in Class Free Writing

As the finals are coming, I think I am a little bit short of time, especially for this week.
I have 3 tests this week, two on Wednsday and one on Thursday. I need to start revising my second essay and I need to complete the cover memo before Thursday's class. Also, I have accounting homework, BIS homework and etc due on Thursday.
However I am not regret for my Thanksgiving since I think I spent enough time studying during the thanksgiving break but I am stilllllll out of time.
My goooood, why is this thanksgiving break a study week for me??
I feel terrible and have totally no idea about how to write the cover memo.
Right after this class I need to go to the library to do some access homework and then to attend a physics lab. God help me!!!!!!!!!!

Unit 3 Proposal

1. The topic what we choose is PC vs. Mac. We are arguing in favor of PC's

2. We are describing the advantages and disadvantages of PC's and Macs. We will talk about the competition between PC's and Macs. We will present the debate in different ways.

3. Audience: Companies that use many computers who need suggestion on which one to buy. And also, individual customers like students. Sometimes, students who studying in different majors may choose different one. For example, usually graph design major students choose Mac but literary students choose PC.

4. We will use video interviews to show the feedback of customers.
We will also make an advertisement video for a brand of PC to show our view.
Our third genre will be a magazine article.
Everything will be presented via PPT.

in Class Writing: Visual Arguements applied to Unit 3

After reading Charpter 14, I've learnt some different kinds of using visual arguments in the essay. The visual arguements are attractive and outstanding on the first sight of the audiences. It is and it should be more impressive than any other part of the arguement.
Since our group is trying to present a comparision between PC and Mac system, I think we can give a interview of the users who experienced these systems, either or both. Also, we can also show some visual pictures, videos or even flash to show the difference between these two systems.

in Class: What I learned after reading last night

Actually I did not do the reading since I was not aware that we have this assignment.
But sitll, I foucused on looking for some information about what exactly we are going to do on the group project. I think the intended audience of the argument is the first thing we need to take into consideration. But for the topic, I am still a little bit confused because if the argument is too big, then it will be too broad to talk about and that will result in the lack of creativity and details. If the argument is too small or not interesting at all, we would not have an attractive attention getter. After picking the topic and our intended audience, I think we need to pay much more attention on the form.

Job Titles and Group Member Decriptions

In our Group, I think we need to maintain a well balanced task burden. Everyone can firstly tell each other the favorite part they are good at. Then we can discuss the job types and the strategies that will be applied to work on those jobs. The arranging of the tasks can be decided by a certain person but only after a serious discussion and all of the members come to a common consensus. When it comes to ideas and strategies, everyone needs to take part in. The ideas do not necessarily need to be creative but they need to be considered with efforts.

For myself, I think my job title can be described as a public secretary. I will work as the note taker, project planner(who arrange the tasks for each member) and team contacter. Every time when we are discussing something, I will take the notes and emphasize them to make sure that we meet the requirement of the project assignment. Also, as the project planner, I will give several suggestions about how the program is gonna go. If it is necessary for a group meeting out of class, I am glad to be the contactor.

Magician: Rob: Takes the responsibility of creative elements and ideas

Surgery: Sijia: Works as a Consultant, the reviser of the textual part.

in Class Writing

My ideal group should have a leader to rationally arrange the works for all the group members.
The group memers need to be enthusiasitc and glad to help. Everyone has a clear idea about what they can do and what they are arranged to do.
Enough discussion is neccessary for a team to work as a whole. To create a good atmosphere, I think the leader should take the responsibility of opening the conversation. Also, other group members should continue discussing with the same goal. The opnions do not have to be the same but they should aim to the same goal which best fits the assignment requirement.

in Class: reflection of the rhetorical analysis

I think for the 3 rhetorical analysis, I think it is not so difficult to differentiate between primary sources and secondary sources. However, since the primary sources are usually first handed sources and may not be well researched, it is not easy for me to spot the opinion of the authors.

