Download Assignment Sheet—Essay #1:

English 1A
Rough Draft Due: Fri. May 10
Final Draft Due: Mon. May 13
Spring 2013: Sperry
1000-1500 words
Assignment Sheet—Essay #2:
Analysis of a Presidential Campaign Ad
“If American citizens are to have a clear understanding of conditions and what to do about them, they
must be able to recognize propaganda, to analyze it, and to appraise it. They must be able to discover
whether it is propaganda in line with their own interests and the interests of our civilization or whether it is
propaganda that may distort our views and threaten to undermine our civilization.”
--Phil Taylor “The Fine Art of Propaganda”
Assignment:
At The Living Room Candidate website <http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/>, pick a
Presidential Campaign Ad to analyze and evaluate. It can be a recent ad or it can be one from a
previous United States presidential campaign. In your paper you will need to describe this ad
very clearly, explain what it suggests and how it manages to suggest this, identify any nonrational appeals (such as fear, nurturing, sarcasm, ridicule) and forms of propaganda it uses (see
7 types of Propaganda in “The Fine Art of Propaganda” at
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=715&paper=1145), and analyze both
the ads effectiveness and its truthfulness or validity as a way of appealing to voters. In other
words, you may think the visual is very persuasive (effective), but not a particularly good reason
to vote for the candidate (valid) or you may think that it isn’t as persuasive as it could be, but that
it’s very true and accurate. For example, you might find an ad very appealing if it really appeals
to your emotions or makes you want to jump on a bandwagon, but you realize that these are bad
reasons to vote for the candidate and therefore write a paper where you explain why it is so
persuasive, but also why it doesn’t really present a good reason to vote for the candidate. Or you
might find the ad boring and uninspiring but filled with very good reasons to vote for the
candidate. Or perhaps it will be neither persuasive nor valid or both persuasive and valid.
For models, see the sample student essay at my website and Jackson Smith’s “Pledging
Nothing?” (CTRW 158-160). The first is a paper written by a former student in response to this
prompt. The latter isn’t an analysis of an ad, but it reveals the basic technique of visual analysis.
You may include a visual in your paper or a few visuals, but those should not count
toward the page length (word length) designated above and the visual your essay focuses on
should be described clearly without relying on the actual visuals you post in your paper.
You must actively use (quote and paraphrase from) Phil Taylor’s “The Fine Art of
Propaganda” and you may want to also quote from “Nonrational Appeals” (CTRW 100-103) or
Ch. 4 “Visual Rhetoric: Images as Arguments” (CTRW 141-164). If you identify one of the
visual or non-rational appeals it will be useful to quote from CTRW to explain the appeal. You
may also want to do some additional research or use the commentary at the website The Living
Room Candidate. Include a List of Works Cited on a separate sheet of paper at the end of your
essay wherein you list all of the sources you read.
Goals:
1. To effectively describe a visual using specific details so that your readers can “see it” clearly.
2. To identify methods advertisers use to persuade you so that you can think critically about the
validity of the message instead of being swayed merely by emotional or irrational appeals.
3. To fine tune your essay writing skills, further developing the ability to state a clear thesis and
support it with evidence, explanation and reasoning.
4. To improve your ability to choose, integrate, and explain quotes in your writing.
5. To synthesize texts, other media and your own experience to draw reasonable inferences and
understand how the ideas in these sources relate to and reflect on one another.
A Checklist:
1. Make sure your name, my name, English 1A-(and your section number) and the date, are at
the top left hand corner of your essay (final version): To save space I have single spaced it, but it
should be double spaced on your Final draft:
Sam Student
Isabel Sperry
English 1A-07
13 May 2013
2. Give your essay an appropriate title. Do not underline or put quotation marks around this
title, but do capitalize first letters of all important words (short prepositions or articles not at the
opening of the title do not need to be capitalized).
3. Don’t say “I believe” or “I think” or “in my opinion” in your essay. Readers should be aware
that essays focus on arguing for the validity of opinions by supporting them with facts and
reasoning, so it is redundant to say these are your opinions.
4. The first time you mention a reading, formally introduce the author’s/authors’ whole
name and the title of the work. For CTRW a sample signal phrase might be: “In Critical
Thinking, Reading and Writing Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau describe fear appeal as ”....”
(101). Put quotation marks around titles of short works, “The Fine Art of Propaganda” but
underline or put in italics titles of long works divided into chapters or parts such as Critical
Thinking, Reading and Writing. Thereafter, refer to the author/s by last name. Barnet and
Bedau argue…
Each ad at The Living Room Candidate has a title. When you put your cursor over the ad, the
title will appear at top. You should put this title in quotation marks since it is a short film. For
example, Bill Clinton’s campaign ad “Journey” describes...
5. The Living Room Candidate has a great feature that will be very useful to you when you
quote from the ad. At the bottom of the ad viewing screen there is a button marked “transcript”
and if you click on that, the words from the ad will be printed to the right of the screen. You can
cut and paste these words right into your paper when quoting from the ad itself. Make sure to
reformat the text in your paper so that it matches your own chosen font and font size. (Use 12 pt
font size).
