Response to TED Speech

Ethos- Jane McGonigal credits herself in the intro of her speech, by informing her audience that she has her PH.D on why we’re better at achievement in a game than in real life. McGonigal has also been creating games for 10 years, which also adds to her credibility.  For her statistics she gave creditable citations. For example, she used a statistic from Carnegie Mellon, that calculated that the average gamer will play 10,080 hours by the age 21 (which is equivalent to the hours a individual will spend in school with perfect attendance). Lastly, McGonigal tells an interesting history story of how games in Ancient Grease, had help save a civilization from famine. 

Pathos-Jane McGonigal is talented in drawing the audience in. She does this simply by using tactics that intrigues people’s interest, such as humor. The adults in the room, more and likely, don’t care about games, however, by continually adding humor to her speech, she manipulates the audience to listen to her message. She also includes visuals, and asks questions to keep the audience involved, which was very successful in keeping me interested.

Logos- Jane McGonigal adds many statistics to back up her argument. She informs the audience that 3 billion hours have been spent playing online games. Also, 5.9 million years have been spent playing World of War Craft. Using statistics gave the audience a visual or an idea of what she’s arguing. During the speech, McGonigal also included a data map. Not only was this visual part of pathos but its logos as well because the information provided the audience with a visual of how big gaming really is.

Writers on Writing

 In Kent Haruf article, “Writers on Writing; To see your Story Clearly, Start by Pulling the Wool Over Your Own Eyes” (2000), he claims that many writers use unique stratagies to perserve the creativity and natural tone of their work. Haruf mentions how writers, such as himself, come up with stratigies like blind folding, and isolation to keep from being destracted. His purpose is to inspire other writers to come up with ways that help them in order to write better. Given that Haruf language in the article is conveys confidence and admiration in his work, he seems to be addressing readers of his novels.

Response to Intro

In Joe Hardin’s book, “Choices 2.0 Situations for College Writing” he states that it’s a misconception that good writing is obtained through genetics, and clarifies that anyone could access the ability to be good writers if they are willing to put the hard work in practicing it. Hardin defends his argument by using examples of texting; we learn how to write in “text language” because we studied how others have used it and even practiced it ourselves, same rule applies for becoming a good writer. Hardin’s purpose is to give students’ encouragement, and motivation order to persuade them to becoming better writers. Hardin seems to be addressing kids who are bogged down on their writing skills, and lack the ability to put in hard work to become better.

Chapter One Précis

In Joe Hardin’s book “Choices 2.0 Situations for College Writing” (2010), he emphasizes that there are necessary steps a writer must follow, and essential qualities a paper must have, in order to complete an advance piece of writing. Hardin supports his points by presenting results of studies done on writers who are “experienced” and “inexperienced”, while also informing the reader the methods of Aristotle, and the methods he used to be persuasive. His main purpose is to inform college students how to correctly structure their writing in order to persuade the reader. Hardin seems to be addressing an audience of young college students because his tone is very erudite, yet extremely simple and informative as a professor’s would be.