Critique anyone?

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Hey guys, while it may not be "in topic" for a gaming forum, I just wanted to get some reactions/opinions on this.

I'm writing a research paper (which will serve as a final exam for the class) and just wanted to hear how its going thus far (It's just an intro, the thesis statement is at the end):
(Please keep in mind that I'm merely a sophomore college student and that this paper is for a "business writing class")


The word “advertise” was derived from the 14th century French word, advertiss , meaning “to take notice of” (Harper, 2001). This is what advertisements do; they make people take notice of something. Now, more than ever, the purpose of advertisements is to make consumers take notice of products or services available to them. In such a competitive profession, advertisers need to constantly think of new ways to catch a person’s attention and pique their interest. Some advertisers use flashy text and bright colors to catch a person’s attention, while some advertisers prefer more subdued color schemes. Some advertisers like to take surveys for particular target markets, while some advertisers use catchy phrases and slogans. Other advertisers just use sex. Recent years have shown that using sex in advertising has proven to be both highly effective as well as highly controversial. It has proven an invaluable tool to the advertising industry in the promotion of goods and services. However, no success ever comes for free. Although the use of sexual content in advertising is highly effective, it is detrimental to society in the long run because it creates and enforces erroneous stereotypes and desensitizes society to sex.


awright, thats it, let the slamming begin hehe. no need to be particularly kind, as long as the criticism is constructive and will do something other than bruise my ego. hehe. thanks to anyone that takes the time.

 

er, im afraid that it is the latter. I was planning on using the "Christian School Teaching" angle that women aren't supposed to be objectified and that sex is supposed to be sacred. Also, I was planning on going on this tack: because it does in fact create and enforce erroneous stereotypes and desensitize society to sex, it's a factor in the population explosion and the increase in sex crimes (I was able to find some cases) and is because of this, detrimental to society. or something along those lines..

 

Yeah, I think that would probably be better... or, alternatively, (if my d*mn teacher wont let me alter it that much) do you think it would work if i made it: "Although the use of sexual content in advertising is highly effective, it is, from the christian point of view, detrimental to society in the long run because it creates and enforces erroneous stereotypes and desensitizes society to sex.

Seeing as most(?) of the world is christian and im studying in a christian university, this may work but do you think that this is making the paper too subjective or restricted?

 

Exelent... I will steal this in the event of myself ever having to write an essay like this...

 

@BTA

I tried opting for just dropping that line, but my teacher wouldn't let me. The concession I was able to get was to rephrase the thesis statement as:
Although the use of sexual content in advertising is highly effective, it is detrimental to the development of children because it creates and enforces erroneous stereotypes and desensitizes society to sex.

again, it's basically the same problem because it's taken for granted that the objectification of women and a casual attitude towards sex is, in fact, detrimental for children, but if it works for her haha.

 

If I was you I would toss in a few "may"'s and "might"'s there. It is never good to state something as a fact even if you would have some backing, especially not something like this. To say that the sun is bright you can do but you cant say for example that playing video games makes you stupid. Even if there would happen to be a study about it.

 

but isn't taking a definite stand the purpose of a thesis statement? wouldn't throwing in words that allude to uncertainty be tantamount to undermining my whole position?

 

In this case, Enagonios, you can not take a definite stand because humans are not all the same in the reguard you are talking about. Sure, if you stab a human it will bleed, but not every human will be desensitized to sex by viewing it in advertising. Simply put, when dealing with science and physics you can take a definite stand, but when dealing with sociology you can almost never.

Not to mention, what someone views to be 'detrimental to the development of children' could be completely different to someone else's view. To make such a bold statement as you are doing is basically saying that any advertisement that contains a sexually desireable woman is 'detrimental to the development of children because it creates and enforces erroneous stereotypes and desensitizes society to sex'. By slipping the words 'might', 'may', 'can' and 'has a high chance of' you give yourself leeway.

 

hrm, i get your points. i guess it'd probably be better if i dropped the whole bit about it being detrimental (too subjective) and put a "may" before desensitize? because the stereotypes are a fact, regardless of varying opinions

 

I have been taught that the weasel words are a must if you write anything which cannot be proven without any uncertainties. The most definite stance you can take is something of the lines of "according to study X people who play videogames are more violent than those who dont".

If you on the other hand are writing about what happen when you put a piece of paper in fire you can state things as a fact as people can easily reproduce the experiment. The reader cannot reproduce a study involving millions of videogamers to check out your assertations for himself.

 

Well, I think you've done a good job on defining advertisement. But what's sex ? Seriously, what's the defintion of sex ? Brittney Spear's table dancing or John Wayne showing of his bum in tight jeans riding into the sunset ? Vivien Leigh, hottest babe of her time? What is perceived as sex, are you restricting sex to visible skin of women (some cm2 of her leg abov her feet maybe?) or is the showing of the contoure of the body alone enough to constitute sex? Lipstick ?

Actually seen something with a similar topic on TV. It was about different taboos in Latin-America, North-America and Europe concerning advertisement. It was linked to some advertisment price-gathering and the mentioned taboos amongst others included sex (and I just wondered what would me make watch stuff like that) and was about a research they did, about what hampers the launching of one single advertising campaign for products on a global scale. And the conclusion was, advertisment plays with taboos, but those three continents differ largely in the taboo area. And what's just right for one is wrong for the other two. It had nothing about potential damage on society in it, just that test-viewers would get upset by seeing some stuff while being attracted to other stuff others then would be upset about.

So, that's why they have to hire three different high-priced models instead of one and making one package for all. Too bad.. I mean.. no.

That is of no importance for your paper I guess, but maybe if you could find it, it propably would contain stuff about the usage of sex in advertisment.

Edit: Add, I've been taught the same as Joacqin. Particularly in natural scince even more then in social science. They always have that "theory" put after everything, because in the end, nearly nothing is proven. I've been told, it's not too easy to get a sun imploding in a labaratory or recreate the way fossil fuels came to be. Or moving continets to prove plate-tectonics.

 

thanks guys, i decided to go with the last one that i posted:
Although the use of sexual content in advertising is highly effective, it is detrimental to the development of children because it creates and enforces erroneous stereotypes and desensitizes society to sex.
my teacher seems to accept my "detrimental to the development of children" at face value, so I figure I'd better stick with it. Also, I agree with BTA that a thesis statement has to take a definite stand. I realize the difficulty in making such an assertion (thesis statement); that this couldn't possibly encompass every person in the world, but then again (with the exception of scientific truths: gravity, mortality and the like) what statements CAN apply to all people? anyways, she gave me a 96/100 in the last paper (it was a critique of a scholarly journal) so im hoping it will extend to this paper as its serving as the final exam. planning to finish it tonight so i can study for accounting tomorrow. the hassles of a student's existence haha

@Iago
point taken, i more or less defined "sex" as iamges or text that were suggestive of, well, sex, so that i could use a wider variety of examples and not be limited to ads with half-naked men/women on them.

 

You sure about "advertiss"? As French is derived from badly pronounced rural Latin, mediaeval French infinitives are bound to have some sort of "ire", "ir", "er", "ere", "are" as a suffix unless there was a habit of omitting those in the 14th century specifically, but I'm not aware of any such habit.

 

the site i acquired the info at put down the transition of the word, but this point in the transition, "advertiss" in the Medieval French era, was the most appropriate form to use for my purposes. Earlier translations of advertise meant "warning" apparently.

 

That's quite weird because "iss" is nowhere near to French infinitive suffix. Perhaps they got a conjugated form and didn't bother thinking about it? You know, there are people who don't realise there are languages with verbs that conjugate.