6. Underline your thesis (in the rough) and provide an introductory paragraph or two (at least
some description of both your ad and the readings will usually be handy here; body paragraphs
wherein you make claims and provide evidence (quotes, paraphrases, facts), explanation and
reasoning to support the thesis; and a conclusion. Topic sentences for this paper, may sometimes
take the form of claims about the appeals being used: “The train of celebrities in “Yes We Can”
creates a bandwagon appeal because...”
7. Use the present tense to discuss what writers say. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau say in
Chapter 4, “Visual Rhetoric: Images as Arguments” that…or Hilary Clinton’s Campaign Ad,
“It’s 3 a.m. at the White House” suggests…
7. Organize your body paragraphs effectively. Before you talk about the visual that you
analyze, you need to describe it or the scene in question in a fair amount of detail. You may
wish to describe the first scene in a Presidential advertisement video and analyze it by itself
before describing the others or you may wish to describe the whole ad and then briefly remind
readers of the part of the video you refer to as you analyze it. Or you may organize your essay
around the appeals used in the ad, but make sure that your readers have a fairly clear idea of what
the ad looks and sounds like. Your organization depends on which system works best to achieve
your goals of being clear and efficient with your words. Make sure that much of your essay is
devoted to analysis. At least 1/2 – 3/4 of the essay should be analysis, which means you will
spend much of the essay discussing the impact the ad has on viewers and whether this impact is
in line with your “own interests and the interests of our civilization” or not. In order to
determine this, you may want to do some additional research about the candidate.
Use the handout “Cinematic Terms” (also posted at my website) to find the
language to describe visual effects used in the ad.
A note about introductions. Your introduction should include your thesis, but sometimes you
want to work up to that. A good place for it is often late in the introductory paragraph, perhaps
even the last sentence of the introduction, because once you have stated it, the reader wants to
start hearing you support it with arguments. You can also include a vivid pre-introductory
example, perhaps describing a historical account of propaganda that had a negative influence on
society. Or for this paper a brief description of the ad or even a vivid and thorough description
might make sense. If you wait too long to start analyzing, though, your readers may be confused
about what you are doing in your paper. It depends how long it takes to describe your ad. If you
use a lengthy description all in one piece it is better to state your thesis beforehand so that
readers understand as they are reading this that you are describing it so that you can evaluate it
and they already know your opinion of it.
A note about conclusions. Your readers may have different needs depending on how you have
proceeded in your paper. If you think your readers may need a recap of your main claims
because the paper was long or complicated, that is one way to conclude, a kind of birds eye view.
“Okay, here it all is now. Isn’t it convincing?” Sometimes this seems mechanical and
unnecessary, however, so be careful that you ask a peer reviewer to give you feedback on that if
you choose that method.
A “Big Picture” or “So What” conclusion is often effective. Don’t make new claims that
need supporting, but do analyze why what you’ve revealed in your essay is interesting or
important. You might want to discuss whether the advertisement appeals to our best values or
whether it misleads us by pushing our buttons. You may talk about the effect such ads have had
on the presidential campaign as a whole, how Americans are perceiving this candidate, etc and
whether you think it’s an accurate perception or not. Use “The Fine Art of Propaganda” and the
chapters from CTRW to find the words to describe what the visual is doing.
The Living Room Candidate:
http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/
Phil Taylor’s Website: The Fine Art of Propaganda
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=715&paper=1145
Propaganda as defined on the web page: “The Fine Art of Propaganda”:
As generally understood, propaganda is opinion expressed for the purpose of
influencing actions of individuals or groups. More formally, the Institute for
Propaganda Analysis has defined propaganda as "expression of opinion or action by
individuals or groups deliberately designed to influence opinions or actions of other
individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends."
7 types of propaganda from Phil Taylor’s Website “The Fine Art of Propaganda”:
Transfer:
Transfer carries the authority, sanction, and prestige of something respected and revered over to
something else in order to make the latter acceptable; or it carries authority, sanction, and
disapproval to cause us to reject and disapprove something the propagandist would have us reject
and disapprove.
Plain Folks:
Plain Folks is the method by which a speaker attempts to convince his audience that he and his
ideas are good because they are "of the the people," the "plain folks."
Bandwagon:
Band Wagon has as its theme, "Everybody-at least all of us-is doing it"; with it, the propagandist
attempts to convince us that all members of a group to which we belong are accepting his
program and that we must therefore follow our crowd and "jump on the band wagon."
Glittering Generality:
Glittering Generality-associating something with a "virtue word"-is used to make us accept and
approve the thing without examining the evidence.
Testimonial:
Testimonial consists in having some respected or hated person say that a given idea or program
or product or person is good or bad.
Name Calling:
Name Calling-Giving an idea a bad label is used to make us reject and condemn the idea without
examining the evidence.
Card Stacking:
Card Stacking involves the selection and use of facts or falsehoods, illustrations or distractions,
and logical or Illogical statements in order to give the best or the worst possible case for an idea,
program, person or product.
Common Emotional Appeals: Fear, Pity, Nurturing, Ridicule or Satire which makes us laugh at
something the propagandist wants us to disassociate ourselves with.