Personal Blog #8: Using ethos, logos & pathos.

In the community persuasion post I attempted persuade my audience to help keep the earth clean.

Ethos-I tried to become relate-able to my crowd by stating how together we can clean this earth together. Also by revealing my ecological foot print of how many earths it takes to support my life style. I included sources for all of my claims.

Logos-I made my reasoning very decisive and logical. I provided simple solutions such as "Using public transportation will decrease air pollution."

Pathos-The overall tone of the persuasion was to make it appear possible for us as a whole to clean up earth. Overall if someone did not want to par-take in clean earth they would feel bad about it. I mention how convenient it is to keep this earth clean. So if someone did not par-take they would feel lazy.

The six shortcuts of persuasion.

The art of persuasion is an art that is very much used in our society. The science behind it goes through six principals or shortcuts. These six shortcuts are: reciprocity, scarcity, authority, consistency, liking, and consensus. Question is, can some of these principals be used in blogs? Personally I would say that some of them are. There are three of them that I can see being used in blogs: Consensus, authority and liking. Ultimately, some of these are more effective than others. Liking, I would say is the most effective. One of the main factors in liking is relating to others. In a blog we can read of someone who is going through something we ourselves may have gone through, or is blogging about similar ideas and theories that we have had. Following liking the next effective principal is authority. People will follow those who are credible. For example, if a coffee master is blogging about different methods on making the best coffee. Coffee lovers will read and likely indulge in what the coffee master is saying. finally, the last principal I see being effective is consensus. When looking for a blog or even hearing from others of a great blog that person then feels the need to check it out. Ultimately, these three principals can be used to bring in readers to a blog. Each one uses ethos, pathos, or logos in their own way.

Personal Blog #6: The art of influence.

From The Power of Influence I liked how they touched on ethos. Without credibility our arguments carry no weight. Establishing our credibility allows others to see us as honest and trustworthy. It is through this allows us to build up our persuasion tactics and convince a crowd that we are serious about our cause. Other factors correlate with this as well such as being personable.

Furthermore, it discusses how the essayist will indulge in their own ignorance. When a new question is asked the essayist will in fact begin to research the topic to become familiar with it. It goes further to discuss how the essayist will build boarders around the question and begin to paint on the canvince with answers that address the issue.  

The Power of Influence goes on further but let me say this as a former target employee that sold an obscene amount of redcards. Ethos is necessary in any persuasion it allows us the opportunity to develop credibility and build rapport with the person we are talking to. If we do not take the time to research new questions that ruin our credibility than it will ruin our persuasion/ argument. This is the first building block to our tower of persuasion. 

Memoir: thoughts and objectives.

In writing this memoir of my friends drug addiction. I hope to find closer in myself, I helped him as best I could but there was much more I could have done. It is important to be there for friends and I do not believe in ever abandoning them. We all have our own issues and problems in life, sometimes it is extremely difficult to coop with them. It can bring us to rock bottom and completely ruin our potential in becoming our best self. I believe that part of becoming one's best self is to be supported by friends and family. Without having others to help push you forward can kill your motivation and confidence. Without that why do anything. 

Memoir Ideas

1.Lolzy relationship

My first real platonic relationship with a girl the way we acted toward each other was historical we would make groups of kids laugh through comedic dialogue and antics.

2. Roadie for an indie band

My days during my junior and senior year of high school were spent helping my friend’s band Drawing Mountains lift heavy objects and be a part of their entourage.

3. Construction by hippies

Part of my senior year in high school was spent romping around the woods and building tee pees(I do have photos to go along) it brought all of our friends together and created many adventures with it along with some interesting finds.

4. Friends Drug Addition.

While in high school my best had gotten heavily addicted to opiates. His home life was a mess with his mom being an alcoholic and having an abusive father he had to find an escape somehow.   

5. Suicide Attempt

During my junior year of high school I was prescribed Adderall to help with my studies since I was failing miserably in high school. This drug completely back fired and instead of focusing on my studies that energy was spent negative things about me. Even though I told my parents how I was feeling they force fed me the drug anyways. Eventually one thing led to another.   

Day four: Success.

Hearing the sound of my alarm today made it seem like a typical day. Walking in I could already feel the cringe go down my spine that comes with the smell of rotten milk. As the day went day everything was the same. Stocking selves, helping our guest, and selling red cards. It was not until I was on break I received a call from ghost rocket music saying that they wanted to meet me in person for an interview, but they could only meet today. So, once I punched out I drove like a crack head who just got word of someone selling. When I arrived I kicked my door open and ripped off my cloches to replace them with the adequate interview clothes. I proceeded to drive like a madman to the location where we would meet. It was not until I arrived when I realized how odd this seemed. The building we were meeting at was not far at all but  I looked around and saw that the houses close by had boarded up windows and looked run down. I figured that if I died I would not be in retail anymore. So, I called back the number that he called on he came out to greet me. We went up the stairs to his loft where he was conducting all his interviews as there was no office space. We talked for while and he thought I would make a good fit. So he offered me a position as a producer/marketing assistant at ghost rocket music. He said I would just be helping musicians produce music and help them sell it.

