In Grant-Davie’s article “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents” he quotes Bitzer who defined rhetorical situation as “a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decisions or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence” (350). Many articles in the news use rhetorical situations to have an effect on their audience to do something about the issue. Politics, for example, uses rhetoric to persuade the audience to take the side of an individual candidate or even battling companies will use rhetoric in articles about their products so that the public will choose them over a different company. Rhetoric can be found all over the news and while doing research I came upon the article “Are We Fracking Away our Health?” To analyze the rhetoric of this article, we must look at the exigence, audiences, constraints, and any unforeseen ramifications of the article.
Exigence defined by Grant-Davie is “some need or problem that can be addressed and solved through rhetorical discourse” (351). The exigence of an article can be answered by using three questions: “what is the discourse about,” “why is the discourse needed,” and “what is the discourse trying to accomplish” (Grant-Davie 352-353). In the article “Are We Fracking Away our Health?” the author Mary Anne Mercer writes about an issue in
When you see a solider in his or her uniform, you are proud that they are serving this country to protect our freedom, securing our country, and defending democracy worldwide. The solider can come from different branches of the Military. The one you might be familiar with is the U.S. Army. These soldiers are well respected and prepared to serve our country whenever and wherever needed, combat-ready at all times, and trained to counter any threat, anywhere. In 2007, the United States Army department published a recruitment ad for U.S.
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.
Although Bitzer continues in the third section of his essay, by outlining the general characteristics or features of a rhetorical situation, it is his discussion of sophistical rhetoric that is most interesting. (11) He notes that a sophistic situation is one where a contrived exigence is, “asserted to be real... alleged constituents are due to error or ignorance,... and [it derives] from fantasy in which exigence, audience, and constraints may all be imaginary objects of a mind at play”. (11) He concludes that, “rhetoric is distinguished from the mere craft of persuasion which, although it is a legitimate object of scientific investigation, lacks philosophical warrant as a practical discipline”. (14)
Rhetoric is the study of how writers and speakers use words to influence an audience. Pathos, Logos, and Ethos are examples of rhetorical devices, where the rhetorician would appeal to an audience to prove a point. In both the Declaration of Independence and The American Crisis #1, the authors use several examples of rhetoric to persuade their audience in the 1700s, to separate themselves from England.
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,
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
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.
Rhetoric gives you an avenue to tell a story from your perspective in a way that connects with the intended audience without having to be one hundred percent substantiated. This writing style is evident in almost everything we read from billboards to Internet ads and even political speeches.
In “Bring Back Flogging”, Jeff Jacoby addresses the problems within America 's criminal justice system. He gives many reasons why imprisonment simply does not work, and suggests that corporal punishment should be used as an alternative. Published in the Boston Globe, a newspaper well known for being liberal, Jacoby provides a conservative view and directs his argument towards those who strongly support imprisonment and view corporal punishment to be highly barbaric and inhumane. However, in order to shed light on our current situation, Jacoby discusses the dangers that we face though our criminal justice system a nd shows concern that imprisonment is doing more harm than good. In effect, Jacoby looks to the past for solutions, and
No one wants to read a boring paper. It will make people tired within minutes. Most textbooks have no word or images that captivate their readers. That’s why people avoid reading them because there’s nothing fascinating about it. Writing about a topic that has conflict and visual literacy will keep the audience interested and wanting to read more about it. In a rhetorical situation, there are tones used for different types of audience. Rhetoric is used for different communities. It needs to be a reliable in a specific topic in order to communicate effectively.
In Marjane Satrapi's word-specific panel about refugees fleeing north on page 89, she indicates the perilous situation of the war through taxis escaping flaming iconography. The bombing of border towns in the Iran-Iraq war forces residents to abandon their homes and belongings in the hope of finding refuge in the northern cities. The foreboding, chaotic scene underscores a period of turmoil in Iranian history. The words of the panel state, “After Abadan, every border town was targeted by bombers. Most of the people living in those areas had to flee northward, far away from the Iraqi missiles.” Satrapi sets the backdrop of warfare with intense, slightly militaristic words such as “targeted,” “flee,” and “far away”. This being a word-specific panel, the graphic
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.
“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
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 significant part of our everyday lives. Whether it's convincing our friends to go to a concert on the weekend, to go to a certain place for lunch, or even convincing yourself to do something that you should but don't want to do. Rhetoric is all around us today. Billboard ads, television commercials, newspaper ads, political speeches, even news stories all try, to some degree, to sway our opinion or convince us to take some sort of action. If you take a step back to look and think about it, rhetoric, in all actuality, shapes our lives. Every day we have an array of options of things to do or things to buy. So every day, our opinion or actions are being influenced, however minutely, by rhetoric.