Steven Lin Essay-Rhetorical Analysis
Many authors use rhetorical devices as a way to convey a theme. In the works ¨Which of These Essay Questions is the Real Thing?¨ by Alexander Schneider and ¨What I Really Wanted to Write in My Admissions Essays¨ by Rachel Toor, both authors use irony and exaggeration to appeal to pathos.Their appeals to pathos are humorous, proving the ridiculous nature of the college admissions process, especially the crafting of college admissions essay. The work by Alexander Schneider was very Ironic which appealed to Pathos and proved that the college application process was easy to lie about, since if you want to go to that college just write what makes you a model student. One example of how he showed
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In her essay, she exaggerates the amount of things she does during her free time to show how anyone writing a college transcript can easily lie. This shows that even the most boring person can write all this down. This helps appeal to pathos because it's humorous and funny. She also uses humor to ridicule the question about if you were a vegetable. She makes fun of it by explaining it in great detail which keeps the audience reading since it appeals to pathos. Another question about why she wants to attend the Fancy Pants University, she uses irony to show that she's writing the truth on how most students actually are like, not what the reader expects to hear. Comparing most of Rachel Toor's essays in ¨What I Really Wanted to Write in My Admissions Essays¨ to Alexander’s, many of Toor’s essays were based around exaggerating the process while Schneider was mostly using irony. This really shows that there are many rhetorical tools that authors can use to show their point. All in all Rachel Toor exaggerates and use an ironic tone to answer dumb questions asked by colleges to appeal to the audience through pathos to ridicule the questions asked by
Have you ever heard the saying “stop and smell the roses”? It can often be used when someone overlooks the true meaning of something. Author of the article “What Is College For?”, Gary Gutting, feels very strongly about this concept as it pertains to college and the experience it offers. Gutting received a doctorate from St. Louis University and enjoys studying the philosophy of religion and science. He feels as though students are lacking academic engagement, and do not enjoy college because they are there for the wrong reasons. In his article, “What Is College For?”, Gutting effectively convinces his audience that college is a haven for knowledge and new perspectives. Through his use of surveys and analyzation of perspectives and his statistical knowledge based on former studies he is able to persuade his readers that college is the right path. [This is a good start, but you want to get a little more specific—how is Gutting using ethos, pathos, and logos? What specific uses of it make his argument strong?]
The authors use of pathos in the essay is well planned and is used effectively. The see proof, the reader would have to look no further than the title of the essay: The Logic of Stupid Poor People. The word ‘stupid’ can be seen as a strong word towards someone or a group of people which stirs up emotion into some readers before they even start reading. It grabs interests and makes people want to hear what she has to say. When the author recalls of her past of being raised in a poor family, the author could also be using her stories to make the reader feel sympathy for her and understand the pressure that poor people are put under for them to be able to be considered for certain benefits and help in general. Another example of the author trying to appeal to the readers emotional side was how she concludes the essay with disregarding and opinions others have about the choice of poor people if they were not poor themselves. She states, “You have no idea what you would do if
Pathos is the writers attempt to appeal to the audience emotions. For instance, “In June, a professor protecting himself with a pseudonym wrote an essay for Vox describing how gingerly he now has to teach. ‘“I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me,”’ the headline said” (Lukianoff and Haidt). The authors appeal to emotion paints a picture in the reader’s mind, further opening their eyes to make them feel how the professor was feeling. Also, naming the article “The Coddling of the American Mind” was a great was to represent how the problem was being addressed. The use of the word “coddling” reflected the way colleges were treating their students like babies. Enforcing trigger warnings to protect the students are not helping them for the future. This appeals to pathos because the audience gets a glimpse of what the after effect of “babying” has on
Within The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls uses the rhetorical device pathos to help connect with her readers and make it so they can better comprehend her story and the difficulties she often had to deal with. “Mom said Dad was never the same after Mary Charlene died. He started having dark moods, staying out late and coming home drunk and losing jobs (Walls,28)”. This passage is a prime example of pathos seeing
In the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Walls uses pathos to make her point. Pathos is a rhetorical device that appeals to your emotions. “When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the the garbage pails, I’s go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food: apples, hard-boiled eggs, packages of peanut-butter crackers, sliced pickles, half-pint cartons of milk, cheese sandwiches with just one bite taken out because the kid didn’t like the pimentos in cheese,” (Walls 173). Walls uses this device frequently in her book to appeal to the reader’s emotions when she talks about her family or her personal experiences. This quote shows how everyday, Walls constantly had to scavenge for food. This tugs at your heart because you couldn’t imagine
The next element in the rhetorical situation is pathos. Pathos is defined as connecting the author and the reader using emotion. Pathos is more reader dependent than the other elements. Pathos helps the writer know to know their audience and who they are intending to write for. Connecting to the audience using pathos is a strong way to get the support of the reader. The audience needs to be moved by what they’re reading. Without pathos, the writer won’t be able to properly connect to their audience.
