CHRIS O’CONNELLMULTI-GENRE PROJECTPROFESSOR BECKELHIMERINTERMEDIATE COMPOSTITIONENGL2089HFALL 2014

CHRIS O’CONNELLMULTI-GENRE PROJECTPROFESSOR BECKELHIMERINTERMEDIATE COMPOSTITIONENGL2089HFALL 2014

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Overpopulation is a topic that I explored and analyzed within my Primary Text-Based Research Essay. Originally, I explored the topic of overpopulation in my Exploratory Essay as I was trying to explain the biological necessity of death. I decided to pursue the topic further because I felt that this was a topic that a lot of human problems can be traced back to, whether or not it is true that the world is overpopulated. It’s no use denying that humans have made an impact on our planet, but to what degree and importance is not always agreed on.

While conducting research, I had expected the general consensus to be that the planet does have too many people on it, but I found a lot of varying credible opinions on the topic, a lot of them more hopeful that pessimistic. What I also found is that there is a varying degree of subtlety in discourse surrounding overpopulation. Some statements were solely about how many people can physically fit on one planet, while some were more subtle, such as a debate about birth control.

My goal with these genres is to capture that varying subtlety, along with varying messages, varying degrees of persuasion, and varying audiences.

The three genres include a poster, an tabloid article, and a Twitter page.

The poster is aimed at college students and would be hung up somewhere on a college campus to inform students of healthy life choices for the environment. As college students begin to live on their own and develop living habits that will stick with them for the rest of their life, it is important for them to receive this message. This poster is meant to persuade a person to make certain decisions about their living habits, and it does so by using both facts and humor. College students are generally receptive of humor, and humor aids memory. The poster doesn’t address the question of whether or not the world actually is overpopulated, but it does attempt to solve some of the problems that an overpopulated world would cause.

The tabloid is aimed at a homeowner, as it addresses American housing trends. This is a fictional article set in 2024, written as though millions of suburban families have packed their bags and moved into an urban environment. The hypothetical audience also lives in 2024, so to them, this article is nonfiction. This article is not persuasive, but is subjective and merely informative. One of the subjects that came up in a personal interview during the Text-Based Essay is “denser is actually better,” so I wanted to explore what would happen if entire suburban populations moved into cities.

The Twitter page is the least subtle of the genres in it’s up-front manner of communicating it’s message. On Twitter, you only get 140 characters to speak your message, so tweets have to get right to the point. There are a lot of people, specifically younger people, who follow a lot of activist groups on Twitter, in order to stay up-to-date with current events and issues, or for motivation to act. The rhetorical features of this genre include facts and pictures, as well as testimonials in the form of “retweets” by other reputable organizations.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Choose Your Future - A Poster for a College Campus4

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Losantiville Times - Suburban Decline: Why Americans are Ditching the Suburbs and Moving to Cities

@overpopulation

Conclusion

Works Cited

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AFTER YOU GRADUATE, WHICH WORLD WILL YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE IN?

UTOPIASustainable Materials:

When buying a product, pay attention to the packaging it is soldin. Cheaper products tend to have less sustainable packaging, like unrecyclable plastic. But instead of buying potato chips, buysome potatoes and make your own chips in the oven!

Want to turn the world into a toxic trash slurry uninhabitableto humans? Easy! Keep buying those disposal products that

you just use once and throw away!

Do you love soda, put don’t have a recycling bin outside yourapartment? No problem! Just throw the aluminum cans in the

trash! Manufacturers can make new ones for only 2000% ofthe energy it takes to recycle old cans!

Salmon, pork, cheese, and beef are foods that release themost greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But you’reokay with wrecking the planet, because you love bacon.

And the Earth has in�nite resources, right?

Drive a gas guzzling truck. Doesn’t that make you feel soAmerican? Don’t carpool. You wouldn’t want your friends ruining the awesomeness of your new SUV, would you?

That SUV will surely come in handy when you have totrek the wasteland that will become of Earth if you don’t

change your habits.

Make sure you know the recycling rules in your area, which canbe found online on your city’s website.

An even better alternative to recyling is upcycling. About to pitchthat empty peanut butter jar? Put some �owers in it. That’s one less vase that has to be manufactured.

Every product can have a second life. You can make a house outof cans and bottles you would have thrown away. You wouldn’t even have to get a job because of all the money you’d save!

Lentils, beans, tofu, tomatoes, and 2 percent milk are all foods thathave very low greenhouse emissions.

The most ef�cient form of human locomotion is riding a bike, but in certain situations, a bike isn’t practical, such as when travelinglong distances. Living in an urban area with everything centrallylocated saves money and cuts down on pollution.

If you’re going really far, instead of taking an airplane that burnshundreds of gallons of fuel, take a train!

Chances are the food you are eating takes a long journey from the�eld to the factory to the store to your fridge. Cut out the middleman and grow your own food at home!

