Fei-Perng Law

Professor Dowd

Writing 39B

30 November 2018

Rhetoric In Practice Companion Essay

     My WikiHow article “How to Get a Ghoulfriend” gives the basic steps to young, lonely ghosts looking for a significant other and conveys the idea that love is attainable but requires patience through the use of WikiHow article genre conventions and pathos.

     I wanted to portray such a complex topic like forming social relationships as something simple that isn’t so intimidating. The best way to show this was through a WikiHow article that would explain each step with clarity and simplicity. As for my audience, I decided to target ghosts since they are essentially the spirits of humans after death, as defined in Encyclopaedia Britannica. I also decided to base my audience off Casper the Friendly Ghost and made an inference that friendly ghosts are lonely because of their inability to form relationships. In the short film “There’s Good Boos Tonight,” Casper doesn’t go off to scare people like other ghosts and tries to make friends with the living, but Casper is unable to because he is a ghost and scares others away. He becomes sad and lonely because of the lack of relationships he has, which is a similar situation for my audience: they are sad and lonely because they are single and don’t know how to fix that.

     I decided to use a WikiHow article as my genre because of the social and historical context of my project. My article is published in modern day— where there is high internet usage—and “the youngest adults, 18-29 year-olds, go online at a rate equal to that of teens (both 93%). Over the past decade, young adult have remained the age group that is most likely to go online even as the internet population has grown” (Lenhart 5). Since internet use is increasing, this Wikihow article will be available to my target audience of younger ghosts. However, although the internet connects us with others, the internet can also cause loneliness since it's used “as a way to escape from the problems of everyday life” (Nowland 76). Using the internet as a way to avoid social interaction makes them lonelier even though the very thing that’s needed are relationships. These lonely ghosts are more likely to use the internet and may search up how to resolve their need for love and attention. In order to capture their attention, I titled my how-to guide with the pun “ghoulfriend” to show that this article was specific to ghosts and not a generic relationship guide.

     WikiHow articles follow certain conventions that create how-to guides that are simple to follow. Following the general format of model WikiHow articles, I organized my article into three parts, with each part including a few steps, and most steps including more specific tips. This format allows me to break down each step in this complex process into something simple and easy to understand. The simplicity of my article will welcome these inexperienced ghosts and give them something they can follow. With that, the ghosts will see that love isn’t so complicated and follows a basic routine. Since this is a how-to guide, I wrote my article in second person to make it clear that I was giving out instructions to my audience. That way, the ghosts reading my article know that they must follow those steps to reach their goal. To prove my credibility as an advice-giver, I made sure my article included all the aspects found in a romantic relationship according to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love: “passion, the exciting feelings of of desire… commitment, the decision to stay together and make plans together, and intimacy, a feeling of closeness and high regard for one another” (Breedlove 675). Knowing these three factors will create the “most fulfilling romantic relationship” establishes my ethos as someone who gives out good advice (Breedlove 676).

     Throughout my article, I used pathos to comfort ghosts and show that love is attainable. While looking through my model texts, I found that the tone of WikiHow articles was informative and direct, yet informal. I used a casual voice to target young ghost, and my diction allows for ghosts to easily follow along the steps with little confusion. These relatively simple steps gives the ghost hope in finding a significant other, which allows them believe that love is out there for them. I also made sure to use a sympathetic tone throughout my guide, accompanied by a comforting mood, to reassure the ghosts that finding love is possible. Reading my guide gives them hope that getting a ghoulfriend is as simple as portrayed and believe my message to be true. To further bring in positivity, I included exclamation marks in several steps and tips to emphasize the sympathetic tone and warm mood. WikiHow articles also tend to include cartoon-like pictures. For my guide, I drew cute pictures of a ghost going through each step with bright colors to provide a warm and inviting atmosphere. The ghosts are able to see themselves in each picture and realize that the process is simple, and so they are more willing to climb out of their hole of loneliness and doubt. I made sure to include ghost puns and references such as “ghoulfriend” and “the afterlife” to relate to my audience more in order to bring a light-hearted guide that won’t bring the ghosts down even further in their loneliness.

     Love and relationships are important elements in most lives, as love often brings happiness and benefits one’s mental and emotional health. Good relationships help with personal growth and provide a stable foundation filled with support, understanding, and safety. Having relationships with other people is crucial for establishing special bonds and creating happiness, which is why I decided to create a how-to guide about this subject. I want to help people and give them a source they can use to find their happiness. With my WikiHow article, I hope that people, and not just ghosts, will make use of it to improve their lives.

Works Cited

Breedlove, S. Marc. Principles of Psychology. Sinauer Associates, Inc. Publishers, 2015.

“Casper The Friendly Ghost (1948) "There's Good Boos Tonight."” Youtube, uploaded by noveltoons, 2 October 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB2cJDq9rOY.

“How to Get a Girlfriend.” WikiHow, 3 October 2018, www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Girlfriend. Accessed 30 November 2018.

“How to Treat a Girl.” WikiHow, 22 November 2018, www.wikihow.com/Treat-a-Girl. Accessed 30 November 2018.

“wikiHow: Writer’s Guide.” WikiHow, 1 October 2018, www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Writer%27s-Guide. Accessed 30 November 2018.

Lenhart, Amanda, et al. “Social Media & Mobile Internet Use among Teens and Young Adults. Millennials.” Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2010, pp. 1-51, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED525056. Accessed 21 Nov. 2018.

Nowland, Rebecca, et al. “Loneliness and Social Internet Use: Pathways to Reconnection in a Digital World?” Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 13, no. 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 70–87, doi:10.1177/1745691617713052.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Ghost.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Apr. 2016, www.britannica.com/topic/ghost-spirit. Accessed 30 November 2018.