Rhetorical Analysis Of Leonid Fridman America Needs Its Nerds

Well known article writer, Leonid Fridman, in his article, “America Needs Its Nerds”, describes the truthful idea that nerds and geeks, in our society, are ostracized while the kids who play sports and party are prominent. Fridman’s purpose is to impress upon the readers that nerds should not have to conform to society’s unimpressive values of what it means to be “popular”. He adopts an indignant tone in order to convey to his readers that the idea of nerds and geeks needs to fought.

Finally, the film “The Patriot” by Robert Rodat uses the archetypes of the quest for revenge and the fall to reveal how we as humans are willing to go to war for freedom, and for family, and unite people together under one cause. People are willing to go to war for family, freedom, revenge and to bring together a country or group of people.

In Grant Penrod 's essay, Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids, Penrod argues that intellectualism is declining in America, not because of poor education or electronics, but because of the current public perception of intellectuals (Penrod 762).

The ability for people to look at a situation from a different perspective is vital in today’s globalized society. Diversity is the most important, core attribute we each share that gives us the ability to assess new situations through our diverse backgrounds and upbringings. Unlike Patrick J. Buchanan’s argument in his essay titled “Deconstructing America,” diversity is a necessity in America’s culture as opposed to the burden it is described as. Conversely, Fredrickson 's essay titled “Models of American Ethnic Relations: A Historical Perspective,” illustrated a more precise version of American history that disproves Buchanan’s ethnocentric ideologies. Buchanan speaks of diversity on a narrow, one-way street. His imprecise interpretations

President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his speech, Pearl Harbor Speech, Interprets the actions of Japan toward the United States on December 8, 1941. Roosevelt's purpose is to convince Congress to formally declare war on Japan. He adopts a compelling tone in order to persuade war in his Congress members.

Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and

Theodore Roosevelt uses logos throughout his speech. He uses it to show that he knows what he is doing and using his intelligence to convey that he is the right person to lead the United States. When he says, “Upon the success of our experiment much depends, not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind,” it makes us think and feel that he knows what he is talking about, reassuring why he will be a good president. His logos is also shown when he talks about the Republic of the days with Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Bringing this into the speech shows that he knows his history on the US and knows that they did great things for the country, showing that he will also do great things.

As the fireworks explode in the night sky to celebrate Independence Day, “Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen plays loudly for the audience to hear. As the men, women, and children bellow out the chorus proudly, they never seem to grasp its intended meaning. By studying the appeals and irony used in Springsteen’s lyrics, it is easy to see how Springsteen’s message of the poor treatment of Vietnam War veterans is misconstrued by millions of listeners into American pride. Springsteen’s intended audience is a group made up of mainly white, blue collar Americans- a group not likely to accept criticism of America. Through unclear lyrics and a poorly selected audience, Springsteen’s hit “Born in the U.S.A.” is a rhetorical failure.

In life people try to comfort others in times of grieving. Leonard Pitts comforts his readers in his article, “We will go forward from this moment ” by trying to make since of the 9/11 attack. Pitts uses emotion and logic to persuade the Americans that the terrorists can do what they want to America, but America is tough enough to handle it.

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

Gerald Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism” goes through many reasons why not being book smart could be a good thing. The sports world is a way of people connecting through the competitive sports that always lead to some sort of debate (268). Graff grew up always liking sports and being “street smart” living in Chicago. He always read sports magazines growing up and realized that reading magazines was a good tactic for schools to teach street smart kids how to write good essays based on their hobbies of reading magazines (265). “What doesn’t occur to us, is that schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work”(264).

“Hidden Intellectualism,” by Gerald Graff starts off with an older argument between being book smart and street smart. Throughout the reading, Graff uses his own life experiences to critique the education system today. Points made focus on the idea of overlooking the intellectual potential of those who come across as being, “street smart”. Different authors cited in the reading to show how to accept another’s different intellectual. However, we realize that people who come across as being intellectual weren’t always labeled as that.

Every high school has two categories, and I bet as always, the jocks are popular and the intellectual or “nerds” are at the bottom of the social ranks. What would happen if the social categories were flipped? In the article, “America Needs its Nerds”, Leonid Fridman uses emotionally charged diction, an honest atmosphere, and syntax in order to argue that if America is going to thrive, then the negative outlook on nerds must be flipped to a positive view.

The text “America Needs its Nerds” could be very relatable for some people. Fridman’s word choice is very helpful when constructing his argument. To demonstrate how American society uses derogatory terms when talking about intellectuals he uses words such as “freak”, and the true definition of what a “geek” is. He also makes use of the

Every writer or speaker spends a lot of time prepare what they what to say and how they want to say it. It is a long process and takes a lot of time; because they need to think and re-think about the main idea and the purpose. Also they need to be awareness that it is difficult to engage people in spoken or written form. In order to communicate effectively most of them use rhetorical enhances communications and presentation skills. Rhetoric is an ancient art which started in Greece but it is still use it now day in speeches on different situations. There are excellent examples of that on graduation speeches. Ed Helms, famous actor, gave an effective speech on the Cornell class of 2014 because he knew who their audience was, he used correctly