say the least.  It walks the line between a lighthearted memoir and a serious factual book.  It teeters between telling the story of the author, Bill Bryson, and his friend, Stephen Katz, on their attempt at the Appalachian Trail, and a book on facts about the ecology and simply general facts about the area.  This structure though is a very beneficial style of writing for what Bryson is trying to do.  His book is meant to be a pleasure book, something you can pick up and read for fun.  Now a trip backpacking on the Appalachian Trail is not to exciting, at least to someone listening.  It is mainly the same thing day in and day out, wake up, eat, hike, eat, hike more, set up camp, eat, sleep, repeat.  Even with a few stories sprinkled in it is not the makings of a very interesting book simply because it is repetitive and would get boring after a while.  This is where Bryson’s interesting structure comes in.  Bryson mixes up the story telling by adding in commentary and facts about things such as the American forestry services, the history of the trail, ecological facts and other things that fit in the context.  These offer him a chance to stray from the mundane repetitive story and spice it up a little.  This then makes the story much more interesting.  With this technique of mixing up the styles and almost completely the topic of the book Bryson keeps the reader active.  The reader no longer is just paying attention to a flowing story but a split up one.  The reader must remember where it left off and where it will go and this makes a mundane story much more interesting.  For that reason Bryson’s odd styling proves quiet effective for this book.