Rhetorical Analysis of Project 3

Now that we've started Project Tres (I honestly don't know why I use Spanish numbers randomly; I don't even speak Spanish) I've been doing research about what I want to make my public argument on, and I've decided to do it on how social media is causing an increase in narcissism in younger generations. And now, reader dear, I'll be doing a rhetorical analysis of this project. I'm also eating right now, so if there's any random section of letters that don't make sense, it's because I swiped crumbs off my keyboard an I'm too lazy to backspace.

Author

1. I will be connecting Project 3 to mostly some personal interests I have, and relationships with people that I've developed this year. My roommates and I are obsessed with personality tests, and analyzing why people do what they do. It's become a hobby in our house (which probably can become unhealthy, but if it's reached that point yet, we haven't noticed...) and I wanted to do a project on something that interests me outside of my major. I love my major, but there's not really anything noteworthy or conflicting that's catching my attention right now. I'm going to pull personality inventory tests into my project to talk about how social media is making the younger generation more narcissistic.

     2.  I have some of biases that I'm aware of going into this project. I think my family is odd in the sense that we were made to believe that social media was a privilege, not a right. We weren't even allowed to have electronics on Sundays. I also hate social media. I'm an introvert, so I don't like people knowing about my life. So I'm probably biased against social media. My family has also always been very middle class. I've never had nice phones, and I didn't get a laptop until this last August. The only way I can afford to be going to U of A is because of a scholarship because I live out of state. I have also been more privy to narcissistic people of late, so I feel like that will bias me more toward the viewpoint that social media is creating a generation of narcissistic people.

Audience

1.   I haven't quite decided who I want my audience to be. I think I'm going to aim it to my generation I think. I might change that later, but we'll go with that for now. People that are on social media a lot, and grew up with it. Well, kinda. I remember when snapchat, Instagram, and pinterest came out. So we were the first generation with it as adolescents.

2.   I honestly don't know which side my audience will take. I think most likely they will take the opposite position that I'm taking because they've been raised with social media and the whole "entitlement" thing that's extremely prevalent right now. I'm obviously going to be nice about it, because I have people I'm very close to that would argue with me hardcore, and I don't want to offend them, so I'm going to probably be more subtle.

3.   I think people could react either very positively or very negatively to my argument. I've met people that would agree with me; those people who are smart and have developed enough of a place in society to accurately form an opinion. But I think the majority of people my age will disagree and be angry or say stuff like "that's rubbish". They like social media. And no one likes to be told that they're narcissistic.

4.   I think it'll be easy to relate to my audience since I am writing to my age group. I'm also gonna talk about how I have had friends with extremely narcissistic personalities, and I think everyone has that one friend that sounds like this.

5.   I would categorize my classmates as the people I'm trying to get to agree with me on my point. I would have to tell them how negatively social media is affecting us personally, and how it's getting in the way of our lives by making us narcissistic.

Purpose/Message

1.    I would like for the effect of my project on the reader to be just the recognition that social media is breeding a whole new generation of narcissists. I don't necessarily want to rid the world of social media. I just wish it were less prevalent.

2.    Once I've researched everything, I still need to make sure I'm addressing the good that social media is doing. I also need to present an example that compels the audience to connect with my project.

What Genre?

1.    I will be making my project 3 the standard college essay.
2.    This genre generally demands respect. I feel like the person reading a standard college essay aren't really looking for a nail-biter, but they're not looking for something to put them to sleep. It would need to be someone who is being respectful of the logical process the essay has been through.
3.    I have been writing essays since I was able to write. I love writing papers. It made me want to be a writer when I was younger. I don't anymore, but I did for a long time. I like using large words.
4.    I am generally extremely comfortable with this genre. As I previously said, I love it. I don't, however, enjoy the aspect in this class that surrounds the author's voice. I'm not entirely sure which voice or perspective to use, so I'm scared to start this project.
5.    In my opinion, the most effective genre conventions for this are the fact that informational is presented factually and chronologically. It doesn't have distracting pictures or sounds like anything else. You just focus on what you're reading. It's nice.

When?

1.    I don't think there are many historical events that would affect people viewing this topic, other than the invention of the phone and the internet.
2.    hyperlinks to four sources talking about narcissism and social media:

Psychology Today

Discovery.com

Voice of America

Science Daily

3.   People are going to say that social media isn't the cause of narcissism, it just has a correlation. They could also say that social media does more good than harm. Another thing they could mention is the fact that people have just been recognizing higher numbers of narcissism because we are more prepared to notice it than in the past.