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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Commencement Speech By Steve Jobs

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Careers fill a large part of life: many American students grow up with this mindset and feel it to be true. One person in particular, Steve Jobs, gave a Commencement Speech in 2005 at Stanford University. He simply states that to fulfill meaning in life and in a career one must do something they love. Jobs begins his speech with one of three stories, he gradually builds his credibility by employing emotional appeals, using personal facts, and strategically structuring and implementing key elements in his speech; by the end of the speech, his use of creditable insight, emotional experiences, and beautifully structured allocation, ultimately inspires and wins over his audience. In his speech, Jobs first sets the stage by sharing the story of his adoption; he explains the difficulty of his adoption process and the promise that ultimately led him to college where he eventually decides to drop out six months later. He then goes on to share the story of his ten year process of creating the Apple Company, the challenges he faced when being fired from Apple, and how passion and faith led him to a better path. Jobs lastly shares his battle with cancer and his face to face experience with death which made him realize how valuable and limited life is. These three key events portray failure, loss, hardship, faith, passion, and success. Throughout his speech, Jobs implements subtle examples from his life that appeal to ethos, and build his argument. In many arguments today, facts

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