Overview
While you have engaged with this issue for the last two projects and conducted research that
increases your knowledge about this issue, this project asks that you keep a particular
audience in mind as you revisit your research findings, explore new research, and think
about how to successfully approach the planning and writing of your multimodal argument.
Not only do you need to convince this audience that your argument has merit, but you want
them to demonstrate that they are sufficiently invested so as to agree with your call to
action. The challenging component is that this audience is not interested in your issue. They
are a non-engaged stakeholder, defined as a person (or group of people) who is uninvolved,
unconcerned, or not invested in an issue or in taking action on that issue. But you, as
someone who is invested in the topic, are willing to invest your time and effort in
convincing this audience that your argument and call to action have merit. This Part 1
assignment is meant to help guide your efforts and make good use of your time.
Skills & Strategies
This Part 1 assignment will help you to
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build on previous skills and strategies learned in Projects 1 & 2
identify a non-engaged stakeholder who is uninvolved, unconcerned, uninterested, or
not invested in the issue you have been researching or in taking action on that issue
apply effective strategies that advance your information literacy, critical thinking,
reading, planning, drafting, and organizational skills
make connections, gain perspective, and acquire new knowledge
Description
Begin by selecting a non-engaged stakeholder who is uninvolved, unconcerned,
uninterested, or not invested in the issue you have been researching or in taking action on
that issue. In constructing your multimodal argument with this non-engaged stakeholder as
your audience, start thinking about how you will educate, engage, and empower this nonengaged stakeholder to agree with your call to action. You will draw on the credible sources
of the research you conducted in the past two projects. Respond to the following guiding
questions with this research handy and in mind. Note: these questions map onto your course
rubric to guide your essay development.
Please copy and paste the questions below or download them into a Word document and
answer each question fully. To answer each question fully, you will need to provide at least
three complete sentences per question and have answered the entirety of the question(s).
Upload your list of answers as a worksheet to MyReviewers by the due date.
Questions
1. Why is the issue that you have been researching important and timely? What kind of
problem does this issue create? Name the issue, and drawing from your previous research,
provide some context as to its background, and briefly note what you already know about
this issue.
2. What persons or organizations would be (or are currently) interested in this issue? Why?
Who would not be interested in this issue. Why not?
3. What do you know about the non-engaged stakeholder(s)? If you have a tangible person
or group of people in mind, provide information and describe their non-engagement as
best as you can. If you have a more generic sense of a non-engaged stakeholder, how
would you define what characterizes this person or group of people who will be the
audience that you persuade?
4. What kinds of questions do you anticipate your audience asking?
5. Your multimodal argument has a combination of intended purposes: to educate, engage,
and empower. What kind of information do you need to provide to educate the nonengaged stakeholder? Give at least 3 examples. Why do you need this information?
6. Appealing to an audience’s sense of reason and logic with facts, examples, statistics,
models is an effective way to educate your audience, but what do you think is the most
convincing evidence you could provide that might persuade the non-engaged stakeholder
that your argument has merit? Name at least 3 points.
7. What do you see as possible points of resistance in convincing your audience of the value
in engaging in your issue? How will you overcome and refute this resistance without
offending your audience?
8. What frame of mind do you want to put your audience in to appeal to their sense of
emotion? How might you create an emotional response to your plea to have your
audience take on your cause?
9. Why should your audience believe in you? What ethos do you bring to the argument?
How might you build on the credibility, reputation, or trustworthiness of others who
make similar arguments? Think about how your audience could identify with your
appeals to ethos. Draw from your research for some examples.
10. What kind of action do you think would advance your cause or present a reasonable
solution to the problem your issue creates? What are the steps to taking this action? How
will you incentivize your audience to agree with this action? What obstacles still stand in
your way, and what can you do to remove them?
11. What tone do you think would be most effective in convincing your non-engaged
stakeholder to come around to your way of thinking? Why do you think this tone will be
effective, and how will you create this tone?
12. Your project 3 assignment requires 3 new sources you have not previously used, based on
your preliminary responses to these questions, in what direction should your expanded
research take you? Specifically, in what areas do you need more evidence to deliver an
effective multimodal argument?
[Last Name] 1
Apple’s Chinese Factories Conditions Response Visual Analysis
Apple is a multinational trillion dollar publicly traded corporation whose actions and
manufacturing efforts in China are presently in the public eye due to mistreatment of factory
workers claims. The company is battling claims that its factory workers in China are mistreated
and work under unideal conditions. Consequently, the company released its 2018 Supplier
Responsibility report to quell the industry questioning of its civil rights, environmental rights and
human rights protection efforts. In the report, the company defends its operations and asserts that
it holds its suppliers to the highest of standards and expects observance of the company’s strict
Code of Conduct. The company utilizes images in its report and on its website to negate reports
of its ignorance for its workers’ conditions in Chinese factories. The images appeal to the
rhetorical strategies of logos by employing informational snippets in the images, pathos through
appropriate color combinations, ethos by association with Apple and kairos by timely yet
calculated release to dissipate claims of the company’s ignorance of the working conditions and
mistreatment of employees in its suppliers’ factories.
Pathos is a rhetorical that refers to appealing to emotion through the incorporation of such
aspects as color, texture, content or writing (Killingsworth 251). The first image does this
through the incorporation of emotionally pleasing and attracting sketches. The image focuses on
the company’s efforts to educate women on their health. The image appeals to emotion through
the love hearts and the Apple logo sketch at the heart of it all to attest to the company’s corporate
social responsibility efforts. From the content, and subject of the image, Apple is seemingly
interested in emboldening women via health education. Further than guaranteeing a safe and
nourishing workplace, Apple trusts that all the workers in the company’s supply sequence should
learn more concerning individual wellness and preventive healthcare. The company focuses on
[Last Name] 2
women since women enormously affect their families and societies, ad since society unfairly
deprioritizes them in almost all matters (Johnson et al.).
