Instructions Objective: For your first essay assignment, you will analyze and evaluate a visual claim essay (600 word minimum). Your first step for this assignment is to find a static visual claim. Most visual claims are advertisements, so choose an online advertisement as you will have to provide working URL for your essay (look up how to make a Work Cited entry in your handbook and in your MLA Unit Module). Choose a visual claim that interests you (maybe you found it funny, or offensive, or creative, etc). If the visual claim you choose stimulates you, this assignment will be less difficult. You must also use correctly incorporate terminology in your essay as the premise of your evaluation response (see your PPT “Decoding Visual Arguments: What to Look For and How it Works" and video -Psychology and Advertising: Persuasion' in CNVS).
INTRODUCTION: The introduction will consist of you establishing the Rhetorical Situation (see course material in Module Three "Composing and Revising") of the visual for your reader and give a brief description of visual. Then, tell the reader what claim is being asserted. In other words, what does the arguer (creator of the claim) want me to do or believe? You also need to include your own thesis. Your thesis should indicate whether the advertisement has effectively (or ineffectively) presented and supported its claim. In other words, will the audience buy the product based on the claim the advertisement is making or not? Things to consider helping you establish the Rhetorical Situation of the visual: • How does the advertisement attempt to get your attention? • What is its purpose? • Who made the advertisement? • When was it made? • What is it an advertisement for? • Who is the target audience for this product? • Evaluate this advertisement's effectiveness based on three visual premises — This should serve as a tentative thesis. —UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS IN YOUR ESSAY WHEN YOU SUBMIT IT FOR GRADING"— (-5, of grade without underlined thesis).
In order to analyze the argument, ask yourself the following questions: • List the information the advertisement provides about the product (see Chapter 3) • How does the advertisement try to convince you to buy this product? (see PowerPoint and video) , • How is the name of the product significant? • What images has the advertiser chosen to use? Why? • What information do you think has been left out of this advertisement? Why? • What would you change about the advertisement?
Sample Solution