Fluent Essays

You may have at some point in your life heard the word rhetoric used in the world of politics. Usually, when the word is used in terms of politics it has a negative connotation (a meaning more specific than its denotative meaning). Someone might say, I dont believe anything this president says. Its all just rhetoric. By this, they mean the politicians words are an attempt to disguise the actual meaning or that there is no real meaning at all. However, the denotative meaning of rhetoric is: the art of persuasive speaking or writing. In other words, it is the craft that goes into communication, whether that is persuading your friend to go out to the club, persuading your boss to give you a raise, or persuading your reader that the central argument of your essay is valid.It is important as a developing writer to understand the techniques of academic writing (rhetorical devices) so that you can employ them effectively in order to prove the arguments you will make in your essays (and get a good grade). One of the best ways to continually learn the effective use of these techniques is to identify their use by published authors in the material you are asked to read for class. At the same time, you will not only be learning how to use rhetorical devices, you will also be better able to analyze the content of the work itself and evaluate its validity.Here are some important areas to consider when analyzing an authors rhetoric (we will discuss more techniques as the semester progresses):Tone: a)The mood of a piece established by the author; b) The attitude of an author toward a given subject. When discussing an authors tone, be as specific as possible with the words you use. For example, to say a tone is angry is not as specific as saying it is frustrated or bitter. In other words, what kind of angry is it?Here is a link to a list of words you can use to describe a writers tone (or feel free to search for others online): Words to Describe a Writers Tone (Links to an external site.)Diction: a)Word Choice - what specific words does the author use to create analogies, make subtle connections, or offer imagery? Take this line from the Gladwell piece: The practice of prying into the minds and habits of American consumers is now a multi-billion dollar business (94). The word prying has a connotation of doing something bad, like a criminal using a crowbar to pry into a locked door. This word adds more meaning to the sentence rather than just saying look into. b)Overall Language - does the language in the piece seem Formal (complex vocabulary, grammatically and syntactically correct according Standard Academic English)? Or does the language seem Conversational (using language that is common in everyday conversation)? Or does the language seem to employ Slang (very informal language that is usually only understood by a specific group of people).Write two paragraphs (one on tone and one on diction) analyzing Steve McKevitts use of rhetoric in Everything Now (123). Use multiple examples to support what you say about the authors use of tone and diction in their separate paragraphs. Be sure to explain what you think the effect of the authors use of tone and diction is after giving examples. steve_mckevitt.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview STEVE McKEVITT Everything Now Paradoxically, although today people in developed societies have more consumer choices, 24/7 access to a global cornucopia of goods, and (thanks to generous credit availability) more sheer stuff, many report feelings of unhappiness, especially when it comes to the stress triggered by working to pay for all that stuff. But while work indeed contributes to that unhappiness, Steve McKevitt argues in this selection that much of it can be credited to massive marketing campaigns designed to convince us that if we only buy this product or that service, we will be happy. Combining psychology with the technological ability to bombard us around the clock with clever advertisements designed to convince us that our every want is actually a need, current marketing strategies keep us unhappy in order to move the goods. A marketing consultant and author of the book Everything Now (2013, from where this selection comes), McKevitt is working on a PhD at the University of Sheffield. You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy. — ERIC HOFFER, philosopher and social writer What do you want? Whether you are looking for motor cars, mobile phones, holidays or simply what to have for lunch, the range of options available to you can be genuinely overwhelming. With nothing more than a broadband Internet connection, you can enjoy immediate and unfettered access to millions of books, newspapers and magazines; thousands of movies and TV shows and almost the entire canon of recorded music. Many lifetimes’ worth of content, all of it available at the click of a mouse. Whatever it is you want, you can have it. Everything Now. We are living through a time of endless choices and unlimited convenience. We now take for granted the ubiquity of goods and services that can be instantly accessed, but the 24/7 society we live in — where everything is available practically all the time — is a recent achievement. Everything Now did not happen by chance or overnight. It is the culmination of a deliberate and concerted 30-year drive to increase choice and convenience for everyone. Those of us lucky enough to be living in the developed world today are, on average, healthier, wealthier, longer lived and better educated than at any other point in history. Our needs have been fulfilled and so, for the first time ever, we have an economy that is almost entirely devoted to the business of satisfying our wants instead. The question is: with so much effort dedicated to giving us what we want, why aren’t we happier or, at the very least, worrying less and enjoying life more? . . . People do not buy technology, what they buy is