Crack in the Box

The article has no thesis statement to be found, it just portrays a general idea to the reader. The author begins the article speaking about drugs in todays society and how they are highly addictive and could potentially control a person's life. Not until the fifth paragraph of the paper does he create the correlation between the addiction to television and drugs. The author continues to create a line between these two and provides supporting information. Yet the statistics he used seemed to only have one connection and that is the time period of the two. Examples such as 31.7 million t.v.'s were sold during 1955 and during the same time felonies took an increase.

The author uses lots of facts but very little emotion during the paper. There is some logos spread around the paper, but most of the information provided seem too far fetched. As a result I was not favorable to this article, maybe because of my position.

They Say, Drugs Kill

The thesis is the very first sentence, because it tells exactly what you should expect in the article. The article continues with the author talking about a traumatic experience when she saw someone die in front of her during a party. The details are excellent and the emotion from all the other people at the party are conveyed well. The real question is what was she doing during this whole ordeal, writing?

There was mostly pathos in this article, mostly because it was brought up from a real life, traumatic experience that she underwent during her lifetime. She showed ethos because of how most people react to "accidents" such as when a person dies from an allergy from a drug, but it wasn't from the drug itself. There was no shape of logos because most of the paper was written from her own perspective and biased opinion. The article was strong and could definitely pull a reader in, but I couldn't see it being a persuasive essay. The fact that almost all of the article was ver story made me believe it was just a story and not tell me to do anything.

Don't Blame the Eater

The thesis in the paper was not in standard MLA format where it is presented in the introduction paragraph and restated in the conclusion. Towards the conclusion of the essay is where the thesis is actually presented to the reader, but Zinczenko's position is obvious throughout the persuasive essay. He covers his basis well with many facts about the increase in rates of children with diabetes, and gives an example of some fast food joints that advertise towards children.

The paper shows a good balance of ethos, logos, and pathos in the reading but it wasn't a very long article to begin with. If any of the three, he shows the most pathos. At the beginning of the reading, he tells his fight with childhood obesity and talks about how these obese children are picked on all the time. Several facts were thrown around such as the calorie count of a chicken salad with a coke. Zinczenko talked about whether or not we should, including the government, regulate the fast food industry and the lack of nutritional information.

The format of the paper was pleasing because the story brought me in and he continued with his message including some interesting facts. Overall I don't believe it is the fast food companies fault but more so the parents responsibility to teach there children about eating right. However I am all for mandatory nutrition classes in public schools, because I honestly ate what I was given and luckily most of it was good for me; exercising and sports helped too.