Critical Response #3 9-19-07

So this time around, I have decided to blog about the critical analysis paper and kind of try to get my thoughts organized and such. For my topic, I have decided to write about our nation's new found addiction with caffeine and the potential harm it can cause. I also want to address the advertisement aspect and the role that it has played in the addiction. I am going to use two articles for my paper and will be taking the same stance on both. The stance that I plan on taking is that the two articles were very effective in conveying to the readers just how popular caffiene drinks have become and the dangers that go along with it, but there were a couple of things that could have been added or discussed more to make the articles even stronger.
The first point that I plan to address is the author's use of rhetorical strategies such as ethos and pathos. Both articles use statistics in them concerning dietary facts about the eneregy drinks and statements given by doctors about different cases they have had concerning overdoses on caffiene. By including these things in their articles, they are increasing their ethos with the reader. One of the articles used pathos really well. The author presented real life situations that teenagers had experienced, such as overdosing, and while this may not appeal to the teenagers, it will definately appeal to the parents.
The second point I want to discuss is the health issues that come along with drinking massive amounts of caffeine. I want to include this in my paper because I am a health fitness major so it interests me and it is also good information to share with the public because a lot of people on a college campus do drink energy drinks like they are water. The third point that I am going to talk about is how i felt that both articles could have made their arguments a lot stronger if they really would have gone more in depth with how much effect the media and advertisement has on this new trend. It was briefly mentioned in both articles, but not enough to really be bothered with. In this paragraph, to show how it would have strengthened their article I plan on discussing the effect of media and advertising.
Somehow I plan on integrating Postman into this paper, I just really haven't found what I want to use yet, but once I find what I want to use, that will be another point/paragraph of my paper.