Behind Your Style Ravisankar Analysis

John Bruni
ENG112
Professor RobinsSevel
5 February 2014
Behind Your Style Rajeev Ravisankar, a writerwrite for Ohio State University’s newspaper, The Lantern, brings the term sweatshop to the attention of his readers (when does he do this? In a 2004 article about bananas? Give the reader more to go on here).. He (Ravisankar) first connects with them (who) by putting himself in the same boat as them by stating that being a “poor” college student drives them to go to extreme lengths to get clothing;. lLike. Like camping out in front of outlets stores just toto purchaseto get as much as they can with their precious money. (What about saying “Ravisankar gives his readers a situation they can easily relate to when he tells the story of how
“poor” college students go to extreme lengths for clothing – like camping out in front of outlet stores to purchase as much as they can with their limited resources.”) This sets him (Ravisankar) up for his transition into the main topic of his opinion piece; which is the high cost of human labor in sweatshops it takes in order to produce such low costs for clothing. Ravisankarjeev (refer to him by his last name or his full name)Rajeev gains his audiences attentioneducates his audience by drawing their attention towards these terrible conditions, educating theminforming them about on the activists and unions that try to prevent such conditions along with the companies that continually try to avoid higher wages, and completes his publishing (article) with information on how we can help change these behaviors.. (You need a transition sentence here).. Ohio State University is a school often seen on TV and in magazines for its sports, academics, and beautiful campus (should you cite this?).. One could say that the readers that attend this school are blessed and lucky. in many ways so Aat the beginning of the article, Rajeev immediately brings light to the terrible conditions of sweatshops and the workers that are not much less fortunate. He states that the workers put in 70-80 hours a week and only receive pennies for their tireless efforts work. Intimidation is used to get work out of them encourage high performance and if they don’t do not meet certain quotas their they are forced to work overtime. He also adds that the buildings feel like saunas, the ventilation is pitiful, and the bathrooms are unsanitary. By providing these examples for the readers, he creates sympathy for the mistreated workers and it helps the readers connect to his argument. Ravisankarjeev Rajeev transitions smoothly from talking about the dreadful working conditions to talking about the labor right activists, trade unions, student protests and human-right groups that continually put pressure on companies to make improvements. It would have been more influential to the audience if he had provided more factual information, including stated names of those companies and had given the dates that these protests occurred. He then tries to convince the readers that these multinational companies don’t do not care about giving to charity and only care about makingare only interested in turning a profit. He does this by using the phrase “of course” which is a commonly used phrase to let people know the situation is obvious. Rajeev also gives examples on how free-market fundamentalists try to shift the blame to anti-sweatshop activists. Saying He says that by criticizing labor and human rights conditions, companies are being forced to relocateingrelocating which results in workers losing their jobs. It’s only logical that companies and fundamentalists would try to place the blame on someone else for their wrongdoings. Starting his seventh paragraph, Rajeev Ravisankar immediately gives the names of companies that many of his readers would be familiar with such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Champion, Gap, and Walmart.
He uses this strategy to put a name with the cruelty. He continues by describing “the race to the bottom” (86). This relates is to the continual decline of wages and working conditions. He also suggests that this “race to the bottom” isn’t the ideal way to bring the developing world out of the pits of poverty. By relating the developing world to the pits of poverty he gains the readers emotions. No one would want to live in the pits of poverty. His use of questions like, “what can we do about it?”(87) gives the readers motivation to help sweatshop workers. RavisankarjeevRajeev received his bachelors in International Studies and Political Science. This gives him credibility on his awareness of the appalling situations. He then names an USAS, an organization that seeks to make universities source their apparel in factories that respect workers’ rights. To support his claim on the benefit USAS he gives an example of the impact universities have on clothing brands. He says that universities purchase nearly $3 billion in apparel with their institutions names and logos. Since brands don’t want to risk losing this money, it puts pressure on them to create better living conditions for workers. His audience can relate to this because students that attend university more than likely have an article of clothing that has their school’sschools names on it. In hHis last sentence he says “campaigns such as this”(87). Not only does thisit bring attention to that specific campaign but it encourages his readers to possibly start their own campaign against
sweatshops. Sweatshop Oppression is an articlea publishing (you need a different word here) that is meant to bring the mistreated workers of sweatshops to the attention of college students. Rajeev Ravisankar gives numerous examples of the conditions that these companies force their employees to work in. He sheds light on the different groups that try to prevent this and on the groups that try to reverse the blame. He also gives his readers ideas on how they can step up and start their own organization to prevent or improve the conditions of these sweatshops. What’s his end Ultimately, his goal? Ravisankar’s main goal is is tto empower his reader to begin the figfight for better working conditions.

Ravisnakar, Rajeev. “Sweatshop Oppression”. Practical Argument.
John E. Sullivan. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010.
86-87. Book.
Kirsner, Laurie G, and Stephen R. Mandell. ht to…