Eng 103, Spring 2007, Essid
Paper Three

Topic: Find one advertisement in print that seems interesting to you. You must choose a printed ad from a newspaper or magazine. Keep in mind that Boatwright Library has a good collection of current periodicals available. Many of the magazines are academic journals, rather than popular ones, but even a publication like Aviation Week and Space Technology or Atlantic (both in Boatwright) have some very clever ads pitched to particular audiences.

Make sure that no one in your editing group picks the same product!

In your essay, analyze whether the ad is effective, based upon your careful examination of factors such as those I list below. The paper needs a traditional thesis in its introduction that will sum up why the advertisement works or does not.

To do this well, you will need to rely upon specific details you draw from the advertisement. You can always consider these questions and similar ones:

• How do visuals and text in the ad make the case for the product?
• Who would the target audience be?
• How does the advertiser use the "three appeals" and the argumentation/ reasoning techniques we studied in Argument Now?
• What is the main "angle of vision" that this advertiser assumes a potential consumer/customer would have? For instance, does the advertiser assume that the person likely to have a favorable view of the product after seeing the ad will be: Cynical? Enthusiastic? Wealthy? Desperate? Old? Young? Unhealthy? Lonely? Gullible? Cosmopolitan? Bored? Horny? Happy? Depressed? Conformist? Individual? Patriotic? Scholarly? Daring? The possibilities are endless. . .

Audience: Unlike our earlier assignments, in this case assume that I and your group do not know the ad campaign already, even if we know your product (hence, some summary will be essential).

Format: At least 1200 words (at least four pages, double spaced). For full credit on your paper, you must give me a printed copy of your advertisement. Get a photocopy of the ad; no torn-out pages will be accepted unless you have purchased a magazine and give me the entire copy. If you pick a newspaper ad, just fold up the full page of the paper and turn that in in a folder.

I expect you to include proper in-text citation and an MLA format works-cited page at the end that includes at least four sources:

• One internet source from an advertiser and another from a non-commercial site
• Two printed sources: one from a popular publication that you might buy to read yourself and another from an industry journal about advertising, such as Advertising Age. See a reference librarian soon about this requirement--do not wait until just before the portfolio comes due or you will be in rough shape trying to hunt down these sources.
• Note: these two sources might be republished in an online archive, such as those from our library databases. Originally, however, they must have been published in print.

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