Which of these three cartoons do you find most effective at communicating its message? How does it encourage readers to think about issues of privacy in an electronic environment? Why? (The discussion of evaluative criteria in Chapter 10 may be useful here.)

Analyze how each of these cartoons works as a visual argument, as discussed in Chapter 14. Consider the visual design, including the images and colors used, the style of drawing, and the relationship between the images and text of each.

Choose one of the cartoons, and analyze it in terms of its appeals to emotions, to the character of its creator, and to the facts or reasoning the cartoon represents. (These appeals are discussed in Chapter 1 and again in Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and Chapter 4, respectively.)

Someone searching databases for cartoons generally uses a keyword search, as discussed in Chapter 18. The keywords listed for the cartoon by Alfredo Martirena are National Security Agency, NSA, domestic espionage, domestic spying, Prism, Tempora, Edward Snowden, spying scandal, spying scandals, intelligence agency, intelligence agencies, privacy, and surveillance society, while those for the cartoon by Larry Lambert are domestic spying, espionage, surveillance, spy, spies, spying, email, emails, CIA, FBI, NSA, political scandal, political scandals, reply, replies, intrusions, government, governments, emailing, private, privacy, and personal freedoms. Why would these be appropriate keywords to use in searching for each of these cartoons? (By the way, you may need to check out the meanings of Prism and Tempora; we did. Do so by Googling Prism, spying and Tempora, spying; adding spying limits the search, of course.) What might account for overlap and differences in the lists, given the content of each cartoon? Can you think of other terms that someone might have used to search for these cartoons? Can you imagine why they weren’t included in the list of keywords?

Many writers struggle with incorporating a visual of any kind — a cartoon, a figure, a table — into a text they are writing in a way that helps readers understand the meaning and significance of the visual argument with regard to the ongoing argument. Imagine that you are writing an essay about the nature of privacy in electronic environments and that you decide to use one of these cartoons to illustrate a point you wish to make. Specify the point you wish to make, and then write a healthy paragraph that could be used to incorporate the cartoon into the text. You will need both to describe the cartoon to some degree and to explain its message or significance. Using a phrase like “the cartoon shows . . .” or “in the cartoon, the reader sees . . .” will help you as you describe the cartoon. (This will be a factual argument of the sort discussed in Chapter 8; the discussion of using visuals in your own arguments in Chapter 14 should help you with this task.)