WP2

How does one go about choosing a college? What types of effects do the campus’s surroundings have on you? Does it make you feel comfortable, connected, disconnected, uneasy, do they have activities that interest you or make you feel like being uninvolved wouldn’t be a big deal. A video created by the University of Nebraska Kearney did this. The video is an attempt to visually portray the outlined objective of the school which is that UNK is, “an affordable student centered regional hub of intellectual, cultural, and artist excellence that has been a prominent part of Nebraska’s higher education landscape for more than a century”. This statement was found at the University of Nebraska-Kearney’s website in the “About UNK” section. The makers of the video added content in a way that would appeal to a prospective college student’s emotions and establish the University’s credibility. This essay will examine the video and describe the different tools of rhetoric used including the excessive use of pathos appeals.


The video uses the rhetorical strategy of illustration (Envision 2 p39) to show how their University can have a substantial impact on a person’s experience in college and life afterwards. It does this by including different visual representations, such as pictures, of various aspects of college life. These aspects include: academics, athletics, and social events. The pictures in the video were careful chosen because they help portray a certain image. This image is that of a happy, comfortable, academic experience at a well rounded University. None of the pictures are of students that appear unhappy, stressed or partying. This is a casual rhetorical strategy of logical fallacies because we all know these are common experiences in college life. Most students are unhappy at some point, for example being homesick, and we all know that a large number of students like to party, but this video portray everyone smiling and studying hard. Including this logical fallacy makes the colleges appear very academically focused and would definitely help ease a prospective student’s parent’s apprehensions about paying for their child to study there.

The video opens with a picture of a traditional style building behind a cascading water fountain that is surrounded by green space and lush vegetation. This picture sets the tone for the rest of the video. The picture was most likely chosen because it captures the true beauty the campus has to offer. The creators use this to captivate its audience because quite frankly, who wants to go to a college that doesn’t offer a beautiful landscape. Beautiful scenery gives people the feeling of peacefulness and tranquility which are dispositions that foster learning and academic success. The video not only opens with a beautiful picture, but also utilizes a song called Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by the band Green Day.

This song is a mellow pop-punk song that is filled with deeply contemplative, heart tugging lyrics that emphasize the importance of making the best of your life. These are all examples of pathos appeals because they appeal to student’s emotions which are a major influence involved in making decisions.
Another example of pathos appeals in the video are scenes where students are helping others move into their dorms.

This relates to the pathos because it portrays the students that attend the University as friendly and ready to lend a hand, as opposed to students who attempt to make you feel unwanted or like an outsider. The students helping each other move in are all smiling and seem to be happy to be assisting their “new friend”. The video is also flooded with various scenes of activities where the students can get involved and have a good time. One of these activities is shown in the form of a dunking tank and students participating in a fundraiser. This shows that students there aren’t always busy with studies and have time to take a break from studying to just enjoy the philanthropies and activities campus has to offer. This is an important appeal to students and parents because it gives the impression that the University of Nebraska-Kearney is a school that is involved with its students and that is active in the community.


There are also multiple scenes of a white haired, elderly, professors and visibly engaged students. This utilizes the ethos appeal by showing the University’s credibility of having experienced professors and determined students. Had they have showed students sleeping on their desks the picture would not have intrigued the audiences interest in wanting to have attended this University. The picture also wouldn’t have been as affective in gaining the parent’s trust in its credibility if they had taken a picture of a younger professor wearing jeans and sitting on a desk. Don’t get me wrong, some of my favorite teachers are younger professors, but a typical parent would be more inclined to send their child to a University that depicts their professors as “old and wise” rather than “young and inventive”. More examples of ethos appeal are multiple scenes showing resources that promote academic success. Some of the scenes include the campus library, student union, and outdoor study areas. The study areas are landscaped in a fashion that is perfect for academic progression or just socializing. All these scenes build the reputation of UNK as being a credible and trustworthy establishment for learning opportunity.


To show the diversity of the school, half way through the video the music changes from the pop-punk song Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), to classical piano music. Along with the change in music comes a change in scenery. Viewers are now shown images of the athletic features of the school and the aspects of school spirit and pride. These images were included in the video to appeal to the emotions of prospective students who enjoy athletics. Students who enjoy sports will be attracted to the University of Nebraska-Kearney after seeing these clips of successful teams and rowdy fans.

The video concludes by changing the music back to Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) and clips of campus and active students. Ending the video with this song leaves viewers with the pathos appeal that the University of Nebraska-Kearney is a fun, inviting campus and will provide its students with an academic career that will be “The Time of Their Life”.

Best Video

The video Human Soldiers is a military video about all the different branches. The video basically shows clips and “highlights” if you will from the different branches.
The videos music is done by Rob Zombie. The song is called More Human than Human and the meaning behind the song in this instance is not very important. The song is just a rock song that gets me pumped up and with me being in the military it just makes the video that much better.
The video starts out with M1A1 Abram tanks flying down the road until the music starts to play; it then goes into an AC-130 locking onto enemy personnel and sending them to meet their maker. It shows the explosion going off which makes it even more exciting.

