Is Humor Persuasive Essay Example for Free

Is Humor Persuasive Essay Humor can be one of the most effective tools to use with persuasion, as it can provide many benefits with very little cost or drawback. Some of the benefits of using humor to communicate an argument include increased attention span, an overall more enjoyable reading experience, not to mention the comfortable environment comedy will give for the writer to communicate their ideas. Enter humor columnist Dave Barry and his essay, â€Å"Road Warrior,† which introduces the quality of road rage that is said affect the American public today, and he also sheds a humorous light on how easily people are angered. His use of various techniques in his writing makes his approach to the problem of road rage effective, because humor can make something that is tedious become interesting. The techniques he utilizes include the use of metaphors, rhetorical questions (a figure of speech in the form of a question without the expectation of a reply), capitalized words, sarcasm (a sharp, bitter, or cutting remark; or a bitter taunt), and labeling. Barry’s use of humor in his writing contributed greatly to the overall effectiveness of the essay. Through the use of humor, Barry not only contributes to the overall funny tone of the essay, but he sheds a humorous light on a rather tense subject. Road rage is a disease that has been affecting motorists since the time when horsepower compared the power of vehicles to that of the horse. People have been known to express anger towards various situations in many different ways, most commonly being â€Å"flipping the bird. † First, road rage can cause stress while someone travels, which would in turn create health problems. Secondly, road rage can be deadly whether a person is the victim or the offender, as some accidents are known to have been caused by chancy driving due to road rage. Essentially, road rage is an important quality to try to avoid in today’s society for those two very important reasons, and more. The first reason why Barry’s essay was effective is his use of metaphors. Barry uses metaphors throughout the essay to describe the various types of anger he experiences in daily life. For example, in paragraph four, Barry compares the size of Miami driver’s brains to cashews when he is introducing Miami as the Inappropriate Lane Driving Capital of the World,† due to â€Å"being tailgated and occasionally bumped from behind by testosterone driven youth. † Barry will also use a metaphor when he compares the speed that some motorists travel in the â€Å"fast lane† to that of diseased livestock when describing slower travelling Miami drivers who travel in the left hand lane or the â€Å"fast lane. † Another reason why Barry’s essay is effective is his use of rhetorical questions and capitalization of key words. During his description of â€Å"Parking Lot Rage,† he asks â€Å"What the hell are they doing in there? when describing the times that he would look for a parking spot, and wait for somebody to vacate theirs. He goes on to describe instances where â€Å"nobody ever  signals or yields, and people are constantly  cutting us off,† during his description of the problem of youth with aggressive driving habits he also asks â€Å"After a while we start to feel some rage, OK? You got a problem with that, mister news media opinion-maker? † These questions and capitalized words are Barryâ€℠¢s own way of putting emphasis on certain points, which contributes a unique touch to the essay. A third reason why Barry’s essay was effective is Barry’s use of sarcasm in his writing. His use of sarcasm gives a sense of playfulness, which skillfully keeps true to his underlying meaning. For example, in paragraph six, Barry refers to the left hand lane as a public recreational area when he is talking about drivers that will travel slowly in the left lane. Barry is also sarcastic while he is describing the driver training youth receive in Miami, stating â€Å"we are being tailgated and occasionally bumped from behind by testosterone driven youths who got their driver training from watching the space-fighter battle scenes in Star Wars. He is being sarcastic about the fact that youth in Miami get their driver training from watching space-fighter battle scenes in Star Wars. Lastly, another reason why Barry’s essay is effective is his coining of his own terms when labeling the various events that upset him in his daily life. Such as, in paragraph six, Barry labels Miami as the â€Å"Inappropriate Lane Driving Capital Of The World,† while speaking about the slower travelling motorists that stay in the left lane. Barry also comes up with a name for another upsetting occurrence he experiences, which he refers to as â€Å"way too many product choices rage† when describing the difficulty of having so many options to choose from when shopping for grocery items. In conclusion, Barry deftly uses various techniques to get his ideas across, including metaphors, rhetorical questions, capitalized words, sarcasm, labeling, and humor; which not only contributes to the overall funny tone of the essay, but he is able to shed a humorous light on a rather tense subject.