functionality. Consumers do not purchase stereos, DVD players and mobile phones because they want the items for themselves, but because they want to listen to music, watch movies, and keep in touch with family and friends. The same is true of computers. But in this case there is much more functionality, so people end up buying computers for many different reasons — to work, play games, browse the Internet, edit movies, create magazines and so on. To do this they need to run software. To gain a competitive edge within a crowded market, software publishers were creating products crammed with features and optimised to run most effectively on the fastest machines available at the time of their release. This was especially true for computer games, which, because of their rich graphics, placed the heaviest demands upon the hardware. If consumers wanted to derive the most functionality from the latest software — in the case of my games, experience the smoothest animation, highest resolution, and most spectacular visuals — they would need the fastest computer, which would almost certainly contain one of [Intel’s] microprocessors. However, as Intel’s business model demonstrated, it would only be the fastest computer for a maximum of three months. The pace of this process was so rapid that [Intel VP of Marketing] Manfred could be confident that even the best computer available today would not be able to cope with the latest software being published three years hence. The pursuit of functionality — our games — could be used to force consumers to invest in Intel’s new technology. Intel was not only creating faster microprocessors, it was also creating the demand for them. Intel may be a master of the art, but it is certainly not the only company in the business of inventing wants as well as products. Manfred is correct: wants are very different to needs. “Want versus Need” is one of the most basic concepts in economics. A need is something we have to have — like food, sleep or water. A want is something we would like to have — like a Big Mac, a Tempur mattress or a bottle of Evian. You might think that you cannot survive without your BlackBerry or your BMW, but you can. It might even be the case that you do need a phone to carry out your work and a car to get around in, but what brand it is and, to a large extent, what features it has are really just wants. Needs are rational and permanent. We have always needed — and will always need — food, water and shelter. The solution may change, but the problem is always the same, you can’t create new needs. Wants, on the other hand, are emotional, ephemeral and ever changing. Just because you want something today doesn’t mean you will want it tomorrow, always want it, or ever want it again. For example, back in 1981, everybody wanted a Rubik’s Cube, it was the world’s most popular toy, but it is unlikely to ever repeat this feat in the future. This transience creates an opportunity for anyone who is trying to sell us something — whether that’s a product, a service or even an idea — and they can invent wants for us as well as the means to assuage them. In 1976, a year with one of the hottest summers on record, almost nobody drank bottled water in the UK (unless they went on holiday “abroad”); we spent less than £200,000 on just 3 million litres of the stuff. Today, each of us drinks an average of 33 litres per year, spending a total of £1.4 billion. We do this despite the fact that tap water is essentially an identical product that is as widely and freely available as it was in 1976. Manufacturing wants for things like bottled water is what keeps us in a permanent state of dissatisfaction, because only by making us unhappy with what we have today is it possible to persuade us to pay for something that will make us happy tomorrow. In the case of bottled water, its success depended on us becoming dissatisfied with drinking tap water. The basis of this dissatisfaction is usually emotional rather than rational, it doesn’t require hard evidence — all that is needed, perhaps, is promoting a notion that bottled water tastes better or using language to suggest it is somehow healthier than tap water. In Intel’s case, the continual introduction of new microprocessors means that purchasing a new computer will only briefly appease the existing want for maximum functionality. Likewise, once upon a time, you may have yearned for an iPhone Mk1, but now, several upgrades later with that model nothing more than a distant memory, you’ve become dissatisfied with your current handset, and can’t wait for the opportunity to forsake it for next year’s version. It is simple and, as ever-increasing sales of bottled water, personal computers and mobile phones testifies, it has been extremely effective. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a theory of developmental psychology which describes the phases of human growth. It is often portrayed as a pyramid, with the biggest, most basic needs at the bottom (air, food, water), then safety issues (health, employment, property), moving up through relationships and esteem (achievement, confidence, respect), reaching self-actualisation at the top (morality, creativity and problem solving). Maslow believed that these needs play a major role in motivating behaviours in Western societies where the individual is paramount. Basic biological, physiological and safety needs will always take priority over the need for respect or self-expression, but once they have been satisfied, the needs higher up the pyramid become increasingly important. As one set of needs is assuaged, focus moves to those on the next level up the pyramid. Everything Now is an extreme example of an individualistic society, hence our tendency (Maasik, 20171107, pp. 123-126) Maasik, S. (20171107). Signs of Life in the U.S.A., 9th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9781319131869 使用前务必检查引文的准确性。 ... Purchase answer to see full attachment