How to Recycle:

How to Save Money and the Planet:

How to get from here to there: Let’s Burn Dinosaurs:

How to be Apathetic:

How Not to Recycle:

Unsustainable Materials:

WASTELAND

TRANSIT

FOOD

PRODUCTS

CHOOSE YOUR FUTURE

Tuesday, November 18th 2024

A mostly abandoned suburb in Laketown, MI

Sunset Shopping mall in Qarth, now abandoned

Zombies in China?See page 4

Serving Losantiville and the Surrounding Metropolitan Area

WASTELANDWHY AMERICANS ARE DITCHING THE SUBURBS AND MOVING TO CITIES

LOSANTIVILLE TIMES

SUBURBAN DECLINE

It’s happening all over the country. Suburban residences are being abandoned as more and more Americans are moving from backyards and garages to �ats and public transit. In Laketown, MI, a residence that has dropped in population by almost 50% of what it was in 2013, resident Gerry Hope is one of the few neighbors left on his street. “�en Ann Arbor started upgrading its public transit, with both the Arbor Bike Share and the upgraded hybrid busses, people started moving there. It was cheaper,” Gerry told Losantiville. �ese upgrades were part of an initiative to boost Ann Arbor’s economy, funded by a few large donations from city philanthropists. It seemed like the perfect timing for many residents living in the surrounding area com-muting to the jobs in the city, as gas prices had raised up to six dollars per gallon.

Cities like Laketown are becoming ghost towns. �e rivalry between Laketown West and Laketown East high schools has been dissolved, as the two schools have become

one “Laketown High School,” located in the Laketown West building, while Laketown East is being used by the district as a storage facility.

Laketown is only one example of a town that has been shocked by the decreasing availablity of resources. Residents of Qarth, GA were forced to move to Altanta during a food shortage in 2016, when local grocery stores started running out of stock. Mayor John Siebel told residents in a public message that “the paradigm shift in America is changing, and cities need to be more accommodating.” �e increased population in cities has boosted city economies enough for them to develop in population-accommodation.

Citizens who make the move don’t seem to miss what they left. Bryan Cranton, former resident of Qarth told us, “I used to miss the peace and quiet of suburbs, but I installed some sound-proo�ng foam in my apartment that makes it pretty quiet. Everything is located so close to me, so I can walk everywhere, and I take the bike 2 miles to work, so I’d say life is much better here.”

In Conclusion

These genres represent the varying degree of subtlety in sources I’ve found concerning overpopulation in the way that they answer the question, “Is the World Overpopulated?” The poster, by addressing concerns such as greenhouse emissions, limited resources, and human-produced trash, does not explicitly claim to have an opinion on that question. However, if everyone in America did the things written on the left side of the poster, overpopulation would not be such an imporatant topic.

The poster employs irony that someone in higher education would appreciate. On the right side of the poster, there are commands that tell the reader to do things that are obviously bad for the environment, and would probably not do them if someone told them in that manner, but may do in everyday life simply because they don’t know better. This causes the reader to see themselves in the commands given

The images on the poster allow readers to see the end-goal of living by the suggestions and commands of each “future.” This adds to the persuasiveness of the message, as most people are drawn to Utopian futures (perhaps minus a few anarchists, but they’re in the minority).

As the world gets more populated and we continue to use more non-renewable resources, people will most likely have to adapt. That’s what the tabloid addresses. The idea behind this feaux news story is that in 2024 gas prices will skyrocket and those who can’t afford hybrid cars will relocate to cities in order to live comfortably without regularly using a car.

This article utilizes some rhetorical features that are common to newspaper articles. Interviews are used to show the opinions of those who are closest to the action, which in this case are a man whose neighbors moved to the city and a man who made the move himself. These appeal to the reader, who can empathize with common-folk much better than with a reporter’s retelling of a story. Another feature of this genre is the pictures. One picture shows an abandoned shopping mall, and the other a decaying suburban neighborhood. This is meant to evoke emotion in the reader, because shopping malls are normally places that give people memories of their childhood.

The Twitter feed is the most obvious in the way that is answers the question “Is the World Overpopulated?” Not only does it broadcast it’s opinion on the subject, but it’s sole purpose is to give examples to support that opinion. The organizaton’s belief is that everyone is reponsible for overpopulation, so the intended audience would ideally be everyone. Of course, it would probably only reach people with internet access and who use social media. The thing that makes social media so powerful in its information sharing capabilities is the fact that you can cross-share postings. So someone can repost a “tweet” in another space, like Facebook or Tumblr, and increase the number of people who will potentially see such content.

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Works Cited

Russock, Caroline. “The Best and Worst Foods for the Environment.” IVillage. IVillage, Inc, 20 July 2011. Web. 19 Nov. 2014. <http://www.ivillage.com/best-and-worst-foods- environment/3-a-365920>.

“Global Carbon Emissions.” CO2Now.org. Pro Oxygen, 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2014. <http://co2now. org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/global-carbon-emissions.html>.

Turgeon, Andrew. “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” National Geographic. Ed. Caryl-Sue. National Geographic Society, 2012. Web. 17 Nov. 2014. <http://education.nationalgeographic.com/ education/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1>.

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