The Dance of The Body without Organs Essay -- Electronics Essays

The Dance of The Body without Organs My current project employs the concept of the Body w/o Organs as a model of artistic process to undermine social, scientific, and political hierarchies used in organizing our states of consciousness and embodiment. By arriving at a location of stillness, or â€Å"zero intensity† through this process of dislocating normative structures; new structures, configurations, and organizations will emerge that reflect local, emotional, or irrational consistencies. The project exists in several instantiations, including immersive virtual environments, networked art, 3-D modeling, and texts. Body w/o Organs, Deleuze and Guattari, Artaud, Virtual Reality, Virtual Environment, Irrationality, Surrealism, Visible Human Project 1.0 Situating Subjectivity â€Å"My mind became a place of refuge, an sanctuary, a room I could enter with no fear of invasion. My mind became a site of resistance.† (hooks, 1991) Located as a privileged subject relative to race and gender; I am at a transitional place regarding power relations. My upbringing as a white male of a middle class family in a line of Scottish farmers immigrating to the rural Midwestern US roots me in the blood-soaked soil of the Klu Klux Klan. I was born and raised 20 years after and 30 miles from Marion, Indiana, site of countless barbaric lynchings of African Americans. My sympathies betrayed the hegemonic classifications of my own body and color of flesh. I lined up with the victims, not with my kin. My desire to be done with the coding of the politics of identity in my flesh increased my sense of disembodiment. My own betrayal of skin and kin accompanied by the undeniable privilege afforded me by the embodied coding of race has created a ... ...cal and theoretical issues related to the technologies of immersive virtual reality, netart, and avatars; specifically with respect to issues of identity, embodiment, and human sentience. He has presented and exhibited his work in numerous international venues, including Ars Electronica, Invencao, Consciousness Reframed, Webs of Discourse, CADE, as well as museums, galleries, and alternative spaces. His essay, â€Å"A Manifesto for Avatars† was published in Intertexts in 1998. At present he is a visiting researcher at the Virtual Reality Centre at the University of Teesside, and at the CAVE Lab, New Media Center, The University of Michigan. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Art/New Media at Bowling Green State University, and an Assistant Professor of Art at Kent State University. http://www.stark.kent.edu/~glittle http://www.oberlin.net/~glittle

First Time Going to the Principals Office Essay

Your first time going to the principals office can be kinda scary because sometimes you never know what your being called down there for. The first time i went to the principals office is a day i will never forget. It was when i was in the 5th grade Feburary 12th i was sitting in class doing my work when my teacher called me up to his desk and told me to grab my things im going down to the principals office. I was so nervous/scared and didnt know why i was being called down. When i got down there it was a lady sitting at the desk calling other students names to go back and see the principal. I walked up to the desk and gave her my pass. She took the pass & told me have a seat and get comfortable because I’ll be waiting a long time until my name gets called. After she said that i got even more scared. As i was sitting there waiting for my name to be called i started to think about everything i had done that week so when it was my turn to go back there it wouldnt be a surprised to why i was being called down there. About 15 minutes went by before she called my name. When she called my name and told me it was time to go back i didnt want to i really wanted to run out the door and go back to my class. When i walked into his office the look on his face was distasteful. He told me to have a seat and said he have a couple questions to ask me. I told him okay. The first following question he asked me was â€Å"whats going on? â€Å". i didnt really know how to respond to that so i said â€Å"nothing is going on†. He opened his mouth to say something else to me, im hoping that its about why im down here. Before he could say anything i hurried and opened my mouth to ask why i was down here. He looked at me and started smiling and said your not in trouble you were called down here because there was a fight that happened earlier this week envolving two girls that you know and were really good friends with, and im wondering do you know what could have started the fight . All that worrying about whether i was in trouble or not went away. I told him i didnt know what could have started the fight. He asked me do i think that it couldve started in the class room during any of the activities we were doing, I said no. He said okay thats all i wanted to know I’ll write you a pass back to class. As he handed me the pass he asked me one more question, The question was why was i so nervous when i came into his office. I told him it was because i thought i did something wrong and because it took a long time for my name to be called. He said it took so long because of my last name, they were calling people in alphabetical order.

Divorce and Well-Being An Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography Amato, Paul R. The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children. Journal of Marriage and the Family 62.4 (2000): 1269-87. This article talks about divorce-stress-adjustment perspective. The article review draws on research that goes all the way back to the 1990s and it basically answers the following questions: What factors mediate the effects of divorce on individual adjustment? Are these differences due to divorce or to selection? How do individuals from married and divorced families differ in well-being? Do these differences reflect a temporary crisis to which most people gradually adapt or stable life strains that persist more or less indefinitely? Anne-Rigt Poortman and Judith A. Seltzer. Parents Expectations about Childrearing After Divorce: Does Anticipating Difficulty Deter Divorce? Journal of Marriage and Family 69.1 (2007): 254-69. This article talks about how the divorce is expensive for parents for the reason that of the tests of meeting childrens economic and socioemotional needs after separation. The article used the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,935), and they were discovering whether probable economic and parenting costs had anything to do with divorce. This article was helpful because the author examined that mothers were the ones that expected higher financial costs than fathers, while fathers are the ones that expect more parenting difficulties. Chun, Young-Ju, and Tae-Hong Sohn. DeterminantsShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Divorce On The Socioeconomic And Emotional Well Beings Of Children As They Progress Through Life1598 Words   |  7 PagesYosef Hassid Annotated Bibliography Research Question: What are the effects of divorce on the socioeconomic and emotional well-beings of children as they progress through life? Brandwein, R. A., C.A. Brown, and E.M. 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