Analysis Of Ethos And Error By Larry Beason

In James Baldwin’s essay, “A Talk to Teachers”, he addresses the teachers around the world. He argues that the purpose of education is to equip students with the ability to look at the world for themselves. Clearly, Baldwin’s most significant rhetorical move to persuade the reader is his use of ethos, pathos, and repetition.

The rule of law is reflected as a core principle of our nation and vital to ordered liberty. To rightly govern the American rule of law it is essential to acknowledge the continuity between the American Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The United States of America “government” is framed by these two important documents. The principles of the Declaration of Independence constitute the foundation of the government based on the universal equality of all human beings, and the U.S. Constitution founds the political process that is to be followed by the elected officials in governing the people. One cannot be without the other; both are essential for a stable government. Abraham Lincoln’s speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum in

In the article titled “I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why,” published by Harvard Business Review on July 20, 2012, Kyle Weins claims as a business owner of two companies largely reliant on writing that good writers are more intelligent, are better at doing things completely unrelated to writing, and pay more attention to detail. Wein’s overall goal of the article is to show the connection between employees with good grammar and good work ethic. Wein’s is backing up his zero tolerance approach to bad grammar by showing these correlations. Potential employees may have prompted him to write the article because they felt his grammar test was unfair. He wants to describe how he is using the test to eliminate unqualified employees. As a busy businessman the article is a way of addressing all the people that do not agree with his approach at the same time.

Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American activist, once said, “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.” In the Jim Crow South in the 1930s, the setting of the film The Great Debaters, directed by Denzel Washington in 2007, King’s words were particularly relevant. James Farmer Jr., the main character of the film, argues King’s point in the final debate about civil disobedience between Harvard and Wiley College. Although the Wiley debaters rely effectively on the strategy of ethos, the keys to their victory are the strategies pathos and logos.

David Brooks is a well-refined journalist for the New York Times News Paper Company. He writes many different controversial articles, that tends to focus around arguments of education. Within Brooks’ arguments he uses effective techniques to persuade the audience. In this specific column, he addresses society as a whole, but with special emphasis on students. David Brooks successfully persuades his audience through his presentation of his claim, his persuasive writing style, and his usage of emotional appeals.

Into the Wild tells the story of Chris McCandless, a young man who embarked on an adventure across the U.S. Chris lived for adventure, and sadly met his demise in the Alaskan wilderness. Chris’ death brought about a large debate as to whether Chris was insane or simply idealistic. Krakauer wrote Into the Wild to prove Chris’ sanity and soundly completes that task by using rhetorical devices to persuade his audience.

In school, there are always those who do not understand the content in class, but get by with passing grades. In Mary Sherry’s essay, “In Praise of the F Word”, she writes about how in the American school system students get passed along without any consideration for their pace or skill level (Sherry, 564-566). Sherry also discusses how unprepared the American public is after high school and college (Sherry, 564). In, “In Praise of the F word”, Sherry also discusses her own son and one of his experiences in his high school (Sherry, 565). The content of “In Praise of the F word” was very persuasive, as Sherry effectively utilizes the aristotelian appeals. She uses ethos effectively to build trust in her message. The ethos or trust built in Sherry was effective in persuading the audience about her credibility. The examples used in Sherry’s essay relate to her own experience with the topics on hand. The

For Carson’s ethos appeals she establishes her credibility by stating facts and providing opinions on the danger of different chemicals that are being used. Also, she appeals to pathos by questioning the “highly intelligent” that creator of these pesticides. For example, she uses her trustworthiness by mentioning facts, she appeals to ethos to opposing arguments but, also through her perspective. In doing so, she solidifies her credibility by way of example; she uses a very detailed statement such

Co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc, Steve Jobs, in his commencement speech at stanford university, illustrates three distinguishable points of his life. Jobs’ is very successful in his approach to inspire the graduates by speaking on the experience and insight he has gained. Jobs has a simplistic yet elegant tone and diction to convey his hardships to communicate how much life has to give and teach us in an inspirational way.

Andrea Lunsford, who wrote “Our Semi-Literate Youth? Not So Fast”, conducts her own study with a few colleagues to take notes on how students writing skills are changing. She decides to conduct another one twenty five years later to see how much the writing skills have changed since technology has been updated and became more available to students. She found that “students today are writing more than ever before.” Although we still have the same amount of writing errors as before, the patterns of errors are different. Many people argue that technology is only making our writing skill worse, this study helps to prove a different theory. Most of the errors made are the use of a wrong word. Lunsford believes “these wrong words come from the advice given by the

The essay “In Praise of the ‘F’ Word” by Mary Sherry explains some flaws Sherry has noticed in our education system. These observations are from her teaching perspective, and from her son’s own experience in high school. Sherry claims that some students that have earned a high school degree should not have because they are “semi literate.” She starts out her essay by stating this bluntly, but further explains herself as it goes on.

The Revolutionary War a time of conflict and persuasion, trying to change the outcome Partick Henry writes the “Speech to The Virginia Convention”. Right before the Revolutionary War in the year 1775 Patrick Henry wrote a speech to the president to try and persuade to go to war but to do it in the right way. Henry uses ethos to hit the president’s emotion by talking about how in the past British hasn’t always had their side and they could easily play them, he also uses ethos by using analogies on what the outcome could be.

Ethos has to do with credibility and establishing a good relationship with the audience. This can also be expressed through your tone and confidence of the matter. If someone is more confident through his or her tone, it'll attract the reader to continue reading without questioning the validity of the argument. In my personal statement, I was telling a story that I have told others many times before to a variety of people. My tone remains subtle and informal so that the audience feels like we are having a conversation. This immediately builds a good relationship with the audience (which is also beneficial for establishing pathos), makes me trustworthy, and allows the audience to adapt to my character. In order to establish ethos, I immediately painted the picture of the accident scene and what was going on in my mind.

Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” is narrated by a man who is unhappy that his wife is friends with a blind man. He has not ever known any blind people in his life and he has many ill conceived conceptions about them and how they perceive the world. The narrator unfolds the story slowly to show his own lack of perception with regard to his wife and the world around him. He comes to realize that perhaps the man that cannot see with his eyes can “see” reality better than he can.

This poster uses Ethos- to appeal to the American people. It is created based on the ethic that you do not want your country to loose the war, therefore you will not share any sensitive information. This make the person fell a duty, and responsibility to keep american citizens safe, and you as a citizen should appeal to the country 's need for a trust worthy citizen. Since an argument by definition is when some makes a statement on what they believe is right, I would have to think that this poster uses an argument to make its point across. Meaning that the government believes that the best way to win this war is to keep the American people from providing useful information to the enemy.