Time Magazine: "Stick and Stones:" Does Facebook and Twitter Give Bullying More Power?

http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/22/sticks-and-stones-does-facebook-and-twitter-give-bullying-more-power/print/

This article, written by Alexandra Sifferlin from Time Magazine, looks upon our social media world today through the lens of bullying. To begin, she highlights an argument in a book called "Sticks and Stones" claiming that the Internet has spun bullying out of control. She then continues to support this claim through a recent study at Duke University that mentions how being bullied as a child can be severe even in the future to a victim, possibly causing psychiatric issues. After analyzing some more evidence to bullying being problematic in the future and interviews with the author of "Sticks and Stones," the author leaves us with some advice on how we can protect our children against the emerging issue of cyberbullying.

Sifferlin is a graduate from Northwestern and is a current writer and producer for Time Magazine's Healthland. This article revolves around a prevalent issue in our country, emphasizing cyberbullying as a increasingly detrimental problem in society. Sifferlin's purpose is to argue that cyberbullying is not stressed enough in our culture. In order to get her claim across to her audience of adults with children, she both uses practical evidence from studies and ends with speaking directly to her audience. More importantly, Sifferlin slowly shifts from general, logical evidence to a more personal, one-on-one tone. She uses the mindset of the reader to her advantage: first, she convinces them that cyberbullying is a major problem toward young children; then she mom's perspective of bullying to connect with the audience; finally, she leaves the reader with parental advice on how to have your kids avoid this issue. This creates a very reinforced argument that is sure to have an effect on the author's audience.

iWoz: Chapters 1-3

    This book is an autobiography on Steve Wozniak, the multi-millionaire most known for being co-founder of Apple with Steve Jobs. The story has so far only described his early years and childhood, further detailed through stories about his family and lifestyle. For example, when he and his friends were eleven years old growing up in Silicon Valley, they formed a group called the Electronics Kids. Since most of the group members had fathers that were engineers or mechanics, they had background knowledge on how to build cables and microphones. Therefore, they decided to build a secret intercom system connecting six houses together in order to plan out when they would sneak out of their rooms at night. When the idea was finally brought to life, they bought toilet paper to throw at girls' houses.
   Wozniak states his purpose very plainly on the cover of the book: "How I invented the personal computer, co-founded Apple, and had fun doing it." Other than illustrating his purpose in the subtitle of the book, the straightforward wording also alludes to a rhetorical device that the author uses: simplicity. Both in terms of vocabulary and descriptive language, Wozniak's simplicity conveys to his audience of Apple users and future engineers that he is not hiding his message behind complex rhetoric or detail. In other words, the author is using a lack of rhetoric as a rhetorical strategy. With regard to accomplishing his purpose, Wozniak uses accounts from his life, such as the Electronics Kids mentioned earlier, to connect to his audience and establish ethos. Fortunately, the author does not have to work that hard to establish ethos, since anyone buying the book probably knows who Steve Wozniak is. 

Ambler Gazette: Whitpain inventor flips the horizontal game of chess to vertical

http://www.montgomerynews.com/articles/2013/02/10/ambler_gazette/news/doc51088d2e92133704120510.txt?viewmode=fullstory

This local article highlights a Blue Bell inventor named Steve Bailey. Based on Bailey's "stand-up" habits, he developed a new approach to the classic game of chess. Instead of using a board that sits horizontally on a table, he made a prototype that is built into the wall, stood up vertically, and magnetically attracted to the pieces. Bailey describes how it could be used in bars, possibly used similarly to a dartboard. He is currently using websites such as kickstarter.com and quirky.com to get his idea out to the public, finance his manufacturing endeavors, and further improve his idea. The invention is currently patent pending.
The source of this article was Montgomerynews.com, which is a local website dedicated to news in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. This particular article was published on this website from the Ambler Gazette. Gary Puleo, the author of the article, has written for the Times Herald and the Ambler Gazette for over 20 years. The audience of this article includes the regular Ambler Gazette readers, more specifically those who like to read pieces about unique ideas. The context is the emerging ways to start a business and get your ideas out to the public, and the purpose is to highlight and inform the readers about this phenomenon. A prominent stylistic trait in this article is the language the author uses to keep the article interesting. For example, if the reader was not very interested in chess to begin with, the author incorporated business, financial, military aspects to the story to keep it appealing to a widespread audience. It is hard to say without bias whether the author accomplished this, since I was hooked with the mention of chess in the first place. However, I believe the author did accomplish his main purpose by describing the up-and-coming new ways to conduct business through the Internet.

ABC News: School Turnarounds Prompt Community Backlash

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/school-turnarounds-prompt-community-backlash-18392068

This article adresses and analyzes the limited success of the "School Turnaround" initiative all across the country. First, it describes several complaints from African-american and Hispanic families that the Department of Education civil rights office has stepped in to investigate (Ambler, PA being one of them). Next, it delves into the question that faces many large school systems in the country: How should the problem be fixed? The two main competing arguments, with a sweeping statement, are extensive, radical change versus slight tweaking. More specifically, the advocates for large changes in the school systems argue for changes in the school structure, replacing over 50% of staff, or turning the school to a different charter; advocates for smaller changes support ideas such as developing new learning strategies and investing into new technology. President Obama's school improvement program that went into effect in 2010 includes options from the school to choose from both sides of the spectrum. Lastly, the article analyzes the "mixed" results from this renewed program.

Written by Christina Hoag from the Associated Press, this article is intended to be read by ABC News's audience because it is the top story under the "education" page. The purpose of this article is to inform the public of the ongoing education problem around the country as well as introduce the public to opinions to judge for themselves. In order to accomplish this goal, the author established her credibility in the piece by mentioning the positions of or citing quotes from various figures in the issue, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Similarly, the author stays in an objective tone because she does want to intrude the informative article with her own personal opinions. If Hoag breaks this objectivity, it would de-establish the articles credibility, ruining her goal. However, she did not, so she is very effective in bringing her point across to readers.