I decided to finish with a recommendation anyway, since that’s just par for the course with review sites. Since I was giving a higher score, I went with a straight up recommendation this time, with no caveat.

This show also gets compared to the Simpsons and Futurama a lot. Personally, I don’t think it should be (it’s a very different sort of show), but that comparison is what people are probably looking for, I so felt I should address it.

Sources: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4292939/?ref_=tt_urv https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4290434/?ref_=tt_urv

Arguing about what people say about the show continues to be standard on this site, so I decided to play along. With this particular show, the main issue is whether or not it’s actually funny, or right for a modern audience.

Sources: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4289356/?ref_=tt_urv https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4291358/?ref_=tt_urv https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6392267/?ref_=tt_urv

I noticed that IMDb user reviews can be split into two basic categories: longer-form reviews that actually discuss the film’s qualities and cap out at about four hundred words, and short-form reviews that are basically just shows of approval or disapproval, or comments about a certain controversial aspect of the film. I made a second, short form review on the TV series Disenchantment to reach the assignment's word requirement.

I reuse a few sources to avoid clutter. I also used exclusively reviews of this film as sources, as I would consider the reviewing communities of each film to be separate from each other in their conventions.

I also decided not to include a summary of the film or show in either review, since that doesn’t appear to be the norm with user reviews. This makes sense, since IMDb does it for you.

I concluded with the actual recommendation because that is the norm both here and in reviews in general. I decided to go for a more specific recommendation, since I was bestowing a middling review, and that seemed to be the norm for such reviews.

Sources: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6118919/?ref_=tt_urv https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6118938/?ref_=tt_urv

While actually discussing the film’s qualities, for this film at least, reviewers tend to keep their notes broad, and focus on the performance of the lead. I also noticed a trend of putting the positives before the negatives.

Sources: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6121115/?ref_=tt_urv

I chose to start my review by discussing the drama that surrounds the film, since focusing on the inter-review chatter appears to be the norm here. This is understandable – if people wanted a proper review, they’d go to the critic’s reviews section. You go to user reviews to watch people argue. I decided not to discuss the complaints about the film’s feminist messaging, because not liking a film’s politics isn’t a review, so responding to such “reviews” wouldn’t be much of a review either. Were I writing a short-form review, that would have been my focus, since it has the most immediate punch.

Sources: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6118752/?ref_=tt_urv https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6121594/?ref_=tt_urv

The convention for review titles seems to be summarization of the main argument, so I attempted to sum up my review in a single sentence.

Sources: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6118919/?ref_=tt_urv https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6121594/?ref_=tt_urv

I have submitted both of these reviews to IMDb, but because of how new my account is, it will likely take some time for them to appear to the public on the website. As such, I’ve decided to use this Google Doc as a stand-in.

I noticed that IMDb user reviews can be split into two basic categories: longer-form reviews that actually discuss the film’s qualities and cap out at about four hundred words, and short-form reviews that are basically just shows of approval or disapproval, or comments about a certain controversial aspect of the film. I made a second, short form review on a different page to reach the assignment word requirement. I reuse a few sources to avoid clutter.

Overall, I found Grey531's ethical appeal to be the most effective of the appeals made on this comment thread. Setting yourself up as an unbiased party and maintaining a diplomatic tone is usually an effective tactic, made doubly effective by the purpose of this website: people are here to be convinced, not berated. A person posting on this forum should not be attempted to rouse the masses to revolution. Their goal is to convince one person of one thing, and Grey takes a big step towards doing that right off the bat by making the original poster their ally.

Honestly, I'm rather impressed.

And here we have our logical appeal, with a touch of pathos and ethos thrown in for good measure (nobody likes it when the little guy gets punished, and the comment about working in maintenance is clearly an ethical appeal.) What makes this argument logical is that it relies on a mix of math and common sense to create a simple argument for why complete automation would in no way create more jobs in the market than it would remove. I would consider this to be an effective logical appeal, because, unlike many logical appeals which tend to lose people in the details, zoidao401's appeal is short and easy to understand.

As an aside, I understand that appeals to common sense are not technically logical, but I am more concerned with appearance than classification here, and in this context the appeals and leaps made by zoidac appear as logical (such as the leap from five to three robots - they don't actually give any numbers to back up the claim, but their reasoning is something that most people can easily agree with and find sound.

This user's post begins with a classic and therefore presumably effective ethical tactic: start your argument by explaining that you actually mostly agree with the person you are rebuking. Doing so places the poster in the wonderful position of "enlightened logical purity," as, by going against their supposed heartfelt beliefs to play the devil's advocate, they are lending immediate credence to their arguments because their bias should presumably swing the other way.

The arguments that Grey531 makes in their post are of a more moderate position than most others on this forum, but their impact is, I would argue, greater than that of other commenters because they began their post with a strong appeal to ethics.

This paragraph from the original post is what I would describe as a false-faced pathetic appeal: it's clearly an appeal to emotion (making reference to suicide rates, slavery, and child exploitation as it does), but, like many pathetic appeals in our logic-favoring society, it attempts to mask itself and appear as a logical appeal. I would argue that it does a poor job of this, and is thus an ineffective pathetic appeal - a pathetic pathetic appeal, if you would. If, for example, the writer had invested the effort to dig up some statistics to support their claims (faulty or otherwise), their comment would have a better chance of passing as logical. They did not, and so their pathetic appeal is plainly just a cheap play on emotions that crumbles quickly under scrutiny. Reddit being the sort of website that it is, where people will pick you apart for any lapse in reasoning, this is a serious mistake.

I wasn't certain what sort of website would qualify as "appropriate for a college class," so I went with the most obvious approach. Little did I realize that at York, we are only allowed to use the OED.

Based on this definition, I posit that, were the brothers of a fraternity to start a Christian sect while all taking money from OSAP or some similar money-lending foundation, they would qualify as a religious college, within an academic college, as they would be clergymen living together while supported by a foundation.

The Toronto Maple Leads are a college. They are an organized body of persons engaged in the common pursuit of winning the Stanley Cup, and are further united by their shared interest in playing hockey, and their duty to disappoint the fans.

I have to say that I find the manner in which these synonyms are placed on the page to be horribly confusing. The word "college" has several distinct definitions, but most of these synonyms are synonymous with only one of the definitions provided. Would it not be more accurate to list the relevant synonyms under the definition for which they are appropriate? Or would the visual clutter of such a choice outweigh the benefits?

Question: do these descriptions not sound like the basic character bios of the female and male leads of a romantic comedy? Or do we disagree?