Rhetoric Reflection Paper

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is a government website that provides information about various diseases, disabilities, disorders, etc.. The CDC provides multiple webpages about Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that list and provide information about causes, treatments, variations, and signs/symptoms of the disorder. On their informative pages, they use rhetorical devices to better portray their message. The CDC effectively uses the three rhetorical devices, pathos, ethos, and logos, to reach their goal of informing their target audience and providing a clear perspective on Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

“Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott, is a hilarious must read for junior high school students and any other aspiring writers. Her essay inspires comfort and confidence in writing a first draft. It concretes that all writers experience the “shitty” first draft. Anne Lamott wrote this instructional information in 1995, but it is timeless information. She blows the idea of writing an immaculate first draft out of the water. Anne supports the idea that bad first drafts will almost always lead to better second, third and final drafts. She symbolizes the first draft to be like a child. Where you put all your thoughts and emotions out there in words on paper, you go all over the place, you say all kinds of ridiculous things, and all with the

A college education is valuable and its quality is of the highest importance to most Americans. In his essay, “On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students,” Mark Edmundson utilizes ethos, pathos, and logos to effectively deliver his argument that the current educational system, especially in college, revolves around consumerism which in turn has negatively impacted students, teachers, and universities in general. However, although Edmundson presents an overall logically sound argument, there are few instances throughout the article that may hinder the reliability of his claims to the audience.

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.

The first chapter introduced the reader to the art of rhetoric. He describes how rhetoric works through real life examples. He demonstrates ways that rhetoric persuades us like, argument from strength, and seduction. He tells the reader that the sole purpose of arguing is to persuade the audience. He showed that the chief purpose of arguing is to also achieve consensus, a shared faith in a choice.

In his article “If Technology Is Making Us Stupid, It’s Not Technology’s Fault,” David Theo Goldberg effectively informs the reader about the effects that computers in the home and school environment could have on the future education of the coming generations. Goldberg achieves this by executing defined organization and adding unique comparisons about the potentially crippling effects technology can have on a society when put into the wrong hands.

In the essay, “What You Eat is Your Business”, Radley Balko writes to tell his audience about how the government is trying to control people’s health and eating habits by restricting food, taxing high calorie food, and considering menu labeling. Balko includes in his essay that government restricting diets and having socialist insurance is not helping the obesity problem, but it is only making it worse because it not allowing people to take their health in to their own hands so they have no drive to lose weight or eat healthy. In his essay, Balko is targeting society, including those who may be obese, he is trying to show them that the laws our

First, I found this class to be helpful because of the what I have learned and the skills I better developed since the beginning of the semester. Coming in to this class, I knew that the rhetorical appeals were ethos, pathos and logos. However, I was not very proficient at using them in my writing. This class allowed me to practice using the rhetorical appeals it strengthen my writing. In my argumentative essay I used pathos to appeal to the reader emotions and to make them feel bad for the college athletes because they were not being paid. An example of this from my essay is when I used the quote, “student- athletes, especially those from low-income households, do not have any money to spend on a trip home to see family” (Vanderford 830). Using this quote makes the reader fell bad that the athletes cannot see their families often because they can not afford to travel home. I used ethos in my essay when I would quote a source and state who the person is. This is shown when I

Many people in today’s society tend to believe that a good education is the fastest way to move up the ladder in their chosen. People believe that those who seek further education at a college or university are more intelligent. Indeed, a college education is a basic requirement for many white collar, and some blue collar, jobs. In an effort to persuade his audience that intelligence cannot be measured by the amount of education a person has Mike Rose wrote an article entitled “Blue Collar Brilliance”. The article that appeared in the American Scholar, a quarterly literary magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, established in 1932. The American Scholar audience includes, Company’s , Employees,

“We have, in this country, two million children under the age of sixteen years who are earning their bread” (1-3). Throughout Florence Kelley’s speech to the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she emphasizes the injustice of child labor laws and the need for women to take a stand by fighting for the right to vote. Kelley is one of many inspirational leaders who fought for women’s rights. She reaches out to a group of women so that they might call to mind their right to petition. In doing so, Kelley is persuading the audience to fight for their right to vote to change child labor laws. Kelley uses several rhetorical devices such as imagery, diction, and pathos

Every individual has traditions passed down from their ancestors. This is important because it influences how families share their historical background to preserve certain values to teach succeeding generation. N. Scott Momaday has Native American roots inspiring him to write about his indigenous history and Maxine Hong Kingston, a first-generation Chinese American who was inspired by the struggles of her emigrant family. Kingston and Momaday manipulate language by using, metaphors, similes, and a unique style of writing to reflect on oral traditions. The purpose of Kingston’s passage is to reflect upon her ancestor’s mistake to establish her values as an American

In David Brooks’ “People Like Us” passage on the issue of diversity, Brooks takes a personally emotional perspective of the way in which Americans don’t appreciate how diverse our nation is while “relatively homogeneous” (Brooks 136). His argument is weakened, however, through a bias and hypocrisy that his diction conveys. He claims that grouping ourselves with those who we are most alike is in our nature to, and in doing so, we separate ourselves from those who are different. Using certain statistics as evidence, Brooks points out that the social segmentation created by society will always exist.

In ‘Here’s Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense’, Alex Newhouse, a lawyer who resides in the area of Sunnyside, Washington addresses the controversial issue of the legalization of cannabis. The sole purpose of Newhouse’s article is to persuade readers and voters that marijuana should be legalized. Throughout his article, Newhouse focuses on the use of ethos and logos, while also slightly focusing on the use of pathos, to help persuade his audience. The incorporation of such rhetoric strategies allows Newhouse to change the opinions of individuals with views opposing the opinions he, himself, holds.

Logos: It is an appeal to the mind with the use of logic, rationality and critical reasoning to persuade the audience. The author uses logos in his article to make a logical connection with the topic. For example, the author uses the explanation of ideas in the article and employs lots of diagrams in each parts of the topic to show the visualization to support his evidence which is very informative because the visuals give lots of information about what the article is about and that to get attention of the audience.

Rhetoric is a course in which students are taught the values of persuasion. And yet, behind this course is the utmost power to corrupt the world, changing it into a world of our own policies. This power, even though seldom discussed, has lead to many intriguing discoveries. One such discovery is how people are able to shape the world they live in simply by choosing the right words. Therefore those who would want the world to be a better place must protect this power. If in the wrong hands this power could cause serious damage. Several authors have striven to protect rhetoric and its power. Few agree on the matter of defining rhetoric, but they know that they must protect rhetoric from dark souls. A single definition of rhetoric must maintain a simplistic nature while incorporating every aspect of rhetoric. However, I argue that rhetoric is a means of persuading audiences of a situation and a particular reality through language and personal appeal. In order to prove this definition I will discuss how rhetoric creates a situation, the shaping of a different reality, the audience, the use of language, and the personal appeal. Finally, I will demonstrate the absolute need for rhetoric.