It also shows a lot of weapons in the video. It shows tons of Apaches, Blackhawk’s and other aircraft just letting of hellfire’s and different types of missiles.
It also shows some video of what we are actually doing over Iraq and not so of the things you see on the news.

I guess the main reason I love this video so much is because I look up to the people I see in it. I think it would be so much fun to fly an apache or a fighter jet, or possibly drive a tank, send in mortars and other types of combat arms operations.

I know some people won’t understand what is so interesting about anything in this video and won’t understand why it is done. The reason is because, well, the aren’t in the military and if they don’t think its interesting now they probably will never think its cool and that’s ok because I’m sure whatever they are going to do with their lives in going to be much more thrilling than flying a fighter jet at 1000 mph.

Free Write

Everybody has those weeks if you know what I mean. Well in my instance I have been having one of those months.
So many things are going on in my life right now it is hard to concentrate and completely dedicate myself to one thing. So much homework is being issued, I bombed the last Chem. Test and now I have a 10 page paper due in LAS in two weeks. Not only that but I need to pass my APFT, Army Physical Fitness Test, in order to get my scholarship to pay for school or else my career here at Wesleyan is done for. Sounds like a lot of stress to me and that is exactly what I’m feeling. STRESSED OUT.
It’s times like this in your life when I think you really find out if you are who you think you are. You either are weak minded, let the stress get to you and let it intensify or you stride on and get things done. As much as I know I'm the kind of person who won’t let it get to me, I don’t think I have been doing the best job of non procrastination. Being a freshmen in college is definitely a complete 180 transition compared to being in high school. There are so many things you have to do and so many things that can distract you from doing things that need to be done. I was thinking it is time for a break. And what do you know this coming up in the next few days is, you guessed it, a break. Just what I needed. So I decided that I need to get some serenity from all this chaos. I’m going out of town to do whatever it is I want to do. The only bad thing is when I come back and am welcomed by the Lincoln skyline I know it is inevitable that I also will soon be welcomed by the stress once more.

Nebraskans dropping land lines in favor of cell phones

To sum this article up very simply, it is about a family of four who, a few years back, dropped their landlines and all acquired cell phones.
This article really does not surprise me in the least. America is becoming more and more mobile, literally. It is getting tough for families to have a landline because our society moves at such a fast pace people are barely ever home.
I believe that a lot of it also has to do with massive improvements of technology. People can check there email, surf the web, and even watch television on their phones now. Who needs an old fashioned landline when they can have a cell phone with all these accessories and possess the same function of the cell phone at the same or less price? It seems like a no brainer to me.
There also may be some adverse affects to all these people changing to cell phones and dropping landlines. Landline companies have to turn to alternate terms for collecting business. Things like providing high-speed broadband internet connection are almost a must for all landline providers.
Another thing that people may have to be aware of is, with all the business the cell phone companies are getting, they can then raise the prices without fear of people leaving there company and switching to someone else because chances are they other cell phone companies are doing the same thing.
The Journal Star reports that there are more than 1.1 million cell phones in Nebraska alone. That is almost as much as the entire population of Nebraska and the numbers are only escalating. If things keep moving in the way they are now, I believe that 50 years from now, a large number of the population will not even remember the usage of landlines

Free Write

This weekend I was able to go to Greenlief Army Training Site for my Army ROTC class. We were able to incorporate a lot of things into our activities out there, which and to the enjoyment and the excitement that lasted the entire weekend.
We started the weekend off by using our M16 to zero in, which means your weapon will be accurate at 300m. After the zeroing exercise, we got to throw grenades and eventually move onto the firing range and shoot pop-up silhouettes. Shooting the M16 rifle was very exciting for me because I had never shot one before this training event, but I soon realized that the fun had only just began.
We soon loaded up and were bused out to our campsites. This was the most primitive camping that I have ever been a part of. We had no lights, no type of shelter; we just simply slept in our sleeping bags on the ground out in the weeds. It actually wasn’t that bad and I surprisingly enjoyed the entire primitive camping ordeal but that is not to say I didn’t obtain a mild case of bug bites but I was bound and determined to not let that get my morale down. We got only four hours of sleep that night because we had to guard our base from “enemy.”
The next day was the longest day of the weekend for sure. We were up at 4:45 and didn’t go to bed until midnight. Sounds terrible I know but the day was full of activity and the hours seemed to fly past. We executed missions all day. The mission types included: Ambush, Hostage, Movement to Contact, Negotiations, and Recon. Later that night we moved to Land Navigation.
We were given points on a global coordinate grid and had to find them throughout the entire training site and then had to do it again at night with the aid of night type of light. It was extremely hard and the fact that the course was some of the hard navigating the other students had seen, didn’t help my cause any.
Tomorrow was the last and shortest day. We learned how to conduct missions in urban terrain and how to clear rooms etc. We ended with a bang by having to crawl about 200-300 meters through an underground tunnel that was dark, cold, and not to forget the tunnel rats.
Overall some would read this and not understand why it was fun, but I guess its one of those things where you just had to be there.