Susan Boyle article questions

Questions on this first paragraph:

1.           What effect do the two rhetorical questions have on the reader? What tone do they set?

They make us question ourselves about how stereotypical we are about people. It sets a derogatory tone about society because it makes the reader realise how stereotypical we are by saying “or are we”, implying that we have an “ugly” view on women.

2.          How would you describe the author’s attitude to Susan Boyle? Support your point with embedded quotations.

She is quite dismissive of Susan Boyle because she shows her critical attitude of her by saying that she looked like “a piece of pork sitting on a doily”. This shows that she thinks that Susan Boyle is ugly and doesn’t say anything particularly nice about her in the first paragraph suggesting she isn’t a fan of her.

3.          What do the details about Susan Boyle’s private life add to our picture of her? Why has the journalist included them?

They make us assume that she has quite a ‘sad’ life because these facts show she doesn’t do much with her life. The writer is saying these things to create an image of her that could be mocked/criticised and tries to show that this is the normal view on Susan Boyle, as many readers would agree with what she is saying.

Questions on the second paragraph:

1.           The author uses a rhetorical question to begin the second paragraph: explain the effect that this has on the reader.

This alerts the reader to our very sceptical view of  ‘ugly’ women by saying that we are socked to see that they can “do things”. This shows that the rhetorical questions make us question our stereotypical views.

2.          She mentions several British celebrities (you do not need to know who they are): what is the purpose of contrasting these men with the statement she makes about women?

Because the point she’s trying to make is that ugly men such as the ones she mentioned can do well in life and be succesful and us assuming that she will be terrible because she is ugly shows the very narrow minded view of society.

3.     Do you agree with what she says? Think of the purpose of the final two sentences:what effect do they have on the reader?

I agree with what she says because I think that as a society we are very stereotypical and believe that ugly women are hopeless at everything which I think is a terrible attitude. The last two sentences strengthens the point to the reader that ugly women are held in great disregard.

Comparing articles on Carlos Tevez arrest

Both BBC news and the Evening Standard both wrote articles on Carlos Tevez's arrest for speeding. Here are the differences between them:

The BBC is more factual and balanced than the evening standard. This is because it only mentions his previous charges on speeding by saying he was "banned from driving for six months in January" whereas the Evening Standard mention a huge amount about his previous charges by putting in quotes about him saying,"There's the Tevez before, who had a problem, and there's the Tevez now, who no longer has problems" as well as mentioning his previous arrests, without doing anything but putting in extra facts, makes the article more critical of Tevez because as he has been caught again suggesting that his word isn't credible.

Mandeep Sanghera wrote an analysis article on BBC sport on Liverpool's 3-2 FA cup win over Tottenham. The language in this article is very different to the language to the informative articles described above:

Snaghera writes that Tottenham were "authors of their own downfall". This is an opinion from Sanghera whereas in the informative articles only factual information is presented with no analysis or opinions on the event. Sanghera also says that Liverpool's "Coutinho produced some lovely skill". This shows Sanghera is saying what he thinks about the event whereas in the Tevez articles, there was no mention of whether the author thought Tevez was guilty or innocent or whether he was in the right or wrong, despite implying different views by including different information.

Choosing topic

How to choose a topic

In class, we discussed what topics we were going to choose and helped each other to decide which they should do. The way we found easiest was finding a topic that interests the person and narrowing it down to an aspect of the topic and asking a specific question about this aspect to help make the project. I found that as I am interested in sport, I am going to take an aspect of sport and make a question about it to direct my project. I haven’t decided yet but it will be either to do with homosexuality and its prejudice against homosexuals in a particular sport or how money is affecting a particular sport.

First article: “Yorkshire Terriers FC hope to avoid gay stereotypes”

This article states that the attitude towards homosexuality in sport has changed in recent years and is still changing for the better. It also claims that famous sports players coming out such as Gareth Thomas is making homosexual people in sport feel better about themselves. It also says that there is a “laddy” atmosphere about the game of football and that can make gay people feel intimidated and scared of coming out. It also claims that the way to get homosexuality more accepted in sport is for big names like Gareth Thomas to come out.

Second article: “Is racism a grassroots football issue?”

This article suggests that the level of racism in football is atrocious and very constant. An example of Abdul Amin, an AFC Kriss football player, is used and he says that he gets huge amounts of racial abuse and that he has considered walking away from the game because of it. This shows that despite efforts to get rid of it such as the campaign “let’s kick racism out of football” racism is still a massive issue in the world of football and Is driving some players to consider quitting.

Bibliography

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/leeds/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9428000/9428259.stm  Accessed 28th February 2013.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18728377 Accessed 28th February 2013.