TOW #7 - Village croissant

     I’m a little bit of a francophile, so when I saw an article entitled “Village croissant” while scrolling through the website for The Economist I immediately gravitated towards it. In order to inform a European audience on a change in the population trend of small villages, especially in France, the author of “Village croissant”, not credited by the website, cites statistics, uses vivid imagery, and implements a clever double entendre in the title.
     In order to appeal to logos and ethos, the author cites many statistics from many sources. These numbers obviously appeal to the reader’s logic, allowing him or her to believe the author’s initial claim that rural populations are growing. Some credibility is assumed because of the popularity and reliability of the magazine, but the rest comes from the sources of these statistics, of which the author uses two. The first source also has assumed credibility: various levels of French government. The author paraphrases promises and statements made by the mayor of Nâves, the rural village that this article is focused on, and the president of France. The second source adds a different kind of credibility, the kind that a witness has at court. The author quotes many citizens of Nâves, most notably a 97-year-old woman who grew up in the village. She’s seen it change through the years first-hand, leaving her more than qualified to speak of these changes. All of these statistics make the author’s argument more believable by adding to his credibility and providing a logical argument that makes sense.
     Along with the statistics, the same 97-year-old woman describes what it was like to live in Nâves in the 1950s, adding personal anecdotes that appeal to pathos. She speaks of the vibrancy and life that surrounded the village over 50 years ago and then adds, “now that’s all gone” (4). Up until recent inventions that allow one to be alone yet surrounded by friends (basically the Internet), the population in rural villages declined, but now that such things are possible people known as néoruraux, French for new rurals, start to flock back. The village starts to come alive again as it’s filled with “trampolines and little bicycles outside the new wooden chalets on the village edge, where younger families have settled” (4). This imagery, along with imagery used as a hook in the first paragraph, evokes a sense of romantic village life, appealing to the pathos of the audience.
     Unfortunately, I am not included in this intended audience. “Village croissant” was originally published in the European print edition. Intended for the English--it is a British paper after all--most of whom know at least some French, the title is more than just something confusing about a village and a French pastry. “Croissant” in French also means “increasing” in English, which makes perfect sense given the increasing population of rural villages. This and other French terms appeals specifically to the target audience, referencing things that some Americans would not understand without further research. The double entendre is clever, hooking the reader, and subtly reminds the reader of the romantic life in a small village. This keeps the reader’s attention and makes the audience feel good while reading.
     The author of “Village croissant” cites statistics from various sources, uses imagery in anecdotes, and utilizes a double entendre in order to write an interesting article on the increase of small villages’ populations, appealing to logos, ethos, and pathos along the way. However, although the author effectively achieves his purpose through his article, it was a bit torturous to read--all this talk of croissants is making me hungry! Time to go grab a snack!

Flake out - Alamy
NOMNOMNOMNOM SO YUMMY *tummy grumbles*

TOW #6 - The Strangers in Your Brain

What accounts for the extraordinary wiring of the human mind? - Rebekka Dunlap

     This week, I've decided to pick something different by reading a scientific article. The author, Kelly Clancy, only has one article on The New Yorker but has written many others, all published on her website (www.kellybclancy.com) and on the topic of the brain and its complexities. In this essay, she writes about a new discovery in the genome of neurons, cells that make up brains: each cell has a slightly different genome. In order to explain this discovery and convey the significance of it to a wider audience, Clancy uses personification and allusion throughout her essay.
     In her first paragraph, it is essential for her to clearly explain and define technical terms that she will need to use in order to explain the research later in the essay. She defines transposons as “wandering snippets of DNA that hide in genomes, copying and pasting themselves at random” and “unsung heroes of natural selection.” In science class, biology in particular, every teacher that I’ve had has compared the activities of the topic of discussion, whether it be atoms or organelles, to human activities because it helps people understand the function and/or reasoning behind each reaction and action. Clancy employs this technique in her careful placement of personification in order to help her reader, who most likely isn’t very well versed in biology, better understand the extremely technical subject of the essay.
     Also in her first paragraph but not limited to it, Clancy alludes to Darwin and Darwinian evolution. These references are understandable by everyone that’s ever been to school, since no one is able to escape the lessons about finches and the Galapagos islands that are typical of every biology class. In her first paragraph, Clancy writes “Without [mutations], there would be no novelty and no change; the slow-churning Darwinian search algorithm would stop.” Here, Clancy assumes that the reader knows Darwin’s theory of evolution, a correct assumption, and does not bother explaining it. Later on, Clancy compares the different types of beaks of Darwin’s finches to different types of neurons with different genomes. Again, she assumes the reader will automatically catch on and in doing so effectively explains the phenomenon through the comparison, aiding the reader’s understanding of an esoteric topic.
     Although Clancy’s use of personification and allusion help a very general audience with little understanding of higher biology or neurology understand the new discovery much more deeply than it would’ve through reading a scientific paper, this essays is also very interesting to those who do know a little about biology but are not so fully immersed into the scientific community, such as myself. Even after having taken AP Biology, I did not know what a transposon was. It was interesting to read something new that we hadn’t learned about in school and to read the little asides the Clancy had written in parenthesis that went into more detail and biology than the rest of the article. Overall, Clancy’s essay was effective in capturing the attention of the audience no matter what the background and explaining the content and importance of this scientific discovery.

