Paper Two

CRTW 201

Dr. Fike

Paper Two: Reading Culture

This assignment is designed to accommodate a wide range of cultural productions, especially media, including the visual and the auditory. I realize that not all of you learn best by reading texts. That is why, especially in our second unit, our readings encourage you to think about photographs and, by extension, video and audio (like these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjSG6z_13-Q, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1eCAYN7uis&feature=BFa&list=PLE316C890791B0512&lf=results_main, http://www.thephotomag.com/2013/05/created-equal-stunning-photo-series.html?m=1, and http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/190/1972). Those of you who study music, art, and interior design should find this assignment particularly accommodating. Those of you in business and especially marketing will find yourselves on very familiar ground. On the other hand, if you are a "text person," feel free to write about text--or about the interplay between image and text. And remember that, for this assignment, "text" can be just about anything.

Preamble

Nosich discusses the "distortion" that arises when we "[form] a Picture of the World on the Basis of Movies, TV, Advertising, [and] magazines." I am quoting his heading on page 19, and you would do well to review his further remarks there. Nosich's point is very much like what John Berger calls "cultural mystification" in Ways of Seeing. It is obvious to everyone that culture, especially via the media, influences what we think about and how we think about it. Paper 2 gives you an opportunity to look at something cultural, especially something media-related, in a critical way, by employing not only the elements (Nosich, ch. 2) but also the standards (ch. 4). The paper that you will write has some similarities with Paper 1 but also some significant differences, as the following grid suggests.

The Assignment

Find an example of a cultural expression (e.g., one advertisement for a specific product by a single company) that you believe has an impact on a particular audience. Write a paper that uses the elements of critical thinking to analyze how that focused topic--that ad or video or photo [fill in your own focused topic here]--makes its pitch to its audience. Then use the standards of critical thinking to evaluate the effectiveness of that pitch.

Now there are a couple of obvious pitfalls that you may encounter in executing these tasks. One is to try to write about the effectiveness of the focused topic for you. That may help you in your prewriting, but the assignment is to evaluate the pitch's effectiveness for an audience other than you. Another potential glitch is talking about that audience in a purely general way. If you are evaluating an ad whose audience is violin majors with purple hair who drive mopeds and meditate, you had better do some research on such  persons to back up your claims. Better yet, interview some of them. This is not a paper just about people in general. You would do well to have a look at the relevant item in "Forbidden!" before proceeding. Note: The biggest pitfall is your default setting--falling back on writing about your own response to the focused topic.

Thesis

You do not yet have to write a classical argument. In other words, you do not yet have to look at the opposition; you do not have to object to your arguments. You simply have to make and support arguments. The Q @ I is this: Does your focused topic (e.g., your magazine ad) influence its intended audience effectively or not? Therefore, your thesis can state, for example, that you will use the standards of sufficiency and accuracy to argue that [your focused topic, whatever it may be] effectively reaches [its target audience] because of  [some factor or concept from our reading--a cultural code, cultural mystification, dual marketing, etc.]. So here is your thesis: I will use + two or more standards + to argue something about your focused topic + because of some concept specific to your focused topic. Plug in what you consider most relevant to your project. The final part of the thesis might well include a concept from one of the texts that we have read in this unit. You may find Berger's vocabulary to be especially helpful. Note: The biggest pitfall in my former students' thesis statements was the absence of a because clause. Also, you should obviously not include brackets in your thesis. Note that it is very okay to be critical in your thesis if your evaluation calls for it.

Outline 

Your paper should have the following labeled sections:

• Introduction: Begin with a 1-paragraph introduction that ends with your underlined thesis statement. The introduction should identify your focused topic (your cultural artifact) and the audience that you believe to be its target. The thesis should include both as well.
• Analysis: Deploy the 8+ elements to analyze your focused topic. Here is the Q @ I: What does your focused topic do, and how well does it do that? You should probably begin with information--a summary of the thing that you are writing about. Then consider context. For example, if you are analyzing an advertisement from a magazine, consider the magazine, its audience, what part of the magazine it is in, and the things that frame the ad. Use the other elements to do a thorough reading of the ad. Examine, in particular, the relationship between text and image in your ad. Remember too the important role of SEE-I in developing your analysis. Boldface the name of each element the first time you use it.
• Evaluation: Use at least two standards to comment on the effectiveness of your ad for the audience you believe it targets. Do not merely speculate. You can do some research on the ad, on the company, on the medium, on the target audience, or on some combination of these things in order to make informed statements. For heaven's sake, if you are writing about an ad in Cosmopolitan, at least go interview someone who reads that magazine! Do not express unsupported judgments. Yes, you should make claims; but you must also have a justification for making them: generalizations AND specifics. Remember too the important role of SEE-I in developing your evaluation. Note: See the "Standards Check" on pages 158-59 in Nosich's book.
• Conclusion: Here are some Qs @ I for the ending of your paper: What implications do your findings about the effectiveness of your focused topic have for critical thinking in a slightly more general but not universal context? What have you learned from writing the body of this paper? How does the paper tie in with your major and/or intended career? Has thinking about culture in this unit and in this paper awakened in you any concerns about which you will need to think critically? What critical thinking traits of mind does the focused topic relate to? What critical thinking traits have you engaged as you wrote the paper? WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT YOUR THINKING?

