Rhetorical Analysis & Clarity in writing Eng 105 Th. Oct 13th

Your Questions

Ethos, Pathos, Logos  Do ethos, pathos, and logos need to be related to the thesis?  Yes - If you think the author did a good job using e/p/l to effectively make their point, you’ll be supporting that claim and giving example from that standpoint.  And vice-versa for ineffective arguments  An argument can be effective but still have some bad points - most will. Don’t hesitate to talk about those.

Lack of ethos, pathos, logos  What if my paper doesn’t have any ethos/pathos/logos?  If there is an argument, there is logos - somewhere. If there is an author, there is ethos - somewhere. If there are words other than cold, academic speech - “obliterated” where something less loaded could be used, that is pathos

Effective or Ineffective?  How do I know if an argument is or isn’t effective?  Need to put aside personal opinion - that can easily taint your judgementµ  Go by the use of appeals. Is it TOO emotional? Is ethos as glaring as a president putting on a blue collar shirt and rolling up his sleeves to appeal to the working class? Or is it legitimate?

Which is easier?  Is it easier to analyze something you agree with or something you disagree with?  If you agree with it, you will be less likely to notice problems - “preaching to the choir.”  If you disagree, you may find flaws where flaws do not exist

Having problems with Ethos  Anything that makes the author sound good  Any titles, history, MA MFA PHD, Etc.  Anywhere the author tries to relate his/her experiences to the reader’s in any way  Any words that appeal to a certain group  Words like “us, we, fellow Americans, etc.  Conversational tone rather than academic

Fallacies  Don’t focus the paper only on fallacies  Talk about fallacies in the Logos/Logical argument section - you may also mention them near your thesis if the author uses many of them and it really hurts/helps the paper  They can add to an argument - many effective papers use terrible logic. Productive use of fallacies is a fine art that has gotten many people into positions of power.

What if there is very little of one argument type?  There should be at least two of each in your paper  Talk some about what the author should have done in this case  Talk about how this helped/hurt the argument - perhaps not appealing to the audience helped make a very logical argument more powerful by drawing more attention to statistics

Idea Generation - Length!  Go through your article line by line before you write - mark up a list on the article itself of the ethos, pathos, logos, audience, author, tone, bias, fallacies, argument type, etc.  Don’t force yourself to write sequentially - NO great writer/author writes perfectly from “Once upon a time” to “The end.”  Force yourself to find at least 2-3 examples of each appeal. You may think it’s silly, but you may surprise yourself!

Why the hell are we writing this?  Critical thinking skills  Skills/Ideas will be used in other 105 papers  Skills/Ideas will be used in ALL classes that need papers - and many will.  Helps with awareness of media, culture, advertising, politics, internet, etc.

Editing for Clarity P. 339/Section 10 in spiral bound book

Redundancies   Students living in close proximity in the dorms need to cooperate together if they want to live in harmony.   Students living in the dorms need to cooperate to live in harmony.

Repetition   The children enjoyed watching television more than they enjoyed reading books   The children enjoyed watching television more than reading books

Wordy to Concise   It is a common desire to use long, academic- sounding phrases in place of single-word alternatives – but in reality, the concise choice is the best choice   At this point in time = Now   In order to = To   For the purpose of = to   In the event that = If

Missing words  Missing words can change the meaning of a sentence - make sure subjects, verbs, etc. all agree  The gang members neither cooperated nor listened to the authorities  The gang members neither cooperate with not listened to the authorities

Misplaced Modifiers  The hikers watched the storm gathering force from the cabin’s porch  Leaking in the basement, I found a pipe  From the cabin’s porch, the hikers watched the storm gathering.  I found a pipe leaking in the basement

Be assertive  This seems like it might be an example of a logical fallacy…  This is a logical fallacy.

Author in the paper  Do not use “I”  The paper’s existence implies an author already, as well as an opinion  Therefore, you don’t need “In my opinion” either.