For example, 1 of the authors of my primary sources are mostly giving out the facts instead of making a lot argument. This confused me because it seems a good source because it is really informative and since she was there, in the city where the hijacking event occured, her article is really convincing. I was really hesitating to decide whether I should give it up.

Another problem I have is that even though I know I need to do some research on the authors of the sources, I could not find enough information to describe them as a credible or a trustworthy author. The only thing I can do is to summarize those of their short intro which is really hard for me.

Since some authors were generally giving facts, the ethos, pathos and logos appeals were not easy to spot.

Unit 2 Proposal

Proposed topic: After talking to Dr. Irvin in the conference. I just decided my topic to be the hijacking event which occurred in Philippines involving the Philippines police and several Hongkong travelers killed. This event is a really serious event which arouse great attention internationally. The event itself is not controversial but there are a lot of different opinions coming out about it. Hongkong government and mainland government of China and Philippines are all so concerned about this event since it causes a lot death and it is an issue that would break the relationship between these two countries if not taken good care of.

Primary sources: Since it is an international event happened in Asia, there seems to be not enough report about it in English version. However, due to the specialty of Hong Kong government, there are reports from Hong Kong in English, such as Apple Daily and SCMP.com(south China morning post). Also, I have realdy found some report from WSJ(Wall Street Journal) and NYT(New York Times). To make the statement or the analyse objective, I think I might need to look for some report from Philippines local newspaper or magzines.
To do the research, I am going to research Philippines polocy about gun possession and other things involved in the library or library.tcu.edu

Why I chose this topic?
1, This event is really a big international event which arouse great attention from all over the world.
2, One side of this event is my country, my people and someone just got KILLED! I am not just interested but concerned about it. (However, I will remain objective to this project.)
3, Doing research such a topic will help me to do better in analysing big events in the future when needed.

In Class: First Paragraph

“The Horned Bookstore”, that is what some students call the TCU bookstore, Barnes & Noble. However, not all the Barnes & Nobles around the country can be called as “The Horned Bookstore” since this special one is founded mainly for the TCU students, the “Horned Frogs”. During my one year’s experience in this country, I have already seen several Barnes & Nobles in this country; they are of different design, in different color. But this one, the particular “Horned Bookstore” has a strong distinguishing characteristic since it is TCU bookstore. When people drive by the West Berry Street, they will know that this architecture with a warming color is for TCU, when they see the classic purple logo right above the Barnes & Noble logo. Barnes & Noble are doing a good job in showing their credibility and the status of being connected to TCU.

In Class: Previous Experience on Group Workshop

In fact, I was in Miss Irvin's English 10803 class last year, so I have already experienced the group workshop. I feel ok even I am also not so excited about.
So it is hard to say whether I like it or not.
However, at that time I thought it would really help on my essay since the comments were made by my peers and their opinion might represent a great number of the readers. Their questions might be the readers questions. So everything went well and it did help on my essays.

I think if there would be a group workshop again in this class, I won't be surprised and I think I will be totally ok with that. Well, I have to say that the otomsphere will be a little bit weird when we were talking about each other's essay.

In Class: Reflecting of observation notes of my peers

As I am reading my peers' comments on my observation notes:

• I noticed that I did not pay enough attention on the smell of the bookstore, as both of my peers pointed out. Instead I put too much energy and attention on inferring the inside world of them.
• Since it was comparably silent in the bookstore, I just took down several conversations of this space.
• Even I have thought about whether there is a way to make students feel better when purchasing the textbooks, I still did not figure it out. I think that is probably because the textbooks are so expensive and myself is one of the "victims".
• My peers point out that I did not make enought ethos observations, but I do not agree on this point since I have already pointed it out in the inference part of my Aug 27's note.
• From their comments, I can see that they were satisfied with my analysis in the 3 rhetorical appeals. Thanks to them.

In Class: Reflecting of the observation Notes

In fact, I did my notes a little bit earlier before this assignment was given out. So I think that's why I have seen what exact I expected to see. Since Barnes & Noble is a kind of conforting place for one to sit in a quiet state, it did not upset me when I was doing the observation.

