McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
An independent clause has a subject, a verb, and is a complete thought:
My elastic waistband makes me feel older than I am.
My encounter with the great white shark compelled me to quit surfing.
Larding my pizza with hundreds of toppings makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
A dependent clause has a subject, a verb, and is an imcomplete thought because it has what is called a subordinate conjunction or connecting word.
Because my elastic waistband makes me feel old
Although my elastic waistband makes feel old
Whenever I eat triple-sausage pesto pizza
Although I have a fondness for deep purple
A phrase, like a dependent clause, is an incomplete sentence, but a phrase has neither a subject or a verb.
In front of the restaurant plaza by the Italian fountains
In order to understand Viktor Frankl's principle of meaning as the antidote to the existential vacuum
In spite of my fondness for deep purple
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.
Critical Thinking Is Taking Opinions and Turning Them into Arguments
Why Argumentation Is Relevant
You make arguments for daily life problems all the time:
Should I go on Diet X or is this diet just another futile fad like all the other diets I’ve gone on?
Should I buy a new car or is my old car fine but I’m looking for attention and a way to alleviate my boredom, so I’m looking for the drama of a colossal purchase, which will be the source of conversations with others? In other words, am I looking for false connection through my rampant consumerism?
Should I break up with my girlfriend to give me more time to study and give me the “alone time” I need, or continue navigating that precarious balance between the demands of my job, my academic load, and my capricious, rapacious, overbearing, manipulative, emotionally needy girlfriend? (here the answer is embedded in the question)
Should I upgrade my phone to the latest generation to get all the new apps or am I just jealous that all my friends are upgrading and I fear they’ll leave me out of their social circle if I’m languishing with an outdated smartphone?
Should I go to Cal State and graduate with 20K debt or go to that prestigious private college that gives my résumé more punch on one hand but leaves me with over 100K in debt on the other?
Do I really want to get married under the age of thirty or am I just jealous of all the expensive presents my brother got after he got married?
Whether you are defining an argument for your personal life or for an academic paper, you are using the same skills: critical analysis, defining the problem, weighing different types of evidence against each other; learning to respond to a problem intellectually rather than emotionally; learning to identify possible fallacies and biases in your thinking that might lead you down the wrong path, etc.
We live in a win-lose culture that emphasizes the glory of winning and the shame of defeat. In politics, we speak of winning or losing behind our political leaders and their political agendas. But this position is doltish, barbaric, and often self-destructive.
Many times, we argue or I should say we should argue because we want to reach a common understanding. “Sometimes the goal of an argument is to identify a problem and suggest solutions that could satisfy those who hold a number of different positions on an issue” (8) Sometimes the solution for a problem is to make a compromise. For example, let's say students want more organic food in the college cafeteria but the price is triple for these organic foods and only one percent of the student body can afford these organic foods. Perhaps a compromise is to provide less processed, sugar-laden foods with fresh fruits and vegetables, which are not organic but at least provide more healthy choices.
Your aim is not to win or lose in your argument but be effective in your ability to persuade. Persuasion refers to how a speaker or writer influences an audience to adopt a belief or to follow a course of action.
Three Means of Persuasion
According to Aristotle, there are three means of persuasion that a speaker or writer can use to persuade his audience:
The appeal of reason and logic: logos
The appeal of emotions: pathos
The appeal of authority: ethos
Smoking will compromise your immune system and make you more at risk for cancer; therefore, logic, or logos, dictates that you should quit smoking.
If you die of cancer, you will be abandoning your family when they need you most; therefore an emotional appeal, or pathos, dictates that you quit smoking.
The surgeon general has warned you of the hazards of smoking; therefore the credibility of an authority or expert dictates that you quit smoking. If the writer lacks authority or credibility, he is often well served to draw upon the authority of someone else to support his argument.
The Rhetorical Triangle Connects All the Persuasive Methods
Logos, reason and logic, focuses on the text or the substance of the argument.
Ethos, the credibility or expertise from the writer, focuses on the writer.
Pathos, the emotional appeal, focuses on the emotional reaction of the audience.
The Elements of Argument
Thesis Statement (single sentence that states your position or claim)
Evidence (usually about 75% of your body paragraphs)
Refutation of opposing arguments or objections to your claim (usually about 25% of your body paragraphs)
Concluding statement (dramatic restatement of your thesis, which often also shows the broader implications of your important message).
Thesis
Thesis is one sentence that states your position about an issue.