Day Three: The candy man!

Working in retail full time as a customer service rep. one definitely see's a cast of colorful characters. Today this older gentleman came through the store and he approached me with a gallon of tide. Once I rang him up and went through the typical hey how are you small talk he proceeded by trying to pay me in candy. Unfortunately I had to his form of payment, sadden by this he coughed up the cash for his tide and began to leave. At the last second though he turned back and tossed a huge handful of candy onto the desk and shouted "You can't be mad at the Candy Man! I just gave you free candy!" and then decided to leave. People like that make my day.

Day two: Choosing a different face.

Being asked to make a video of myself for an interview already sounds strange. I have never been asked to do this for other interviews before, but than again this is for the big leagues. They ask for me to make a video of myself answering three questions: What is my favorite scene in my favorite movie, what has been my best experience in a retail store or restaurant, and how to make my favorite sandwich. At first I was bit skeptical, but it could be fun so I went ahead and filmed it. Looking back at the video after submitting it seemed obvious how much of a different face I have become. Once I clicked play I could already hear a fake personality in the video. The sound of  a wanna be Jersey Shore boy took place of my original voice. All I could think to myself is that I am ashamed of showing who I am. The true me, someone who cannot stand the east coast attitude. The persona of who can wear the tightest tap out shirt while having the biggest slut in the club grind on my junk. Perhaps that is just myself in corporate survival mode, sub-consciously giving myself an accent to make myself stand out from other candidates. It could be that is my true self but refuse to believe it and am in denial. Either way, this brought me the next phase of the interview process, which will lead me to my favorite city. Seattle.  

Day one: Killing anxiety though fiction.

Ready, breath in 3, breath out, breath in 2, breath out, breath in 1, breath out. My third eye opens to my safe spot. A little tropical island with a beautiful night sky, stars soaring across. I feel the warm sand beneath me complimented by the relaxing sound the ocean gives. I allow myself this time, a time to reflect and to become self-aware of what I am doing with my life. I see my inner self. My conscious, I guess you can call it a fictional being that I can discuss my personal problems with and not be judged or criticized. A fictional being that can help me come to a solution with my everyday endeavors. We sit together and we discuss why I am an outgoing introvert, someone who is reserved but desperately wants to socialize and become good friends with everyone. My inner self looks to me and tells me that I have too much of a social filter on. A filter that hides my true self from others. This filter is really an anxiety that relates to my being bullied back in high school freshmen year. Something I do not want to ever experience again. The reticule and insults that bring one to utter depression and fear of others leading to mean world syndrome. "You can become who you once where, a social fun kid who brings out the best in others." That is what my inner self tells me before he vanishes. Ready, breath in 3, breath out, breath in 2, breath out, breath in 1, breath out. I open my physical eyes, my skin tightened from a grin and my social anxiety diminished.

Communication as writing as writing communicates.

"Writing as self-revelation" discusses in the passage of "communication as writing" is altered by the fact that we are worried about criticism in our writing. When growing up and going through grade school we are constantly graded on our performance. In other words we feel our written form of expression is judged by our teachers as either a good form of expression or a bad form of expression.

Going through high school I remember purposely failing English class due to my fear of my self expression as being judged as good or bad. Sadly, I couldn't pass high school with out it; so, I ended up creating a filter. A filter that directed my thoughts and ideas towards what the teacher wanted to hear, rather than having my authenticity be involved.  Truly, this is normal in terms of social dynamics. We create this filters in order to protect our positive face when communicating with others. So we create a work filter, school filter, dating filter, friend filer ect. these filters are a good thing for they prevent us from saying something highly inappropriate at work that could possibly get us fired and ruining our lively hood.  However, filters limit do ourselves because we are simply not putting our true selves into each piece that we write; because once we remove all these filters and show our original self is when we can become limitless.

Goody goody two-shows a.k.a. be a rebel.

The goody goody two-shoes article speaks of traits that make one a good writer. The author heavily emphasizes that in order to become a great writer one must not set up rules to live by. By that she means that one cannot write passionately if it is simply looked at like a chore. In a since this is true, if you think of any goal you accomplished successfully in the past. Whether that be losing weight, creating a great song, performing better at work ect. You put more of yourself into that goal then mindless-daily practice. For myself, I had lost 115 pounds within the last year and a half and people ask me, "How often do you work out?" or "What type of diet have you been on?" I look at them and say "It is all in the mind set. If you view diet and exercise as a chore you will eventually look for excuses as to why you should stop the whole process."

Although, just to play devils advocate, there are pros to the boring day to day practice approach of becoming a successful writer. As the saying goes "The first step to becoming sort of good at something is start out by being really bad at it." With that in mind one cannot become a vivid storyteller without going through practice sessions.

Ultimately, I see that both sides have value to them and I think the best example that employees passionate writing with daily practice would be a news writer. On a daily basis, they are going out into the world to find new exciting evidence towards a case or some sort of crisis to inform the public. while having the time to write about it everyday.