...A VISUAL GUIDE TO ESSAY WRITING Dr Valli Rao, Associate Professor Kate Chanock, and Dr Lakshmi Krishnan use a visual approach to walk students through the most important processes in essay writing for university: formulating, refining, and expressing academic argument. ‘MetamorTHESIS‘ Your main argument or thesis is your position in answer to the essay question. It changes and develops as you undertake your reading and research towards the essay. how to develop & communicate academic argument “I love the way the authors explain what an argument is. I also love the way they justify holding opinions in an academic context … A Visual Guide to Essay Writing shows you excellently how to communicate with your marker by employing your ‘authorial voice’.” - Dr Alastair Greig Head, School of Social Sciences The Australian National University Valli Rao Kate Chanock Lakshmi Krishnan “This is a great book ... clear, useful, beautifully conceived and produced ... an intriguing approach, one that will make sense to students and really assist their essay writing skills.” - Brigid Ballard & John Clanchy authors of the international best-seller Essay writing for students: a practical guide How effective structure supports reasoned argument in essays1 Discipline/field Topic Underlying question Introduce discipline/field/context and topic Roughly, 10–15% of essay length Why is this topic interesting from the perspective of the discipline/field...
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...The Power of Imagery in Consumer Culture Keshini Namasivayam 500556528 Ryerson University FSN 503 Bernie Murray Wednesday, November 11th, 2015 The Power of Imagery in Consumer Culture The twenty-first century is a time period in which consumer culture is a dominant force in society. Through visual tactics, retail brands are able to persuade individuals to embody the lifestyle culture that their brand represents, which subsequently leads consumers to purchase their products. Through powerful advertisements brands are able to evoke thoughts and emotions into our subconscious, which lead us to conform. The root of consumerism lies in the fact that “our capitalist society is dependent on the overproduction of goods, so increasing desire for goods is a must” (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009, p. 267). Through advertising, brands use tactics that make the individual feel they can connect to the brand. Consequently, the individual then feels a sense of desire for the product. This paper will analyze five concepts that are used by popular brands including product association, commodity fetishism, lifestyle promotion, sex appeal and cultural appropriation. Product Association Figure 1. Godiva chocolate advertisement. Figure 1. Godiva chocolate advertisement. Often, without our realization, our values and perceptions are being influenced to fit a certain construct. All of a sudden we feel that mere a physical product can define who we are. Brands build a culture in which...
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...results should depict a useful image for a select audience, and an image that doesn’t do quite do what the other can. Introduction It is safe to assume that vast majorities of people have owned an item with a white “swoosh” on it, right? That swoosh is a universal and I’m confident to say a vast majority of the world recognizes what brand it boasts: Nike. The athletic manufacturing giant that is Nike is a universally recognized brand that is familiar with athletes around the world. Rated at 126 in the Fortune 500, Nike is a global powerhouse, and much of its success is based on successful advertisement with highly paid, endorsed athletes. With their well-known sales pitch “Just Do It,” most people, including myself, do just that. This essay will convey 2 examples of Nike: good advertising, and the bad, their target audience, and what both images do to compel you to purchase the products they bolster. Description The two images chosen to describe are both similar in terms of Nikes taste is athletes and message, and vastly different at the same time. The first is a new add featuring Super Bowl champion Richard Sherman. One of my favorite campaigns out right now, this new Nike Flyknit ad is powerful. Notice Richard Sherman’s stress in his workout; what he’s wearing. The ad is a blatantly hinting that his power is radiating from everything clothing his body. Nike shoes, compression shorts, shorts, bracelet. His emotion...
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...How can retailer to trigger customers buying decisions through visual merchandising? Visual merchandising is playing an important part due to the increasing sameness of merchandise and services among competitors. In shopping malls, you find many competitors clustered together and it has become very difficult for the stores to create a competitive advantage. Thus, visual merchandising can offer for a store to create a distinctive image and attract customers to buy the merchandise. The main objective of visual merchandising is to stimulate potential customers through five mental stages called attention, interest, desire, conviction, and action (AIDCA). Two kinds of attention are voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary attention happens when window shoppers purposely view various displays, typically to learn about the merchandise that they have the intention to buy. In contrast, involuntary attention is unintentional observation. It is more difficult to achieve because the display must get the attention of the potential customers...
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...rather context clues. They’re context clues in the sense that they tell us about the individual in the photograph, and they give us a lot of information about him and what he may possibly do. Without these context clues, it would be extremely difficult to formulate any opinions as to who the man in the photograph is or what he does. However with them, we can develop an idea as to who the man is and what he does. A wise man once told me that you could tell a lot about a person by what he/she keep on his/her desk and how his/her office looks. In this photograph a man sits at his very detailed and organized desk with awards hanging on the wall that acknowledge his many achievement, with an accomplished and proud look on his face. Humans are visual people, and what we see affects what we believe and feel. The photograph evokes pathos in the sense of the man’s facial expression and appearance, as well as logos in the sense that the items in his office help give him credibility and tell us about him. For the sake of reference,...
