Backpacks vs Briefcases

Upon reading the article Backpack Vs. Briefcases I have found a lot of interesting points made. The piece is centered around rhetorical analysis and how we have been built to use it so much through what we are taught. One example it uses to prove this is how we immediately judge what kind of teacher someone will be based off something as little as what they’re wearing on the first day of class. This really struck with me because I think a lot about how people make so many subconscious judgements. There’s so much stuff going on in our brain all the time that we don’t even recognize and I think that’s what a lot of this article is about. Another part of the reading that I found to be really fascinating was when it talked about rhetorical messages in the media. It talked about how the media is getting better and better at marketing and is thinking of new ways to convince us to buy their product everyday. I really agree with the article when it talks about how it’s on us to breakdown and understand rhetorical messages because by doing this we can prevent being taken advantage of by big companies and the media. I have noticed that a lot of the times they try to market to people not with logic, but with ethos. A lot of the times people need more than logic, so they try to get to peoples emotions so that they will make impulsively purchases on their product. Two really important part sof rhetorical analysis that they talked about were constraints and context. I think constraints are very important because they decide how one can deliver their message, and can also decide who are the people hearing the message. The context of a situation also has a lot to do with rhetorical analysis because understanding the context of something is the first step to understanding someones perspective.