Clearly, the image appeals to emotions by showing how the company cares for its over 1 million
female employees whom it edifies on dietary, maternal, and preemptive healthcare. The
company also persuades them to teach their colleagues, families, and acquaintances the same
knowledge. The image is an indication of the company’s goal, which is to take health cognizance
programming to an estimated 1 million individuals in Apple dealers globally, and for these
persons to in turn extend similar health consciousness to others using their civic exchanges
(Johnson et al.). The second image appeals to emotion straightforward by showing two smiling
line managers in the company’s factory floor. Included in the report, the image shows happy line
managers flanked by busy employees enjoying their work assembling Apple products. The
attractive and soothing colors employed in the image (blue, burgundy, white and cyan)
pacifyingly calm and emotionally quiet any and all questions about Apple’s work.
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The choice of these elements coupled with the quality of the image emotionally communicates
about Apple caring for its employee’s contrary to flouting reports of the company neglecting
how its suppliers treat their workers. Consequently, the image aligns with the company’s goal to
ascertain responsible business in its entire supply chain respecting human rights and protecting
the environment (Johnson et al.).
Logos is the appeal to logic (Killingsworth 251). The first image appeals to logic through
its 1 M Employees tag written in bold capitalized letters. The company’s commitment to not only
fair and favorable working conditions and encouraging public education are evidenced by the
image (Killingsworth). The image claims to show how Apple cares for the female populace by
teaching them about healthcare and requiring them to pass it on to their peers and associates. The
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claim that the company currently employs 1 million female employees whom it is hellbent on
teaching about healthcare is an ethos rhetorical strategy that adds credibility. Consequently, it
aligns with the company’s goal of fair treatment of its employees through corporate social
responsibility, teaching them about their health. The inclusion of the tag iPhone production line
managers China at the bottom left section of the second image appeals to logic. The company’s
association with the picture alone ascertains credibility. As such, its showing of one of Apple’s
factory with employees working in the background in a clean, organized, and safe environment is
a credible reflection of Apple’s factories. The smiling line managers affirm that indeed the
working conditions are good, which is what Apple seeks to attain for all its employees in the
factories. Essentially, the tagline shows the image logically fits the company’s factory in China.
By definition, ethos refers to rhetorical strategy that adds credibility to the information
disseminated (Killingsworth 251). Therefore, the first image derives its credibility from
association with Apple. The company posting the image on its website and boasting of its
exploits to educate 1 million female employees is an ethos rhetorical strategy. Further, the image
is an information point as opposed to part of an advertisement, which adds to the credibility of its
information. The image’s association with a multinational of Apple’s caliber and its inclusion in
the company’s report of worker’s plight and working conditions adds credibility to the
information it shows since it alludes to the fact that the image results from in-depth research
about worker’s working conditions in the company’s Chinese factories (Lashinsky). The second
image ethos appeal emanates from its inclusion in Apple’s annual report on supplier
responsibility in fair working conditions for employees. It supports the argument that Apple
requires and ensures favorable working conditions by establishing trusting relationships between
[Last Name] 5
the employees. Additionally, the company fosters a good relationship between managers and
employees, which defends Apple’s commitment to fair working conditions.
Kairos is the appeal to time; it entails reckoning the opportune moment and place to
advance an argument (Rife 262). Both images prominently appeal to time. Firstly, both images
feature in Apple’s drive to create awareness about its efforts to ascertain favorable working
conditions subsequent to a report on the mistreatment of employees in Apple’s factories by
Bloomberg and China Labor Watch after six year of investigations in March 2017 (Bloomberg
News; China Labor Watch). Secondly, the images also employ taglines and explanations
reinforcing the company’s goals’ deadlines; for instance, the first image coincides with the
assertion that the company seeks to teach one million of its female personnel by 2020 about
healthcare. The second image also features in the company’s 2017 Code of Conduct Progress
Report released after an expose as earlier stated. To agglomerate both images appeal to time
through their concrete deadlines and timeframes, as well as ingenious featuring in a drive to
negate reports of mistreatment of employees and Apple’s ignorance of the same.
Conclusively, the images support and reference Apple’s commitment to improving the
working conditions of all its workers by minding and upholding their personal welfare. The
images capitalize on the rhetorical strategies of ethos, logos, pathos and Kairos. Both images
establish credibility through their inclusion in Apple’s report on the state of its factories’ working
conditions and adherence to the established code of conduct in China. The images’ association
with Apple also adds to their credibility. Thirdly, the images appeal to time since their inclusion
in the 2017 Code of Conduct Progress Report followed media reports of Apple’s ignorance of
conditions in its factories.
[Last Name] 6
Works Cited
Apple Inc. Supplier Responsibility. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from
https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ page 66-77
Bloomberg News. “Apple Supplier Workers Describe Noxious Hazards at China
Factory.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-0116/workers-at-apple-supplier-catcher-describe-harsh-conditions.
China Labor Watch. “A Year of Regression in Apple’s Supply Chain: Pursuing Profits at the
Cost of Working Conditions.” A Year of Regression in Apple's Supply Chain, China Labor
Watch, 3 Mar. 2017, www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/124.
Johnson, Katherine, et al. "The Innovative Success that is Apple, Inc." (2012).
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. "Rhetorical Appeals: A Revision." Rhetoric Review 24.3 (2005): 249263.
Lashinsky, Adam. Inside Apple: How America's most admired--and secretive--company really
works. Hachette UK, 2012.
Rife, Martine Courant. "Ethos, Pathos, Logos, Kairos: Using A Rhetorical Heuristic to Mediate
Digital-Survey Recruitment Strategies." IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication 53.3 (2010): 260-277.
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