The Written Communication of the Santa Barbara Fire Department

Writing is not only one of the most efficient and used communication tools but it is
also considered to be an art since it provides room for expression just like music,
dance or visual art. By mastering the powerful art of writing, one will be able to
inform, persuade or entertain its intended audience in the most efficient way
possible. In this essay Im going to analyze a couple of writing artifacts from the
Santa Barbara Fire Department and determine how the artifacts differ from each
other depending on the audience. Despite the content, in order for written
communication to be effective, it has to be visually appealing and apply to the right
audience.
I have collected writing artifacts from the Santa Barbara Fire Department that are
used to inform students on how to prevent and handle situations of emergency
where conventions such as traffic, fire and drugs are introduced. I have been in
contact with David Sadecki who is responsible for the public information of given by
the Santa Barbara Fire Department, including the writing artifacts in form of
handouts brochures that I have collected which is targeted towards elementary,
middle and high-school students. In an interview with David, Ive asked him
questions about the different artifacts including the purpose of them, their content,
structure, and more importantly how the information and design of the handouts
varies depending on the targeted audience.
The first artifact that Im going to analyze, which is in regard to elementary-school
students, covers safe street crossing, safe use of fire, and how to react in case of
emergency such as a natural disaster or a fire. The second artifact which is targeted
towards middle-school students basically covers the same things as the first artifact
but it also mentions the dangers of drugs and fireworks. The third and last artifacts
which is in regard to high-school students puts less emphasis on fire and natural
disasters and focus more on how to how to be a responsible driver and the dangers
of driving under influence of drugs or alcohol.

Before I start analyzing the writing artifacts I would like to explain some of the
terminology that I will be using in this essay. While analyzing those artifacts I will
use terms such as ethos, pathos and logos which all refers to different ways of
persuading someone. Ethos means to convince someone based on credibility or
ethics of the persuader, such as a persuasion attempt made by fire fighter where he
uses his expertize of the subject as the base of his argument. Pathos on the other
hand means to persuade someone based on emotions. For example if a writer is
trying to convince someone to not drink and drive, he might express anger or
frustration as part of the argument. The last term Logos means to persuade
someone based on logic where tools such as facts and statistics can be used to craft
an argument.

You can really tell that the first artifact is made for children. Not only is the language
very simple and short, but also the greater deal of the handout consists mainly of
pictures and cartoons to capture the childrens interest.
The handout really manages to deliver its messages in a very simple and educational
way by showing pictures with step-by-step instructions on how to handle an
emergency such as a fire or an earthquake. The pictures, among other things,
illustrates a teacher in a classroom environment asking her students to demonstrate
how to act in different emergencies. As the teacher brings up one scenario after
another, the kids in the illustrated picture responds by taking physical actions such
as hiding under the classroom table in case of an earthquake or by screaming for
help and call 911 in case a traffic accident or fire. At the same time as the pictures
are delivering the major part of the information given by the handout, there are also
small talk-bubbles with short conversation to complement and assist the
pedagogical aspect of the demonstrated pictures. When I talked to David at the
Santa Barbara Fire Department and got in deeper conversation with him about the
first writing artifact, I asked him if maybe the pictures could be misinterpreted

because of the lack of detailed information often provided by a paragraph of text,

which this artifact had very few off. In his response to that, he mentioned that
although the handout seemed to lack information, they were meant to be explained
by a teacher or a fire fighter. David explained that kids of that age wont be able to
learn these important lessons if you just lecture them by talking for a straight hour,
neither by having them reading a huge chunk of text. The best method of teaching
this according to David, is to fully interact with the children and capture their
attention. Before the instructor goes over the handout, he will explain that there is a
small quiz on the back of the handout in an attempt to make the learning process
into a little game .The instructor then goes over each page with the students and
explain what is happening in the pictures as the children look at them.
In order to persuade its audience, the handout uses mostly ethos and less pathos
based arguments. The way ethos comes to use in the artifact is mainly by the
illustrated teacher in the pictures. This is because the illustrated teacher comes out
as an authority or an expert in a way, by being an adult and answering all the
questions from the kids. Since the artifact is meant to be introduced by an
instructor, ethos also comes to play when the instructor has the opportunity to
share their personal experiences. Pathos also takes place in the handout in form of
pictures. One picture in particular illustrates how a young boy forgets to blow out a
candlelight before taking his dog on a walk and gets to witness his room on fire as
he returns. This picture is gave me the impression that we should not forget that fire
is dangerous while the picture captures feelings such as fear, stress and sense of
loss.
The second writing artifact, which is targeted towards middle-school students is
much different from the first artifact we looked at. This artifact goes beyond the
most simple safety procedures and goes further on to address ethical and moral
dilemmas including the subjects of group pressure, drugs and cigarette smoking.

Instead of putting focus on the pictures itself, this artifact puts more emphasis on
the text around it. Each picture comes with a paragraph or two that explains the
image. While much of the information in the text is meant to be informative and to
place a context for the picture, moral and ethical questions are also pointed out to
the reader in form of bullet points. According to David, the best way of getting the
important points across to middle school students is by having the students think
for themselves and to make sure the students fully understand the potential
consequences of diverse actions such as tossing a lit cigarette in the trash. This is
done partly by showing more graphic images to older audience, says David. One
thing that captured my attention, which makes this artifact specifically targeted
towards middle-school students, is that the handout used a picture of a videogame
to illustrate a point on how to be safe in traffic.
In order for the message of the second artifact to get across in the right way, the
author has chosen to use mostly pathos and logos. Pathos takes place since the
graphic images are meant to persuade you to do, or not to do something by scaring
you in a sense and therefore using emotions to strengthen the argument. Logos can
be seen in the text by the numerous statistics and data that is being presented in
form of charts or text.
The third and last artifact which is related to high-school students had not more
than one picture per page and consisted mainly out of paragraphs of text and bulletpoints. What made this artifact very different from the other ones was that it was
mainly about traffic and the issue of driving under influence. By addressing those
issues the potential audience gets narrowed down to address a little older audience
in specific. This artifact was by far the most serious one and puts a lot of emphasis
on individual responsibility and a good set of morals by among other things listing
the potential legal penalties certain actions such as drinking and driving can result
in. One thing that can be noticed in this handout which makes it more relevant to
high-school students is the recommendation of smart phone applications and links
to social media pages.

This artifact is mostly using arguments in form of logos but also a little bit of pathos.
Logos can be seen throughout the whole artifact more or less as statistics are being
presented. The artifact also uses the law and penalties in an attempt to discourage
people from drinking and driving. Pathos can be noticed in one specific article this
handout mentions where a young teenager speaks about the combination of
drinking and how it caused him to accidently crash and kill one of his best friends
who was sitting in the passenger seat. This article was clearly made in order to
persuade teens to not drink and drive by using the sad article.
In conclusion, all of the artifacts were very different from each other and it could be
noticed by the correlation of pictures and text, the language itself, the topics and
especially the arguments. As I was going from one handout to another I also noticed
that the different artifacts served different purposes. The first one was more or less
only informative and practical while the second and third were more about
persuading the reader to make a change in behavior and to become a more
responsible person.