Thesis example: Increasing the minimum wage to eighteen dollars an hour, contrary to “expert” economists, will boost the economy.
The above assertion is an effective thesis because it is debatable; it has at least two sides.
Thesis: We should increase the minimum wage to boost the economy.
Antithesis: Increasing the minimum wage will slow down the economy.
Evidence
Evidence is the material you use to make your thesis persuasive: facts, observations, expert opinion, examples, statistics, reasons, logic, and refutation.
Refutation
Your argument is only as strong as your understanding of your opponents and your ability to refute your opponents’ objections.
If while examining your opponents’ objections, you find their side is more compelling, you have to CHANGE YOUR SIDE AND YOUR THESIS because you must have integrity when you write. There is no shame in this. Changing your position through research and studying both sides is natural.
Conclusion
Your concluding statement reinforces your thesis and emphasizes the emotional appeal of your argument.
Learn to Identify the Elements of Argument in an Essay by Using Critical Thinking Skills
To read critically, we have to do the following:
One. Comprehend the author's purpose and meaning, which is expressed in the claim or thesis
Two. Examine the evidence, if any, that is used
Three. Find emotional appeals, if any, that are used
Four. Identify analogies and comparisons and analyze their legitimacy
Five. Look at the topic sentences to see how the author is building his or her claim
Six. Look for the appeals the author uses be they logic (logos), emotions (pathos), or authority (ethos).
Seven. Is the author's argument diminished by logical fallacies?
Eight. Do you recognize any bias in the essay that diminishes the author's argument?
Nine. Do we bring any prejudice that may compromise our ability to evaluate the argument fairly?
Introduction, Chapters 1 and 2
Essay Three: The Culture Code
Option A
One camp believes Rapaille is a marketing genius who uses invaluable psychological insights to gain codes that unlock the power of consumerism and as a result he is worth is huge asking price as a consultant. However, another camp esteems Rapaille as little more than a fraud who recycles the same archetypal “codes” and stereotypes and as a result he has no “secret sauce” to make him worth all the money he makes. In a 1,000-word essay, typed and double-spaced, support, refute, or complicate one of the assertions above.
Be sure to use Toulmin model of argumentation and have a Works Cited page with no fewer than three sources.
Option B
In a 1,000 word essay, compare Clotaire Rapaille's vision of an adolescent America with Joseph Epstein's similar vision in his essay "The Perpetual Adolescent." Be sure to follow comparison essay guidelines for structure and transitions.
Study Questions
One. Why is it a mistake to listen to what people say they want in marketing focus groups?
Because people lie or are self-deluded.
Most importantly, though, because people don’t know what they want consciously.
Similar to why people can't be trusted on happiness surveys.
What we want comes from our unconscious.
We can't know our unconscious unless we study the codes.
We have codes in our unconscious and if we cannot articulate or define those codes, we are unable to tell market researchers what we really want.
For example, Jeep represents a horse, the American West, and the open plains.
In Europe, though, Jeep has different connotations. Europeans saw Jeep, as an American vehicle, in WWII. Jeep’s code is Liberator.
In America, the Jeep is Freedom, Adventure, and Wild Spirit.
Apple is a trillion-dollar company because it has become Code for Creative Intellectual Hipster Who Has Advantage Over Non-Apple Users.
Two. What is the American code for toilet paper?
In our unconscious, toilet paper symbolizes freedom from parental scolding, shame, and guilt.
What we want, then, is a sense of freedom, independence, and isolation from the “shamers.” Therefore, we now have oversized bathrooms in opulent homes and hotels.
Three. What is the definition of the Culture Code?
We read on page 5: “The Culture Code is the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing—a car, a type of food, a relationship, even a country—via the culture in which we are raised.”
We further read that this meaning is imprinted in our childhood.
Four. What is the connection between learning and emotion? See page 6.
We see that intense emotional experiences cause imprinting, permanent or indelible marks on our memory. Imprinting often exists on an unconscious level.
There is a famous movie, Citizen Kane, about imprinting. The protagonist, an orphan, longs for the unconditional love of a mother figure. He connects this love as a child with a toboggan he used to own. On the toboggan is the word “Rosebud.”
We all have a Rosebud. In 1973, as we traveled across Italy before moving to Africa, my parents had a Panasonic RF-1060 radio, which I still see with nostalgia.
Five. How did Rapaille develop a strategy that would allow Nestle to imprint coffee into Japanese culture? See page 9.
