Reasoning it out

Logos, pathos, ethos, and kairos are the four main foundations of any argument, whether they may go together like peas and carrots in an argument or each product sold separately. In Chapter 4 of Everything's an Argument", titled Arguments Based on Facts and Reason: Logos. Logos is the technique of using evidence and statistics to persuade or prove a point. For example, a company's advertisement may say "Buy this toothpaste; 4 out of 5 dentists recommended!" An argument for a cause will use logos to persuade the crowd to support certain rights and beliefs. An example would be a child-abuse ad that has statistics written on the bottom saying "In Germany, more than 300,000 children are sexually abused each year" as a means to stir up shock and immediate attention, although it also irrelevantly demonstrates ethos. Aristotle states that conjuring up any argument consists of two main ingredients: a statement with a proof following. In order to come up with an effective visual logos argument, the issue at hand needs to be stated, followed by evidence to prove the problem is legitimate and to hint as to why the issue needs the attention it deserves.

There are several ways to shape up a logos argument. The first is to use facts. Inevitably facts must be one of the most accurate ways of expressing proof, if not the most accurate. Next we have statistics, which is a type of study that involves surveys, diagrams, graphs, and numbers... LOTS AND LOTS OF NUMBERS. Statistics take facts and opinions from the general audience to obtain a reasonable result that can be closely distinguished as a fact. Surveys and polls come next. These can be considered to fall under the category of statistics. Surveys are a way of getting certain information from a wide crowd by asking each individual a series of questions, and then piecing their answers together and relating the questions. For example, a survey's results may show that most men want to be football players in the future while most females tend to steer towards getting a job at the hair stylist or as a singer. Polls have a subtle difference, but they are commonly shorter than surveys and thus mainly used for political issues, such as presidential elections. Testimonies and narratives come after, with true stories to prove a point. There are also reasoning and common sense, in which, if put in math terms, would be a=b; c=b; therefore a=c, which sometimes can be accurate. Then we have cultural values, such as customs and traditions in a region of the world, which could be another term for facts from sociology. 

My argument about human rights seems more of an ethos argument, but I enjoy working with logical arguments. It does not take a genius to depict a visual logos argument about racial profiling. Thus, I will use logos in my visual argument about racism.

Arguing about Ch. 14 :)

Here's a fact for all you people out there: like pizza, all men are in fact not created equal. If they were "created" equally, it would mean that each individual will share the opinion of others and have the exact same thought process as everyone else in the world and beyond. The universe would be in harmony and agreement with no such a thing as an "argument". 

Well, I just made an argument in the paragraph above! Arguments are simply contradicting ideas that each individual has decided to believe in and prove to others to believe in it as well. Arguments can be viewed as complaints, compliments, ways to prove a fact false, or just to have the audience to stuff themselves in the arguer's shoes. For example, in the image above the comic artist/s depicts his opinion on computer manufactures like car companies. Text is not necessarily needed in order to prove a point. In the comic shown, there are two cars, two representatives for two rivaling businesses. The Windows car is shown as a retro broken-down vehicle with a disheveled repairman who looks as if he is on the verge of frustration. Oh the other hand, the neat, grinning, little Apple guy is proudly presenting a very high-tech, scratch-less, fingerprint-proof, shiny new car that seems extremely simple to use. The author inevitably expresses to the media that the Mac is a much better product to have than a Windows. Argumentation has been around for centuries, before Galileo, Charles Darwin, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s eras.

In this society, there are many issues where conflict and argument will arise from time to time, such as how the American economy is going, what songs should play on the radio and what should not, and everyone's classic, "does God exist"? I have heard many unusual arguments, from "the best ways to be a Pokemon master" to "Gandalf would totally win a showdown with Dumbledore". But of all the arguments that strike me, I'd have to say racism and racial profiling are what I strongly oppose, even stronger than my dislike towards Facebook.

RACISM IS BAD. STOP IT.

Introduction

Hello, class, my name is Shiyang Wang and I am a freshman at ASU like most of you all if not all. I have one 3-year-old ABC (American-born Chinese) brother. I graduated from Desert Vista High School in Ahwatukee, Phoenix, and I still come back to visit my small family and friends every weekend. I chose ASU because it has a great engineering school and it is close to my home. My current major is chemical engineering and I live in Palo Verde Main, on the way north part of ASU and across the street from the stadium and Wells Fargo Arena. When people at ASU ask me where I am from, I reply with "Ahwatukee", but other times I say I was born in Sendai, Japan and raised in the different villages of Shaoxing and Taiyuan, China. I am 100% pure Chinese blood, but I am a very culturally friendly person, as my music playlist is composed of songs in Swedish, Finnish, Japanese, Korean and "Ancient Ispanian".

As you can tell, my favorite colors are green and black, though not necessarily together. My hobbies are playing clarinet, piano, and guitar. I have an ear for music; I am able to learn how to play bits and pieces of songs just by listening to them and familiarizing myself. I also enjoy watching anime, singing, reading manga, and drawing. I admit I can be an Internet Meme nerd at certain times. I am not a very big video gamer like I am an anime nerd, but I do enjoy playing certain games, such as Dragon Age Origins, FFX (Final Fantasy X) and several of the Tales series (Abyss, Legendia, Phantasia, Symphonia, Xillia, etc.) in my free time.

I believe that life is a blog itself; it is an individual's responsibility to fill it in. I start my story with ASU. Before I fell in love with chemistry, I aimed to major in art or music and hoping to work as a character designer at Bandai-Namco in Japan. I still plan to pursue this old dream sometime in my long life, either before or after I write my climax as a chemical engineer. My goals after college are to attend graduate school, work in a perfumery if not with other fellow engineers and chemists, and travel the world.

I really hope to get along with everyone in ENG 102! ♥