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...Visual Argument Analysis Essay Effective Advertisement Effective advertisement immediately appeals to a viewer, stimulates one’s interest, persuades the targeted group to buy a product or service, or give support to a certain cause. We live in a fast paced world where everybody seems to be in a rush, therefore, the advertisers have to follow the “3 seconds to impact” rule (MAD). This means that they have “approximately 3 seconds to accomplish [their] marketing objectives”: to catch the viewer’s attention, convey a message, and provoke reactions or actions (MAD). The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) anti-fur advertisement that I have chosen for this assignment meets all the above-mentioned criteria of an effective advertisement (McCartney). This particular print advertisement by PETA portrays Sophie Ellis-Bextor, an English singer, songwriter, model and occasional DJ, holding the skinned lifeless body of a fox. There are three main components in this commercial: a pitch black background, an attractive female celebrity, and a skinless animal. Metaphorically, the color black represents death, and it immediately determines the dark nature of the advertisement. Sophie Ellis-Bextor is wearing a black cocktail dress, her black cherry hair matches perfectly, and her red lipstick stands out on her pale, fair skin. As she strikes a glamorous pose by placing her right hand on her hip, the viewer can see that she is holding the skinned fox in her left hand. The bloody...
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...When first approaching the painting the most evident object seen is a tall cross in the top right corner of the canvas. Upon further study, there are many elements that draw the eye to the cross. I believe the artist has intended to make the cross the focal point of the piece. It is not by the name of the painting, which has lead to this conclusion, but all the design decisions displayed in the artwork. The painting is a narrative, representational artwork that illustrates a town or village nestled down in a snowy valley. The overall texture of the paint is smooth with a few rises in small places on the canvas. In the areas with the most common tonal range, the oil paint is smooth and blended. Where there are the most detail and contrast, the paint strokes are thicker and more defined. While there a few interesting objects in the piece, such as a sleigh with logs and a couple of people, its most intriguing quality is the way the artist has forced us to see primarily the cross, and hold our attention to it. The painting generates an inquisitive searching in the viewer. What is the cross? What does it mean? Why is it so important? A large open area behind the cross offers the eye a resting point, from the more detailed and busy areas of the painting. The cross is dark and creates tonal contrast against a bright backdrop of trees on a mountain. The trees are harmonious in colour. The use of subtle tints of orange, pink, and yellow make the trees on the mountain look like they are...
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...It was an exciting Thursday going to the Venice beach walkway and seeing merchants, tourists and very talented local artists. Out of the whole day, the only art work that really stood out to me from the rest of the paintings that I saw was called The Persona of Dreams painted by a man named Eric who was happened to be painting portraits of people to in order make money on the side from his real job as a barber. Also, his painting had many details that left me in deep awe and his visceral purple landscape was layered with radiant moonlight and stars, which honed in the perspective of how he saw the night. From me it was a surreal experience just seeing the painting. Some of the details and meanings that I picked up from Eric’s painting was the blue pond − it portrayed the necessity of life and was mirroring a reflection of the surroundings in the painting, just as water does in our world. The brown sand around the pond was meant to make the painting look a little messy, which carried an important message that no matter how beautiful something looks, beauty comes with its flaws, since nothing is perfect and nothing was ever meant to be. The black mountain – is a grounded reflection of how a mountain looks like in the night and perfectly portrays the artifice of how bleak and hollow the dark can be outside. The purple night sky – reflected the natural light of the sky but with a light purple color, it was meant to show to the main scenery and purpose of the painting as it signified...
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...Compare and Contrast Essay 5/12/2014 Ashford University English 121-AXC1415E Instructor: Jamie Cooper Student: Katherin Wheat When it comes to writing the compare and contrast essay style, it is one of the more difficult ones to achieve. The differences between these two essays “How to say nothing in 500 words” by: Paul McHenry Roberts and “caged bird” by: Maya Angelou is easy to pick out. As far as the similarities goes that proved to a little harder to give a lot of examples. In the following paragraphs there will be plenty of examples of compare and contrast, give summaries, a couple of quotes and a paraphrase will be included in this essay. While how to say nothing in 500 words and Caged Bird are both well-written essays, caged Bird was more visual than How to say nothing in 500 words because the author painted a more detailed picture which kept the reader’s attention, the attended audience was more overly open to more people than that of how to say nothing in 500 words essay, and the author of caged bird had a bigger and deeper impact on the readers then the author of how to say nothing in 500 words did. Caged Bird was more visual than How to say nothing in 500 words because the author painted a more detailed picture which kept the reader’s attention. Maya Angelou’s descriptive essay “Caged bird” tells a story of a caged bird and a free bird. The caged bird signifies a person with the skin color darker than that of a peach colored crayon, held down by the paralyzing...