Japan had no imprinting with coffee; in fact, there was no coffee sales in Japan in the 1970s, but Rapaille helped Nestle develop noncaffeinated coffee flavored desserts targeting children. As a result, coffee sales in Japan are not .5 billion dollars a year.
Six. On page 11 Rapaille writes, “My primary intent is to liberate those who read this book. There is remarkable freedom gained in understanding why you act the way you do. This freedom will affect every part of your life, from the relationships you have, to your feelings about your possessions . . .” How might his “primary intent” contradict what he does for a living?
Since he’s being paid to be a consultant, to crack the Code for companies, it could be argued that he’s attempting to get inside our brains to better manipulate us and channel our desires to his companies’ products.
It appears he’s serving two masters here, but since he got a book deal, in both cases he is serving the master of commerce.
Seven. What are the five principles of discovering the Culture Code?
Principle 1: You can’t believe what people say.
People tell others what they want based on what their cortex (the part of the brain that reasons) tells them, but we are not driven by our cortex. We are driven by our Inner Reptile. In other words, we emotions drive our shopping tastes, not practical concerns or reason.
On an emotional level, many Americans desired the PT Cruiser because it fulfilled the fantasy of Hollywood movies: a gangster car, the kind Al Capone would have driven.
But in Germany where engineering is paramount, the PT Cruiser is not desired.
Principle 2: Emotion is the energy required to learn anything.
Experiences create imprinting, so that we never forget. Learning is to a large part about not forgetting.
When I was four, I took off my inflatable Popeye ring at the pool, jumped into the water, and sunk to the bottom before a family friend saved my life. I learned that flaying my arms and kicking my feet the way I did was useless and that I needed to learn the correct way to swim before I just jumped into the water without the ability to swim.
When I was eight, I took a deep puff of my mother’s cigarette to show-off in front of my friends. After inhaling, I almost coughed myself to death, as I was desperate for oxygen. The coughing fit was so horrible that I never touched a cigarette again.
When I was twenty-one, a young woman in college shunned me because I didn't know the difference between a phrase and a clause.
Emotion motivated me to learn to swim, to understand the difference between a phrase and a clause, and to NOT smoke.
Principle 3: The structure, not the content, is the message.
We can react similarly to two different stories from two different periods of time if they are structured around the same motif.
Rapaille points to the play Cyrano de Bergerac and the 1987 film Roxanne, which are both about defending honor.
The movie Star Wars, about a boy Luke Skywalker who turns into a Jedi, is similar in structure to the Ritual of San Jacinto in which peyote and a snake bite are part of an Indian boy’s rite of passage: becoming a man.
Principle 4: There is a window in time for imprinting, and the meaning of the imprint varies from one culture to another.
We experience cultural imprints that affect us the most deeply before the age of seven.
In America peanut butter, used to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, is often imprinted into a child’s unconscious to mean mother’s love; however, in France peanut butter is not a staple and is looked upon with contempt: “just another processed food.”
In America alcohol, part of teenage experience, represents rebellion, independence, and drunkenness. It is a rite of passage born of peer pressure to be “an adult.”
In contrast, French parents expose alcohol, such as wine and champagne, to their children who see these drinks as part of normal family life and celebration. A completely different imprint takes place.
Principle 5: To access the meaning of an imprint within a particular culture, you must learn the code for that imprint.
The imprint of cheese has a different code in America than it does in France. In France, cheese is “alive”; it’s stored at room temperature and celebrated without all the processing of American cheese. The American code for cheese is “dead”; we read that “Americans ‘kill’ their cheese through pasteurization” and eat “mummified” cheese. The French value cheese flavor, texture, and overall quality; on the other hand, Americans value safety even if it means stripping their food of taste.
Eight. What are the three types of unconscious?
There is the Freudian, also known as the individual unconscious; the Jungian, also known as the collective unconscious; and another form of limited collective unconsciousness, which is cultural.
Referring to the cultural unconscious, Rapaille writes, “there is an American mind, just as there is a French mind, and English mind, a Kurdish mind, and a Latvian mind. Every culture has its own mind-set, and that mind-set teaches us about who we are in profound ways.” For the rest of the book, Rapaille will show us two dozen important Codes he has discovered in the context of the cultural unconscious.
Nine. In Chapter Two, Rapaille observes that cultures don’t change often, but when they do change, it’s because of a powerful imprinting experience. Can you think of an example?
America has always valued freedom, but the country was so traumatized by 9/11 that many Americans were eager to surrender freedoms to fight “the war on terror.”