Pathos is used in order to link the essay with the reader’s emotions and ethos is used to show the writers moral character. For example, pathos is used when Kozol speaks to a student of a Bronx high school, “Think of it this way,” said a sixteen-year-old girl. “If people in New York woke up one day and learned that we were gone…how would they feel?...I think they’d be relieved.” (Kozol 205) This part of the essay really made me feel sad for this girl who lives in a society where she has grown up feeling like now one cares about her or others of her race.
Our teacher, Mrs. Hetrick, provided the answer to our question: “These essays could have easily been generated by a computer program. They tell me nothing about yourselves; why in the world you are telling me all of this? You need to make me care about the message you are conveying, otherwise, your writing is useless.” She then told us that while we were all communicating in the proper format, we had failed to take into consideration whom our audience was. In order to truly persuade and influence our audience, we had to do more than place complicated ideas into a grammatically immaculate sentences; we need to show the audience why they should care about our writing; otherwise, they will just lose interest. I realize now that this experience provided a stable foundation for what I consider to be an example of passionate rhetorical ability, which helps me reflect on what authors Wallace deems as “good” through their rhetorical strategies.
example of pathos because it plays with peoples emotions and they can more relate to this and
Edmundson’s use of Pathos through satirical informal language throughout the article is one successful rhetorical element he chose to engage his audience. He utilizes words like “piss off” to grab the audience’s attention. “You can get a terrific education in America now … To get it, you’ll need to
In the essay we read, entitled “Why Our Campuses Are Safer Without Concealed Handguns”, we see the author use five main points, as well as using appeals to Ethos Logos and Pathos to help reinforce his view on the topic. The five main reasons that the author feels that college campuses are safer without concealed handguns are introduced to us in the opening of the article, listed as bullet points. The author then goes on to break the article into these separate sections to allow him to go more in depth and explain his position. In this way, he appeals to the reader’s sense of Ethos throughout the entire article by convincing us that he knows what he is taking about. However, the author does not stop here.
Pathos is used very effectively in Seth Davis’s article. By using pathos he is helping to expose the purpose of the article in a way that you wouldn’t think of before. Davis states “As the father of three children under the age of eight, I can only pray that someone “exploits” my sons someday
Anna Quindlen delivers at speech at the Mount Holyoke college, here she expresses her opinion on life and the adversities that she went through during her college years. In her speech she uses a casual tone for instance her use of simples sentences like “Being perfect was hard work, and the hell of it was, the rules of it changed” (Quindlen, 296). Throughout her whole speech she was being very casual and you could see that it was meant for young adults as she gave advice like “ Instead I’d like you to give up Give the backpacks”(Quindlen, 299). Furthermore her speech is arranged so it is very much like an anecdote, and in this anecdote she uses devices like pathos and ethos to appeal to her audience in order to bond and give a meaning
For instance in the excerpt written by Jane Addams, she uses a lot of rhetoric when talking about the necessity for social settlements. In this excerpt there is one rhetoric in particular that stands out, which is pathos. Pathos stirs up feeling of sorrow, sympathy, and pity and that's exactly what Jane Addams does. Jane Addams put as lot of feeling into this piece of writing and that definitely helps build up her argument. When you read this you can get a
Pathos: It is the use of emotion and affect to persuade the audience. In this appeal, the author creates an emotional statement: “ an overworked single mother may find herself over stressed and fatigued at the end of the day, making