Argument Analysis

When I first saw the list of articles I was to choose from for my argument analysis paper I thought, “man this is probably going be a list of boring ass articles that i’m gonna have to sit through and read three times in a row just to understand what the heck they are talking about.”  But one title caught my attention right away, The $78 Million Dollar Bag by Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky, so much that I didn’t even bother reading the other articles, I clicked the link and closed the list off my computer.

Even though I didn’t know what the article was going to talk about, the title really caught my attention. At first I thought it probably had something to do with how banks are run or what kind of investments people get into to make money, but it was the farthest away from those two, it’s about Marijuana.  The article talks about how much government spending goes into enforcing anti-drug laws and if it’s even worth enforcing with the amount of money we are dumping to the cause. It states that Chicago alone has made 23,000 annual arrests just for marijuana possession and that opening a case would cost $2,500 to the tax payers. These numbers where incredibly shocking numbers to me as I never knew the amount of people that get caught with drug possession let alone how much it costs just to open a case against them. The article even states the amount of money that policemen make just for being witnesses at a case and that even though there is an amount of people that pay the posting bond, a greater amount doesn’t and that is costing tax payers even more money. These are very shocking information to people that are not involved with these acts or don’t have any knowledge of our justice system and the costs it has to us tax payers. These costs are getting so out of hand that officials themselves are advising McCarthy to stop arresting people for small possession of drugs as it is wasting time and money for the city.

Less enforcement for greater savings? I guess so.

Beginning to Present Writing

I think my writing skills have definitely improved from the beginning of the semester to the present. I have learned how to write better due to the peer reviews that we do in class, and I have had many practices with the weekly blog posts.

As I stated before, the peer reviews and the weekly blog posts have helped me get a lot of needed practice with writing. Most of the time prior to this class, the only writing I got to do was for papers for classes and short essays that I had to write during class. This wasn’t a weekly occurrence so I did not get many chances to improve upon my writing. With the peer reviews I was able to see my mistakes be pointed out by my own peers and I had a chance to correct those mistakes. I was able to see what they thought was wrong with my paper and what I should have done instead. The weekly blog posts helped me practice and didn’t put as much pressure on me as if it was a paper for class. It let me be a little more lenient with my writing and explore a bit; which in turn helped me become a better writer. 

Struggling Ash

Purpose:  The purpose of his advertisement is to remind people what smoking does and how it affects us in the long run. This advertisement does not have any words or form of literacy that we can use to describe its meaning, but it does have an image. An image which is worth a thousand words. They have kept the image of this advertisement fairly simple; it portrays a burning cigarette with a dying silhouette of a man made out of ash.  In my opinion this is a very great way to show the effects of cigarette smoking in the long run.


Audience: This advertisement is targeting smokers more directly, but is also targeting non-smokers. This advertisement shows the reality of long-term smoking while warning would-be smokers of its effects and what could happen to them if they start smoking. One of the indicators of this is the fact that the picture does not have any positive aspects to it. It does not have anyone smiling or having fun, but instead it shows a silhouette of a dying man made out of ash seemingly trying to get back up from his struggles and almost giving up all hope.


Genre: This is an Anti-Smoking ad which is trying to curb people away from smoking.


Tone: The tone of this advertisement is dramatic. It shows the man struggling to get back up from his knees while having his head down like as if he is giving up. The ash in this advertisement is conforming to the silhouette of the man and is slowly falling apart. It is not showing life anymore but an eventual death. The cigarette itself does not even have a living ember in it, like the fire has already died out and soon the man will follow. The whole scene is also very fragile looking, as if a soft breeze could blow this whole picture away and be eventually forgotten by the observer.