A Rhetorical Analysis Of Joe Smith's TED Talk

The TED Talk by Joe Smith he talks about about a small way to reduce waste. The title of his speech is called, “How to use a paper towel” and was filmed in March 2012. In this TED Talk by Smith he talked about how to save paper towels. He wanted to clarify how much we really waste and what we can do to reduce paper towel consumption. He showed the audience a effective way to use the paper towel through a simple demonstration.. Smith's main audience is business owners and CEO’s. Smith is trying to reduce paper towels, through logos, informal humor and information to help convince and show the audience how easy it really is to use less paper towels.

In the beginning of the TED Talk the speaker uses reasoning and facts to direct the attention of the audience toward the subject. The speaker explains this by telling the audience the real hard numbers on how many paper towels they waste and what they can do to reduce it. Right from the beginning Smith says, “571,230,00 pounds of paper. No small thing.” Here Smith uses this impressive statistic to put an image into the audience’s head. Now Smith has the audience's attention and they are more willing to listen to what he has to say about how to

This isn’t entirely true and this error distracts from the effectiveness of the speech. It also weakens Smith's logic and may cause him to lose the audience's attention. Smith does do a exceptional job talking about how much paper towels we waste every year. He says, “13 billion used every year” (Smith). This makes people feel dreadful through statistics. Smith has people are willing to listen to what he has to say since he is a speaker at a TED Talk. People will automatically listen because he is knowledgeable so all he has to do is make common ground with the audience. He does this by involving the audience, which allows his speech to stand out and the audience will most likely remember his speech the