TOW #5 - HONY

     Brandon Stanton, the man behind the popular blog called Humans of New York (HONY), began his blog as an amateur photographer. Although he’s still not technically a “professional”, his photography blog has become so popular that it is now his profession. On his blog, Brandon posts pictures of random people on the street with quotes that come from short interviews and conversations. For this particular picture, Brandon frames the picture in a way that showcases the subject’s handicap and chooses a short caption in order to create pathos in the viewer and remind people to always look on the bright side.

Humans of New York - posted July 1, 2014

     The first thing a person would see as they scrolled through their Facebook or Instagram feed is the subject’s missing arm. This immediately creates pathos in the viewer by blatantly making it clear that the man in handicapped and reminding him or her that, in most cases, no matter what other struggles he or she has had, he or she at least still has two arms. The bag held up behind the man’s head suggests that he is hardworking and doesn’t let his handicap get in the way of that. His face is partially hidden by his hat, and he doesn’t look like he’s posing particularly for the photo. This makes him seem humble, creating more pathos. Just by looking at the photo, before the viewer reads anything, the man in the picture has already make an impression on the viewer that he doesn’t let his handicap bother him.
     This idea is then further enforced as the reader glances at the short caption. Straight and to the point, like a six (eight, in this case) word story, the man affirms what the reader can infer just by looking at his portrait. “No struggles,” he says. Again, the viewer admires the man in the picture for being so strong and not letting his handicap or anything else bother him, reminding the viewer not to worry so much about the little things.

TOW #4 - The Omnivore’s Dilemma (IRB)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading my independent reading book: Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his book, the Pollan has a clear introduction and takes his audience’s point of view into consideration by using humor in order to further and almost revolutionize the reader’s understanding of the food industry and the way we eat. I saw an abundance of strong prose in the introduction and less so in body chapters because it gets much more technical as Pollan explains different aspects of the food we eat. Pollan starts his book with a question: “What should we eat?” (1). The rest of the book is basically a really involved answer to this question. Then, on pages 7-8 Pollan spends a paragraph on each of the sections of the book, explaining the purpose of each. This clear, explicit “road map” as it has been called by so many teachers may be viewed as primitive and basic, like those structured essays and thesis statements we’ve been taught to write since middle and elementary school, but in this case it benefits the reader. After all, the purpose of the book is to answer a simple question and to do so in an easily understood way so that it might make an impact on a very wide audience. Then Pollan moves on to the actual body of the book, and we, the readers, learn a whole lot about corn. Keeping his audience in mind is important in this section because Pollan spends quite some pages on the biology of corn. To those who aren’t scientifically inclined, C-4 plants and F-1 and F-2 generations have no meaning. Since I took AP Biology last year, I was familiar with all of these concepts, and it was interesting to observe how one might break it down for those unfamiliar with biology. I love the way Pollan explains the plant’s stomata dilemma: “Every time a stoma [plural stomata] opens to admit carbon dioxide previous molecules of water escape. It’s as though every time you opened your mouth to eat you lost a quantity of blood” (21). I’d never thought about it that way before, but I love how the comparison instantly makes sense. This is definitely something I will make note of because I often struggle with explaining concepts with which I am already familiar to people who have had no previous exposure. Pollan also makes other comparisons that might make one giggle, establishing ethos for him and keeping the reader interested. For example, he writes “So that’s us: processed corn, walking” (23). All in all, I had a great time reading Pollan’s book and have learned a lot, not only about corn but also about prose. I can’t wait to keep reading!

Big Bad Scary Corn - activistpost.com
Because it's Halloween month and corn is in everything (has taken over the world)