by James Jarvis
excerpted from Life With Creepy
My roommate, winner of the El Camino College Stupidity Scholarship, (the person El Camino College chose to support instead of me because he needed the edumacation more) handed me another 'English thing' (otherwise known as an essay) to do for him today. I would give you the verbatim chickenscratch he handed me, but I'm afraid the retyping of it would damage my writing skills. Suffice it to say that the BEFORE looked something like this:
BEFORE
The constitution covers advertising to protecting the public to the good of the peoples. They should know the adverisers in scrutiny of the product to the delight of the sales increase will do it towards the sales thereof. The constitution knows that the public must be protected, as does the advertisor. It is imperitive that the public does this. Many people know that the cigarettes are bad to the health and it is advertised as such in that case to the delight of the advertised so laws were made in this case and alcohol is too in the adverting field it is known about.
So then I turned his essay into this in 12 minutes:
AFTER
Constitutional rights and protections concerning advertising business practices was written into the first article of the U.S. Constitution, illustrating by it’s primary placement in that document the prime importance our founding fathers put on commerce in the founding of America. Apparently, the architects of our constitution felt that commerce was the cornerstone of democracy and that the right to advertise should be governed in a way that is beneficial to both the public and the advertisers.
Since the time of the forming of the U.S. Constitution, advertising laws have proliferated in the governing body of federal commercial law known as the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code). Additional state and especially local adverting laws vary from community to community. There are so many laws governing the advertising of services and products that it takes a lawyer specializing in this field to know them all, so the most available protection a consumer has against unscrupulous advertising is a little common sense. “Buyer beware” is a good example of this common sense.
The public should be informed of and inform themselves about products that can cause potential harm, such as cigarettes, which were sold commercially for many years before the government mandated that a warning label had to included on each package of the product. The Bayer Corporation, currently known for their aspirin painkiller, invented and marketed heroin through Sears catalogs before the true dangers of heroin were known. Advertised products are now viewed with scrutiny by the general public. The public can bring up the question of an insidious advertisement and take appropriate actions to safeguard the welfare of the people. One example is the camel portraying a cartoonish type of character on cigarettes.
Many advertised products are well perceived by the public and promoted in a correct way. To the advertisers’ delight, sales are increased, but there are several types of products which will be scrutinized very closely by the consumer no matter how formidably advertised they are. One such product is alcohol because of its well-known detriments to physical and mental health. One such public scrutiny of alcohol lead to its nationwide prohibition in the 1930s. Cigarettes are another example of a product which has detrimental consequences to public health. Products which are not banned from the marketplace altogether are regulated heavily and receive many advertising restrictions.
Advertising agencies attempt to put the very best light on the product being marketed. An advertising agency will consider many ‘spec’ (speculation) commercials before settling on the one it will show to the public. The scenes, actors,characters and songs (jingles) are utmost in the minds of the producers. Selling through advertisement can possibly lead to legal issues for both the advertising agency and the advertiser if the public perceives the advertisement as being unscrupulous.
PROLOGUE
My roommate looked at my work (triple-spaced and printed out on my laser printer) and said, "Well, at least you stuck to my thesis this time. I'm not sure if my teacher will believe I wrote this."
"I used small words," I assured him.
"Oh, okay," he said.
"Oh, if your teacher asks where you got the information about Bayer?"
"Yeah?"
"You saw it on the history channel."
"Saw it on the history channel. Okay."
Tags: ECC, El Camino Community College, writing an essay, writing essays, college writing, ghost writing, dumb roommate, marquisdejolie, the abyss, crazy like Charlie Sheen
No comments:
Post a Comment