I picked different time to do these observations which means, I have got different characteristics of Barnes & Noble from different angles, at least I think I got it.

Since we've learned something about the ethos, pathos and logos appeal in the class, I went to the Barnes & Noble for another two times with a certain purpose. At first I thought it would be so challenging because it is really weird to look for some outstanding artifact in a public space. However, everything turns out good. I felt nature and easy to take a close look to each part of the bookstore and finally I almost got everything I need. The only pitiful thing is that I am not really sure about what I found about logos are really logos appeals.

Ethos, Pathos and Logos appeal in Barnes & Noble

After having been to the TCU bookstore, Barnes & Noble several times, I think I got enough information for the ethos, pathos and logos appeal in Barnes & Noble. I noticed that it helps me a lot when getting these informations to analyse this pubilic space since the ethos(credibility), pathos(emotional influence) and the logos(logic process) will do a great favor to tell the reader about the function, the characteristic of the public space from different angles.


Ethos: As we know, ethos appeals shows the credibility of one person or one thing. Barnes & Noble shows great ethos(credibility) from its look. As I can see, Barnes & Noble is a regular building with formal architectural design. The entire building is symmetrical with a Barnes & Noble logo in the middle. The logo is in white and normal font which shows that Barnes & Noble is a serious book selling store. It will make themselves trustable. Also, above the Barnes & Noble logo was a TCU logo in a TCU font and the classic color, purple. This also shows the credibility and the trustworthiness of this bookstore because it has a contract with TCU or even runned by TCU, a university with good reputation.


Pathos:Pathos appeals gives us the emotional influence of Barnes & Noble. When seeing it from the outside, people will definetely feel home-like since the colors it uses are warm. The roof with red brick and the wall with sunshine yellow brick make people feel silent and peaceful. The building is likely speaking to the customers or even people who just pass by:"If you want to buy some book or just want to have a rest, this is the best place you want to go."
Also, when we enter the bookstore. The strong smell of the Starbucks coffee and the cream-colored couch will make people feel cozy and drag their legs from leaving this comfortable place.


Logos: For the logos appeal, I think we can see a lot from Barnes & Noble. From the purple TCU logo on the front wall, we can infer that there is a contract between TCU and Barnes & Noble. From the souvenirs being sold in the bookstore we can infer that this is no only a bookstore but also a visiting station for the TCU students' families or other visitors who comes here. From the Starbucks inside the bookstore we can infer that there were also other Starbucks on campus serving TCU staff.

In Class: Logos artifact

I brought a lab report from my physics class.
I generally how a mass move when it was dropped down from the resting state, which means the initial velocity is zero.
The lab report also tell me that the method of how to get the motion of the mass including the idea of how to measure some important data. Such us the displacement(distance) between each two dots. It also tells us that why we do not have to time the entire movement since the rbi timer's frequency is a constant, which is 40HZ, so the interval time between the each two dots will be 0.025sec.
I do not really get the idea of how we get the linear regression equation because the proving steps in the experiement is not so convincing.

Unit 1 Proposal

The space I pick for my first essay about the public space analysis is The Barnes & Noble near the campus, to be more specific, the TCU bookstore.

This is really a normal place because there are bookstores, or even Barnes & Nobles everywhere in the country. Almost every reader for my essay have already known how Barnes & Noble looks like. Then you might ask, since I know all this, why I insist writing about this conventional place?

What makes this space appealing to me? I think it's just because I have a strong feeling for Barnes & Noble from the inside part of my heart. I am an international student and everytime when the semester begins or ends I will come here, not just for purchasing books.
I also take notes here, return books and resell the old books I have already used.
The text books here, I mean in this country are totally different from those in my country.

I like to observe people's expressions, actions, conversations not just for the essay. It is also my intereted part. A normal bookstore will not attract me so much, but a bookstore near campus really does. I can see students, professors and other people who is or might be related to TCU.
I like to guess the character or personality or even family circumstance for each individual.