Facebook had a powerful imprint on us: We can connect globally with friends more easily than ever, and we can do so instantaneously. This convenience changed not just America but the way the entire world creates and maintains friendships.
We used to be a more fair and just society with empathy and compassion for those who were not as fortunate as ourselves, but images of skinny, beautiful, rich people have inundated us to the point that we suffer from envy and resentment. These emotions encourage competitiveness and an “I’ve got mine, get yours” mentality.
Ten. Where does America lie when it comes to our emotional evolution?
The relative youth of our country makes us the Adolescent and much of our imprinting addresses this adolescent stage.
Rapaille points out that in America part of our adolescence is based on the fact that our freedom resulted without our having had to kill our king in order to be who we are.
Americans rebelled against England and to this day still have that rebellious, that is, adolescent, spirit.
Much of what sells in America and then is peddled throughout the world is rooted in adolescent longings: Coca-Cola, Nike, fast food, blue jeans, violent movies, rock, hip-hop.
Celebrity culture is about the perennial adolescent who stumbles because of his compulsive mistakes (31).
Rapaille cites other adolescent traits unique to America:
Arrogance: We’re know-it-alls
Dramatic mood swings
Constant need for exploration and the need to challenge authority defines us.
We are preoccupied with love, seduction, and carnality.
Americans are preoccupied with the loss of innocence.
Americans are abysmal in matters of love because we long for love from an adolescent sensibility. Love is “an exciting dream that rarely reaches fulfillment” (38).
In contrast, Japan sees love differently than Americans. In Japan “Love is a temporary disease” and therefore no commitments such as marriage can be based on such a fickle disease.
Adolescent hubris or arrogance informs Americans that they can change their essential nature and their bodies. In contrast, the French don’t try to change their bodies. They have a saying, “It’s not what you have; it’s what you do with it” (43).
Americans have an immature, adolescent approach to love, which is based on a predatory angle. As Rapaille writes, the code for American seduction is manipulation. We are a country of deception. It is no wonder our divorce rate is so high.
Brainstorming a Laundry List to Come Up with Essay Thesis Ideas
Does Rapaille have a hidden agenda or does he really want to make us free by showing us how our Codes control our behavior?
Why does America seem like such an insufferable brat under the lens of Rapaille’s analysis?
Do Rapaille’s points speak to my own experiences?
Is my idea of love, as an American, so completely lame that the Japanese call the thing Americans base their marriage on as a temporary form of insanity and a disease?
Is American love based on the kind of cynicism, deception, and manipulation Rapaille describes?
Can companies like Nestle create imprinting and thus manipulate children into being forever hooked on their products or is this book overreaching in its claims?
Here's a link to PBS Frontline Documentary The Persuaders.
Essay Assignment The Culture Code
In a 1,000-word essay, typed and double-spaced, support, refute, or complicate the assertion that The Culture Code evidences that marketing and advertising are evil agencies preying on anthropology, sociology, human psychology, the unconscious, the reptilian, and neuroscience to manipulate people into becoming helpless consumers. Be sure to use Toulmin model of argumentation and have a Works Cited page with no fewer than three sources.
Thesis That Refutes Rapaille
While The Culture Code is full of penetrating, truthful insights about human psychology, in its totality the book is an odious fraud. What we have is a Frenchman, an American outsider, who looks condescendingly at Americans by painting them as a most insufferable caricature of the adolescent brat. Secondly, the book’s claim to be designed to free us from our compulsive inclinations by better understanding the Code collapses when we consider that this book was not written for the mass consumer as a sort of public service but for educated elites who, sharing Rapaille’s loathing of American culture, read The Culture Code as a way of reaffirming their pre-existing contempt for Americans, which turns out to be an act of self-congratulations. Finally, the book fails because so many of its “codes” are little more than stereotypes and over-generalities that dissolve in the face of complex reality.
Thesis That Defends Rapaille
While I concede that Rapaille at times resorts to cultural stereotypes, the book fulfills its claim to help free us from our unconscious desires by Rapaille’s insightful analysis, which is supported with empirical evidence, sound anthropological method, and compelling illustrations.
"Why Do We Read and Write Essays? They're Just Someone's Opinions. Aren't All Opinions Alike? "
Some people say after reading an essay, “Well, it’s just an opinion.” But are all opinions alike?
Robert Atwan in his American Now textbook writes six major types of opinions.
As you will see, some are more appropriate for the kind of critical thinking an essay deserves than others.
