Due 11/30

Find TWO examples of Scarcity Appeal

And TWO examples of some of the cognitive biases (so, maybe you find one example of anchoring effect and one example of confirmation bias)

Provide any necessary context for understanding the examples

Then analyze how these tactics are being used to persuade the audience

Due 11/16

Post your exercises as a comment here!

Due 11/9

This is the week for Glittering Generalities, Parallelism/Chiasmus, Climax, Euphemism, and Transfer. It’s a lot!

1. For Glittering Generalities, our usual– find two examples in the world, then analyze how and why glittering generalities is being employed in the example.
2. Do ONLY Exercise 1 for “Climax” and Exercise 2 for “Parallelism/Chiasmus.” It might be useful to READ Exercise 1 for “Parallelism/Chiasmus” and see if you can guess the actual famous statements, but it seems very hard if you don’t already know the famous statements.
3. For Euphemism and Transfer, find one example of each and analyze.

So, you are finding FOUR examples (two of glittering generalities, one euphemism, one transfer) and doing TWO exercises in the book this week.

Leave your answers in comments.

Due 11/2

Do the activities in the book for these devices and then post your answers as a comment here.

Due Wednesday 10/26

For this assignment, find in the world TWO examples EACH of Romance, Sex, and Gender appeals. You MAY repeat examples, if you think the same example is appealing to more than one of them. However, you MUST write a SEPARATE analysis of how the example appeals to each one.

1. Find two examples of each one
2. Explain any relevant context needed to understand the example
3. Analyze HOW the example is attempting to appeal to the audience’s desire for romance, sex, and/or gender identity.

How does something appeal to gender identity? For example, fancy soap commercials feature women using the soaps and looking feminine. It might make me feel, “women use fancy soaps, if I use regular soap, then I’m bad at being feminine. If I want to be/feel feminine, I guess I have to buy fancy soaps.” A combined gender + sex or romance appeal for straight women might be “If I don’t use these fancy soaps, men might think I’m not feminine enough and think I’m gross and not want to date me and/or sleep with me”

Due Wednesday, 10/18

Please complete the activities in the book and post them as a comment here!

Please complete the exercises in the book for these devices and then post your responses as a comment here!

Due Wednesday 9/21

For this assignment, I want you to look around in the world for examples of fear appeal and the humor appeal appeal. Make some up if you don’t find any.

Then, in a comment:

1. List two examples of each that you found. (Do not Google- either observe them in the world yourself or make some up from your own head)
2. Describe any relevant context for understanding the example. (You may not need to write anything for this if it’s obvious.)
3. Explain why you think the speaker chose to use this strategy. What are they trying to achieve? Why do they think using it (fear appeal or humor appeal) will be effective?

Due Wednesday 9/21. Please complete the activities in the book and then post your responses as a comment here. (If you prefer to upload a photo of your actual work in the actual book, you can also write your own post and upload a photo that way.)