Author's Note Portfolio 3

Overall I feel pretty good about this portfolio. My original article came from the Houston Chronicle and was about the controversy with Officer Powell's handling of pulling over Ryan Moats. Powell is a Dallas Police Officer and the story discussed how the in-dashboard camera shed new light on the situation. I wrote about how the in-dash cams should be required as they are beneficial to all innocent parties. My OpEd and humorous arguments are to appear in the Houston Chronicle. Some back ground information that is helpful for my humorous argument was recently in Bellaire (part of Houston) a police officer pulled a young boy over for having a stolen vehicle (the vehicle was not stolen, it belonged to him) and they shot him in his front yard. Anyone in Houston would know about this story because it has been big news recently. This is important to understanding my humorous piece. I feel good about the changes I made to my oped after receiving feed back from the teacher and my group. My letter to the editor I feel is my weakest piece as I felt most uncomfortable with this one and was unable to really get into it. Over all I think my portfolio is good.

Author's Note: Humorous Argument

This is my second draft of my humorous argument. I still need to make the changes I discussed in my workshop group, but I got some good advice. My humorous argument is in the form of a cartoon. I am hoping that people will understand, however they would have to have background/previous knowledge to get it. This is why the venue I chose would be the Houston Chronicle since they would have heard about the incident with the Bellaire Police Department. I want to know if my cartoon makes sense or if I should reword the text on it. Also I'm not sure it is clear that the first half is a close up of the TV the police are watching in the second half. I would like to know whether or not this is clear and ways I can change/improve it to make it clear.

Humor Argument

My humor argument is a cartoon. Because my article was found in the Houston Chronicle, that is where my humorous argument is going to appear. My topic is dashboard cameras in police cars/police corruption. Recently in Bellaire, Texas there was a situation where a police officer shot a boy in front of his house in front of his parents after they pulled him over saying his car was stolen when it was not. This was a big deal in Houston and almost everyone heard/was talking about this. In my cartoon I'm going to show a tv with the news on it about the situation with Moats and the officer and show Houston police watching it. The news is going to have a caption that says "Officer Powell may lose his job with Dallas Police Department" and then show the Houston police officer saying, "if he gets fired, maybe he could work for Bellaire Police Department." This is funny because it is related to Houston and because it is talking about how Dallas is not the only department with problems. It is also funny because it is making a joke about how different departments tolerate different things. Its kind of a satire because it is looking at the Moats situation from a different perspective, looking at it compared to what happened in Bellaire recently.

humorous example

http://www.offthemark.com/cops/cops05.htm
My example is a cartoon with a police pulling over a person and saying they had been chasing him for awhile. This is similar to my topic because the police man is really mad he had to follow Moats into the hospital parking lot before Moats pulled over. The person in the car says its because his daughter needed to sleep, which is funny because that isn't a very reasonable excuse, but someone with a small child might understand how that would seem serious at the time. Moats, on the other hand, had an excuse that should have been given more consideration/sympathy from the officer, since he was on his way to the hospital to visit a dying relative.

op ed authors note

This is my first draft. I am happy because I found a lot of the things from the prewriting that I wanted to researched, like how many cars had the dash cams and how much each one cost. I am worried because I feel like my op ed is still very similar to the letter to the editor, which means I did one of them wrong, or maybe I did both of them wrong. I want to know whether I did this correctly, as far as the structure, making an argument (that cars should have the dash cams) and whether my examples support my argument well enough.

Op-Ed Prewriting

Unit Three Op-Ed Workshop
4/6/09

• Read several op-eds from your chosen venue. What are the general tone and assumed audience in this venue? What is interesting or unique about these pieces?
The Fort Worth Star Telegram writes not just for Fort Worth, but it contains stories related to Arlington, Dallas, and other places surrounding the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. It is assumed that the audience is concerned with not just Fort Worth, but all the areas nearby. The venue also writes about things related to Texas as a whole, and includes key issues for the United States. I think it is interesting how the newspaper talks about a large geographical area, despite the fact that it is labeled to be the newspaper of Fort Worth. There is the Dallas Morning News, but the Fort Worth Star Telegram still chooses to address issues in the surrounding areas, since they are all kind of related and because many people probably commute to the nearby areas for work.
• Decide one specific, identifiable issue or question for your focus. It needs to be related to your overall topic for this unit, but try to target a specific aspect of that topic. Describe your choice of specific topic.
I want to focus on how beneficial it would be to put dashboard cameras in all police cars. I think it protects all innocent parties, keeps law authority accountable for their actions, and can help prevent corruption while promoting justice.
• Choose a specific course of action or approach to be taken to addressing that issue or question. Don’t just say that a policy or situation is bad. Tell your readers what should be done about it.
I think that the city of Fort Worth should require all police cars to have dashboard cameras. This would most likely require some sort of bill to be passed and probably some tax money to make it possible. I would encourage people to support the bill, which would essentially be taking a step to make their city better.
• Determine what rhetorical appeals will be most effective for your audience (ethos, pathos, logos, style). Discuss what appeals you will use.
For logos I could talk about how the cameras in the past had proved helpful in he-said-she-said situations that otherwise would have been determined in a more biased manner. I would also talk about how much they cost, and how practical they are. I could discuss specific cases or examples of when they had made a difference, always helping the innocent party, which sometimes was the police officer and sometimes was the accused. I could talk about whether they are legally legitimate in court as evidence. I could use pathos by talking about how anyone living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area could, hypothetically, be pulled over, and could, hypothetically, be accused unfairly. I would ask the audience to consider what would happen in a situation that was the officer’s word against their own, who was more likely to receive the benefit of the doubt? If all cars had dash-cams, officers would be required to do the right thing all the time, because the cameras would hold them accountable for their actions.
• Write about what will best support your points for the rhetorical situation (facts, hard evidence, personal experience, anecdotes, referring to other authorities, etc.).
I think facts and specific examples with best support my points. I think if I can use examples to show the need for concern, it will make my argument make sense. I also think that if I can find specific examples of how practical and beneficial the cameras would be, it will help strengthen my argument. I am going to rely mostly on facts and examples to support my points for the rhetorical situation.
• Is there any research that you need to do?
I still need to find a could more examples of when dash-cams in the Dallas/Fort Worth area helped determine the outcome of a dispute that otherwise might have turned out differently. I also need to research what specific actions would need to take place to make this happened. I would need to find out how much it would cost to put more dash-cams in police cars and I would need to find out what actions people could take (like if the needed to write to some government officials, etc. )

Letter to the editor

In the article “Police dash-cams can clear cops, catch wrong-doing” the use of cameras in police cars proves to benefit all innocent parties. I agree that the cameras can help both the police officers and those being questioned, as they document events without bias. This is important because law enforcement officers are often seen as having unlimited power. When a situation ends in “he-said-she-said,” more often than not, the officer will be given the benefit of the doubt. The use of dash-cameras, however, show exactly what happened and can provide some insight on which party is actually in the wrong, whether it is the officer or the person being questioned. Recently in Bellaire, Texas (a small city in the Houston area) a boy was shot in his front yard by an officer who wrongly accused his vehicle of being stolen. I grew up very close to where this took place and constantly drive in the Bellaire area, so this really concerns me. I think it is important for all police cars to have dash-cams because it holds the officers accountable for their actions. If the Bellaire officer had known he was being recorded, perhaps he would have acted in a more respectful manner.

Author's note: I'm not sure whether or not I did this right. I don't really understand the assignment, and I think because I agree with the stuff in the article, it made it harder for me to write this.