For the observation, I will choose different angle. In front of the bookshelves, on a couch in the Starbucks of the Barnes & Noble, or even behind the service counter(if possible to see the face expressions of each person.) Also, I will choose different time to observe, specificly different period of the semester. I'd like to find out the people's purpose for coming here and how they get what they want in this place.


For me, I am also a part of the targeted audience. I purchase text books, studying stuffs, I return books, I take notes for the ISBN numbers, etc. I did the same or more than everyone did in this place, which makes me have a really strong feeling of Barnes & Noble.

I have both positive and negtive preconceived ideas about Barnes & Noble. As we dicussed in class, we can not divorce ourselves from how we really feel about this space from our own angle. But in the analysis I think I will be neutral since what I'm goona write about is a PUBLIC space.
I will try to be in different position, I mean not physically but in role, to observe and analysis Barnes & Noble.

In Class: Ethos Artifact

Today I brought my passport.
I got this passport two years ago and I believe it makes me know as a
citizen of People's Republic of China. So if someone get my passport, they will
know that it belongs to a Chinese guy.
In the passport, I have the VISA for the United States, which means I am authorized by the ambassy to come to this country during a certain period. Also, an I-94 from is stampled to this passport, meaning that I passed the custom of the United States after a proper process.

From all over the above, I think my passport will tell people who I am, where I come from and the exact time period I can stay in this country.

In Class: Public Space Analysis-Pathos

I am thinking of the small building of Bank Of American near the campus.
I think emotion is one part of human nature. Emotion can be identified by their action, expression, the words or phrases they use.

Since I might write about a bank retailer, I'd like to observe more the customers rather than the conducters cause when it comes to money, the problem or conversation become sensetive.
People cares about their money. Where are they flowing to, when did they transfered in or out?
Students cares because they were sponsered by other people, Business people cares because they may be dealing with a great deal of money for public using, etc.

When I finished observing the customers, I can get better point of writing about the place.

In Class: Pathos Artifact

Here I broght a picture of a man who was buried under a big brick or a collapsed wall.
I can't tell what exactly that is because this is a real photo taken in Sichuan, China, when the terrible earthquake happened.
The man's face is twisting and he could only hold his body with his own hand. His face was totally covered by dust and mud.
He opened his eyes wide so that he can stay awake, otherwise the rescueing team would not find him because there were so many people under the messed buildings, waiting for being saved, he was just one of them. His hands, arms, legs were all bleeding.

I picked this picture as my artifact of pathos because it really arouse my emotion once I saw it.
It shows that the earthquake was a great disaster and also reflect that people has the Spirit to search for the hope to survive.

The picture is not colored, which is really heart touching and shows a historical meaning.

Response to the BP commercial

The speech of Iris Cross, the woman in the commercial shows several kinds of arguments:

Arguments to inform; Arguments to convince; Arguments about the pas/present/future; Invitational Arguments; Rogerian Arguments.

1. Arguments to inform: At first, Iris introduced the BP Company, the purpose of the company, the detailed work of herself and their service area. Such as: “my job is to listen to the fisherman, the hotel and restaurant workers and find ways to help” and “we have 19 centers in 4 states”. These statements declared several facts about the nature of the BP Company. I personally think that she did well in informing the audiences. Also, the underlying messages showed some information for audience to check and contact.

2. Arguments to convince: Iris gave out several evidence, both visual and verbal to support the idea that BP Company is really helping out and it is trying its best to improve the oil spilling working. Also, when Iris said that she was born in New Orleans, she was trying to prove that other BP workers are just like her, are just normal and native people. We can also consider this as ethical appeals since it also showed the women’s credibility.

3. Arguments about the past/present/future: In this commercial, Iris told us how bad environment used to be and how BP was going to turn into in the future. At present, the BP crew are trying to make the situation of the oil spill better. However, I can’t see a great effectiveness in this argument because other people’s initial idea might be different from what Iris said.

