Adnan Syed Rhetorical Analysis

The most difficult thing an author can do when telling a story, is attracting an audience, and maintaining the audience’s engagement. In Serial, while telling the story of Adnan Syed, Sarah Koenigs attracts the audience with her purpose which is proving that Adnan Syed was wrongfully convicted and isn't completely guilty. Sarah maintains the attention of her audience by using emotional, and logical appeal, while also establishing credibility. In other words she uses the rhetoric made up of Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.
Ethos is credibility appeal in rhetoric, it's the the appeal of ethics and it convinces the audience that the speaker is reliable. An example of this in Serial is when Sarah, hires detective Jim Trainum, to help look into Adnan’s case. Sarah says “But clearly the jury found Jay believable, or believable enough. After a six week trial, they convicted Adnan in just two hours. We

Examples of logos are statistics, facts, evidence, and anything logical. In Serial, Sarah uses lot of logos because she’s reexamining a murder case, that was technically already closed. An example of Sarah’s use of logos is when she says “Here’s what he’s talking about. In both of Jay’s taped statements, there’s a before. A period of time before the tape recorder is turned on. When the cops first bring Jay in on February 28th, they talked to him for about an hour before the tape went on. Then, on March 15th, the second interview. Jay signs his initials to an official explanation of rights form at 3:15 p.m. Then the tape starts.” She brings evidence to discredit Jay and the detectives in the case. Afterwards she notices the time it takes for the interview. Sarah and Jim believe that Jay worked with the investigators to clean up his story. This seems to be evidence not taken into consideration during Adnan’s case, which is why Sarah looked into it. This use of evidence or logos by Sarah helps persuade the audience to believe Adnan isn’t