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...to analyze arguments, write rhetorical analysis essay, work with researched and visual arguments, effectively...
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...to write four essays that have stressed the course competencies of subject matter knowledge, writing process knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, genre knowledge, discourse community knowledge, and meta-cognition. Through the process of drafting, editing, and revising three out of the four papers, I think I have been effectively able to absorb three of those course competencies; subject matter knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, and writing process knowledge. The first paper I was assigned to write for Writing 102 was a literacy narrative. For this paper, I was told to write about a past experience that helped influence my current writing and reading qualities. The core competencies that were involved in this essay were writing process knowledge and subject matter knowledge. I used writing process knowledge when I was told to generate ideas for my essay. I began by thinking of five possible ideas and from there I created a brainstorming web out of the two topics I thought would be the most interesting. Shortly after starting, I realized I could only build an effective brainstorming web from one idea. I decided to use the first time I forgot my lines in a play as my main idea for the essay. After I completed the brainstorming web and finished taking notes on what I remembered from the incident I started to follow the writing process that consisted of prewriting, drafting, and revising. Subject matter knowledge, which was the other core competency, was used in this essay when I began the...
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...his father walking out of the door with the words dad please don’t leave, our family needs you, that particular image advertised for family therapy. The subject inspired me so much I started composing and writing music on my laptop computer during the long ride, at that moment I came to the belief that billboards are not only instrumental in convincing the public to purchase products or advertising or spread awareness, billboards images can be inspiring. Creatively, there are endless possibilities as to how we use our feelings and thoughts for images that can be inspiring. We can incorporate these visions with writing on so many levels because like they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Weather thinking critically about visuals, to writing an essay we can use images to reflect on our past with passion or however we choose to visualize images and use words. Our minds are so powerful that we can take poetry and visualize a theme in our minds just like the pictures on billboards. In the process of composing and writing music the image on the billboard really fascinated me with the idea of not only looking at billboards as adverting or just business, but captures my feelings with words...
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...When I wrote my essay Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God I had some good parts and bad parts of the essay. I believe everyone can improve their writing in a certain way. No one is a “perfect” writer, and no one “never” makes mistakes. I could improve in two areas I noticed are my thesis in this essay and my visual pictures. Two things I did well on are the usage of rhetorical devices and introductory sentences. Pros and cons are what most people have in their essays or poems. My cons with my Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God are my thesis and my visual pictures. In my thesis I could improve them by just getting to the point in my essay and always referring back to it. The three main things that I need to work on to make a perfect thesis may be clearly identifies the subject of the paper, makes an assertion about that subject, one that allows for a range of discussion; and predicts the logical order you will follow in your discussion. With my visual pictures I need to create more enthusiasm and descriptive words. Or when giving quotes from the story I need to tie it back to the thesis or how they create visuals throughout the story. For my pros in my essay it was rhetorical devices and introductory sentences. For my rhetorical devices I scored high in this essay because I tied them into the story or back to the story really good. Also I identified them good; I can easily spot these rhetorical devices in a poem. My introductory sentences are also very good I believe, they...
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...Professor Beth Riley October 23, 2013 Homelessness is More Appealing Many of us will never be homeless, and not everyone understands the benefit of having a wife, but after reading the essays’, Homeless (Quindlen, A. n.d.) and I Want a Wife (Brady, J. 1971), one can gain a better understanding of both. I am a wife. Therefore, I can certainly connect with the narrator’s story of I Want a Wife. This is a narrative essay, in which the narrator reflects on why she too would like to have a wife after a visit with a recently divorced male friend, who is looking for a new wife. The narrator gives a list of duties and activities she will and will not do if she had a wife, and she can visualize the benefits a wife could afford her with less responsibilities and more time for school or friends. My other essay of choice is quite different in theme, but it is still relatable. Anne Quindlen’s essay, Homeless (n.d.) is a short descriptive essay with the narrator retelling of an account when she met a woman, who she believes is homeless, at the bus terminal. It is during the encounter that the narrator reflects on homeless people in general, the homeless individual and about herself. Both of these essays’ are well written, however, I feel that Homeless (Quindlen, A. n.d.), is a more appealing essay than I Want a Wife (Brady, J. 1971), as it allows the reader to become more engaged in the descriptions and reflect on the details of the story. Whenever I first start reading any type of...
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...During this course, I been leaning to write with the help of different literary devices such as visual texts or books. For two of the major assignment for this course 1301 English I used images to write a rhetorical analysis about the negative side of Facebook and with the help of a book called The Intervention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd I wrote a literary analysis. Therefore, while reviewing those essays I found there are some mistakes with the structure of the essay, there are enough examples to support the main idea, and I need to improve grammatical mistakes. For a good essay the structure should include the three main parts an introduction, body, and the conclusion. On both of my essays I include those three parts, however the thesis statement...
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