Monday, August 25, 2008

“Won’t You Be My Friendser?” 6

Identify Wurster’s use of a specific example in paragraph 5. What does it contribute to her argument?

4 comments:

Young Eui Hong said...

Wurster states: "I had met a handful of possible new pals and had joined a volunteer group in my city that runs an after-school program for disadvantaged children." The author had a positive experience in her life through this networking site, which was helping disadvantaged children. Wurster's argument in general is that social-network sites are beneficial. With this real-life experience, the author creates a strong and convincing proof, making her argument more credible since the network was applied positively in the real life outside of the computer.

dani.k said...

The fact that she had personally been invited to an event online, and in attending the event she not only met potential friends, but had joined a volunteer group that helps disadvantaged children in her community adds support and veridity for her opinion of sites like Facebook and Myspace. In a way, she is using pathos; notice that the group she is volunteering for does not help any kind of children, they help disadvantaged children. This allures the public into making a connection, for example “Oh! If I join Facebook or Myspace, I’m going to make new friends, and I’ll become a better person!”, or on commenting on her experiences something between the lines of “wow, she really has done so much good just by taking a second look at sites like those!”. By adding a personal experience, she also appears to know what she's talking about. She is not saying something for the heck of it, but because she knows it to be true.

Da-Re Kim said...

On paragraph 5, Wurster talks about her own experience when she got invited to an event fromt the social-network sites. During the event, the author met great new people and got involved with a great program that helps children. By this event the author was able to share her experience with other friends. The author's experience shows how these sites expand social opportunities not only in the computer but also in the real world.

Unknown said...

Wurster uses the example of nonvirtual events to show how social-networking is not limited or restricted to socializing through the internet. She uses the specific example of her experience with meeting and making new friends and how the private listening party she attended through an online friend allowed her to join a volunteer group in her city that ran after-school programs for the disadvantaged children. With the example of charity work, she has the sympathy of the audience to at least consider the positive views of social networking and perhaps experiment by becoming a social-networker.