One. Inherited opinions: These are opinions that are imprinted on us during our childhood. They come from “family, culture, traditions, customs, regions, social institutions, or religion.”
People’s views on religion, race, education, and humanity come from their family.
Inherited opinions come from cultural and social norms.
In some cultures, it's okay to tell others your income. It's a taboo in America.
We are averse to eating dogs in America because eating dogs is contrary to America’s cultural and social norms. However, other countries eat dogs without any stigma.
We are also averse to eating insects in America when in some countries grubs are a delicacy.
We think it's normal to slaughter trees every year as part of our celebration of Christmas.
We eat until we're so stuffed we cannot walk in America; in contrast, in Japan they follow the rule of hara hachi bu, which means they stop at 80% fullness.
Peanut butter in America represents Mom's Love; in France and Brazil, however, peanut butter is trash and an insult to place in front of someone.
In America, we put dry cereal into a bowl and then pour milk over it. That is not practiced in a lot of other countries.
In America when a woman says yes to a man's date proposal, the man, Louis C.K. tells us, will shake his fist like a tennis champion and scream, "Yeah!" We admire this behavior because we grow up seeing it.
We soak up these types of opinions through a sort of osmosis and a lot of these beliefs are unconscious.
Two. Involuntary opinions: These are the opinions that result from direct indoctrination and inculcation (learning through repetition). If we grow up in a family that teaches us that eating pork is evil, then we won’t eat at other people’s homes that serve that porcine dish.
Or we may, as a result if our religious training, abjure rated R movies.
Or we may have strong feelings, one way or another, regarding gay marriage based on the doctrines we’ve learned over time.
We may have strong feelings about immigration policy based on what we learn from our family, friends, and institutions.
We may have strong feelings about the police and the prison system based on what we learn from family, friends, and institutions.
Three. Adaptive opinions: We adapt opinions to help us conform to groups we wish to belong to. We are often so eager to belong to this or that group that we sacrifice our critical thinking skills and engage in Groupthink to please the majority.
A student from China back in the 1940s or 1950s was raised in the country. He went to a city school and the richest boy made a sculpture of a butterfly. Everyone loved the butterfly but my student. He explained that a butterfly had 4 wings, not 2. He was sent to the "dunce corner" for the whole day.
He should have kept his mouth shut or pretended that butterflies have 2 wings. That's an example of Groupthink.
Atwan writes that “Adaptive opinions are often weakly held and readily changed . . . But over time they can become habitual and turn into convictions.”
For example, it’s easy for one to be against guns in Santa Monica. However, those views might be less “adaptive” in rural parts of Kentucky or Tennessee.
It's easy to be a vegan in Southern California, but you'll have more challenges being a vegan in certain parts of Texas, Kansas, and the Carolinas where barbecue is king.
Four. Concealed opinions. Sometimes we have strong opinions that are contrary to the group we belong to so we keep our mouths shut to avoid persecution. You might not want to proclaim your atheism, for example, if you were attending a Christian college.
Five. Linked opinions. Atwan writes, “Unlike adaptive opinions, which are usually stimulated by convenience and an incentive to conform, these are opinions we derived from an enthusiastic and dedicated affiliation with certain groups, institutions, or parties.”
For example, the modern “Tea Party” people or self-proclaimed Patriots embrace a series of linked opinions: Obama is not American. Obama is a socialist. Obama is helping terrorists get across the boarder. Terrorists helped elect Obama. Obama wants to strip Americans of their right to own guns so that the government and/or terrorists can move in and take Americans’ freedoms.
As you can see, all these opinions are linked to each other. Believing in one of the above opinions encourages belief in the other.
Six. Considered opinions. Atwan writes, “These are opinions we have formed as a result of firsthand experience, reading, discussion and debate, or independent thinking and reasoning. These opinions are formed from direct knowledge and often from exposure and considering other opinions.”
Often considered opinions result in examining mythologies or fake narratives that are drilled down our throats and we deconstruct these false narratives so that we can see the truth behind them.
There are many fake narratives:
Columbus “discovering” America.
The European pilgrims “sharing” with the American Indians.
White slave owners “blessing” Africans with Christianity.
The pharmaceutical industry making our health job one.
Mexican workers in America "stealing" jobs from Americans.
Poor people "choose" to be poor.
Poor people deserve to be poor because they're bad, morally flawed human beings.
Obese people got fat from being morally flawed such as being selfish and gluttonous.
