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Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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Zach Horwath
Ms. Schmidt
English 201
8 February 2013
Rhetorical Analysis
What influences your opinions and decisions in life? Is it a fact base analysis of a topic, providing you with statistical evidence to back its claims, or is it an emotional based claim that tugs at your heartstrings and connects with your past? Both forms of argument are fighting for your acceptance of its arguments, but do so in conflicting ways. On one end of the spectrum, a Dodge commercial exploits your emotional connection to your country and leverages that to sway your opinion of their new car. And on the other end, a writer uses facts and data to convince you that the legalization of marijuana is the right thing to do.
The 2010 Dodge Challenger
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The most powerful use of pathos presents itself in the last few seconds of the commercial. With the British troops fleeing, a narrator says the single line of the ad, “Here’s a couple of things America got right, cars and freedom”(Dodge Challenger Freedom Commercial). The short sentence stirs pride by stating that both cars and freedom are two things that America “got right” and inferring that the Dodge Challenger is a car that the designers “got right” (Dodge Challenger Freedom Commercial).
Without listing facts or giving performance numbers, the commercial provides logos by giving a factually correct battle scene until the car arrives. The logos also hides behind the cars actual performance on the terrain, with the commercial proving that the Challenger can take on the tough terrain of a battle scene. Relying heavily on a call to arms approach, the lack of factual information doesn’t take away from the message that the company is focusing on, which is of American patriotism. Dodge isn’t wasting ad time telling the buyer about facts and numbers about the car because it doesn’t need to. Their goal in this ad is for the viewer to draw an emotional connection between the car and U.S. pride and in doing that they were very successful.
The article by Joseph Lowe about the legalization of marijuana provides a different kind of support for the argument, using facts and numbers rather than
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