Note: I have used an advertisement as an example in this section of the assignment sheet, and magazine ads are particularly fine focused topics for this assignment. Remember, though, that you have many other options. Whatever you choose to write about, whatever focused topic you select, be sure that you either include it with the paper or provide a way for me to access it quickly and easily. Feel free to discuss the alternatives with me. 

Requirements

• Write 5 pages minimum, 7 pages maximum plus an 8th page for work(s) cited. Stay within the 5-7 page required length.
• Remember to follow the "Format for Papers" in the syllabus as well as "Guidelines for Papers."
• If possible, attach your focused topic or a copy of it to your paper. Otherwise, you will need to provide a URL, preferably on page 1.
• Label the sections of your paper as follows:  introduction, analysis, evaluation, conclusion. Your introduction should be just one paragraph and should conclude with your statement of purpose. Obviously the body sections will be multiple paragraphs. The conclusion may also be multiple paragraphs.
• Number your paragraphs.
• Quote and discuss at least one statement from Nosich and at least one from Bordo or Berger. It is a good idea to mention an author in your thesis, and something from Ways of Reading must inform your analysis or your evaluation (or both). You will find excellent inspiration on pages 741-46 in our anthology. Be advised, however, that a one-sentence connection will fulfill neither the letter nor the spirit of the assignment. Make your connection substantive and meaningful; you cannot do that in a single sentence.
• Use SEE-I to help develop your paper. I expect to see at least one SEE-I in everyone's paper. More would be better.
• Lower-order correctness is very important and will have an impact on your grade.
• Properly use the MLA format (signal phrases, citations, works cited list) for all sources that you use.
• Please boldface the names of the elements the first time you use them in the body of the paper. Example: point of view. I also want you to boldface your topic sentences in the body of the paper. Do not boldface anything in the introduction or conclusion.
• You must submit your paper to turnitin.com in order to receive credit.

Feedback on Paper 2 (Fall 2011):

• Titles need to convey something about the focused topic and about the thesis statement's basic thrust. For example, mention your ad, give a colon, and state something about a cultural code that emerges from your analysis.
• Thesis statements need to follow the format in the directions above. Many of you left off the "because" clause. In a lot of cases, thesis statements that did have a "because" clause simply said "because of a cultural code," but the paper never defined what that code actually was, much less used it as an organizing principle. Note especially that you should not load the focused topic into the "because" clause as though it were itself a cultural code. Stop. Make sure that you understand the previous sentence before you continue reading.
• In the analysis section, many of you did not use all 8+ elements. Some of you did not even use half the elements. CRTW, remember, is a course in the elements of critical thinking, and you have to use all the questions on page 68 in Nosich when preparing your papers. See the "Student Contract" for a reminder.
• The outline above includes the kinds of questions I want you to answer in your conclusion. Many of you just wrote brief summaries. As in Paper 1, Paper 2 needs to conclude with some significant self-reflection.
• Often SEE-I was overlooked. When it WAS used, sometimes the "I" was a second "E." The fourth part is an analogy, not another example.
• You are still misunderstanding some of the elements. Remember that question at issue is always a question--it must end with a question mark. Nor is "question at issue" the same as "questionable issue." Remember as well that point of view is not an opinion or viewpoint; it is a vantage point, a "hat" that someone wears.
• Your inclusion of Bordo and Berger was often unsatisfactory. Sometimes the papers made no reference to our readings in Ways. Most of you quoted something because you had to, but the quoted material was handled in a perfunctory way--without development or nuance. It was as if you were a clerk at the post office, hitting a package with an inked stamp and moving on to the next.
• Always introduce your focused topic before the thesis. It must be IN the thesis, but it will make more sense there if you introduce it before the thesis.
• Do not write your paper about an entire ad campaign; write it about one ad within such a campaign. Be specific. As WA advises, say more about less. Do "10 on 1," not "1 on 10."
• Discuss ALL the details in your ad. If you leave something out, your reader will wonder what you would have made of the missing details.
• Be sure that you use the elements to analyze your ad and the standards to evaluate its effectiveness in reaching a particular audience.
• Do not devote an entire par. to each element. Do each element in 1-2 sentences. In order for the elements to be much use to you outside CRTW, you need to be able to do them concisely.

Feedback on Paper 2 (Spring 2012)

• One problem was present in many of the papers, though to varying degrees. Most of you had good thesis statements that followed the formula above; therefore, they mentioned a couple of standards, a degree of effectiveness, and a particular audience; they also had a "because" clause related to the reading. The problem, however, was that often these things never got mentioned in the evaluation section; or if they did get mentioned, they were not sufficiently developed. You need to do more than restate something from the thesis; you must also develop it, say more about it, so that it becomes plausible to the reader, who should not have to do your job for you.
• A further problem, within the thesis itself, was that the because clause simply said "a cultural code." Well, what code did you have in mind? The idea was for you to fill in a specific cultural code from the reading (e.g., the nature of female beauty), not just to say "a cultural code."
• Lower-order errors continued to proliferate. The most common were CS, RO, FRAG, and the misplacement (or omission) of the comma. In addition, your style was often peppered with the word "this" (sometimes as many as 3 times per sentence). Rule of thumb: Use "this" only once per par., and then only with a noun directly following it.