Short Topics

15 minute reading period 30 min writing period- Students had to read a number of sources describing the positive and negative effects of advertising, develop a position, then synthesize sources in an essay to support their claim.

Advertising has a huge impact on each and every person and consumes our way of life.  While advertising may be purely informational, overall, the effects are harmful.

Billboards that advertise the harmful effects of cigarettes have a positive effect in informing citizens of the dangers of smoking.  However, if not for the advertisements for cigarettes, we probably wouldn’t have bought them in the first place and needed to see the billboard of their harmful effects.  The cigarette advertisements actually made smoking more appealing by making people believe they were accepted and the majority of people smoke (Source B).

According to Source C, advertisements are meant to teach us.  They give us “the information in ads [we need] to buy the necessities of life.”  However, not all of the necessities are life are advertised.  As Sesana Renato mentioned in her online journal, flour is a necessity that isn’t advertised.  However, companies spend millions advertising soft drinks.  Do we need cokes in order to survive? (Source F)  Should we spend our money on unnecessary items just because the television makes them appealing?

Not only does advertisement encourage us to throw away our dollars, but advertisement “has led many companies and governments to put aside the necessary moral responsibilities in the age of the global market. ” (Source F) In order to gain the attention of consumers, advertisers will use whatever method they can, even if those methods include totally unrelated topics.  How does a half-naked woman on a motorcycle advertise a toothbrush?  How does a monkey eating a chicken leg relate to that restaurant?  However, when people eat at that restaurant they’ll most likely be thinking of that adorable chimpanzee that ate the same chicken they’re eating, rather than the quality and price.

According to Source E, it is almost impossible to avoid falling into advertisements dirty hands.  Advertisers use every “microscopic detail” as a way to reel consumers into their grasp.  The colorful, flashy and sometimes irrelevant words make the most useless items a sudden necessity.  We don’t decide what we need.  “Advertising tells [us] what [we] need.” (Source D)

Advertisements are intended to be used as a method of informing.  However, ads seem to make life more complicated by making the world a place centered around material objects and unnecessary activities.

Grade based on AP writing scale- 7.5 out of 9