4. Invitational Arguments: Even Iris did not say the aspiration that the audience take part in the BP programmes, but the website and the telephone number shown at the bottom of the screen implicitly declared this wish. The speaker wants the audience to join and be active. Even I think this point is not so clear in the commercial.

5. Rogerian Argument: Rogerian argument is based to find a common ground between the speaker and the audience, and to keep things none threatening. And in this commercial, Iris was trying to tell us that she is a normal person like all of the audience by saying that she was born in New Orleans and her family was still there. By doing so, she was making a common ground between her and audiences, especially the native people who lives near the gulf. In this way, the people might be activated and start up to contribute to the BP or oil spilling programmes.

In Class: Brainstorming about picking a space for Essay 1

From what I got in the class, I think that I need to first think of what exact I want to research on and then pick up a certain public space for my first essay.

In class I got an idea of some character of the public space I need to pick. It needs to be open for everyone and it's better to be used as a materia if it has a certain function. So I am considering the TCU theatre, the grocery Kroger which lies near the campus and the small building of BOA which I usually go to.
Also, I have some other place that I have never been to but I'd like to go, such as a classic western style bar or a Frech Cafe. Since I do not have a car, I need to figure out some way to go there.

However, I don't really get the idea about the visual argument. Like Miss Irvin said in class, an ad or a menu? I know they are arguments since I've read the book. But I am really confused about what to write about the visual argument. Do we need to give evidence to prove something from these argument? Or we just need to point it out without any other description on them?
I am feeling lost about this.

In Class: First Week of School

This is the first week of school in TCU.

I am now in sophomore of TCU, so everything seems great when I came back, especially after the tiring journey from my hometown, China.

I noticed that for the new semester, there is a new baverage machine in Market Square. It feels wonderful that I can choose 106 kinds of drinks, which means at least I will use three months to taste them all. Wow...

However, the classes became harder and more challenging. The most painful activity would be the shopping in the book store, which makes me feel like that I am a fish on a chop board. Every book seller can just give me a slash on my body. That doesn't feel good. At last, I decided to share the book with my best friend, Mark, since he has three classes with me. I have heard the phrase "car pooling" from last semester, but I am not sure whether there is such a thing named "book pooling" in English, which happened on myself.


TCU is really a famous school of Business and this fact makes it really hard to enter Neeley School of Business, I think I must try my best to be one of the fellows of Neeley.

God BLESS ME.

First Entry For 20803 Class

My name is Shuai Yuan.


I am a sophomore in TCU, business major. I come from China.



I chose this Class because I like to read and write since I was very young.

Writing can create the imagination of my own. Also, it is a required course in my college academic life. From this class, I want to know more about the skills in writing and communicate with other people through my article.
After this class, I want to be more confident and satisfied with my writing. I want my argument articles to be much more formal but still have the attraction for the readers.


In college I have to write a lot paper. And last year I was in 10803 class, that was a great memory about writing because I can finnally write some thing that I really want to write about.
For example, I interviewed an experienced chief in Dallas and I did a great essay on him. It is about the interviews, telling the story about him. That was my first time to try to reach something really similar to a biography.

Out of class, I like to write short stories and novels about ancient China. The fight and the battle between kindoms. And I also liked to read them. Every time when I was writing the stories, the characters and the plot arouse me.

For this blog, as a carrier of arguements. I think a blog is a stage for the blog author to lay out facts that he/she met in his/her own life, after comparing them, the author gives out his/her own idea and then publish it for readers to read, think, connect and judge or remain silence.
For the color, if the color is really dark, it might means that the author is not in a good emotion or means that the author is taking the blog as an serious thing. On the other hand, if the color is bright, it may means that the author is optimistic and welcome all the readers.
When it comes to the song or the picture or the font, it may just represent the author's personality and personal favorites.



To Miss Irvin, I have already read through the course syllabus and I do understand and agree to the terms of the syllabus.