Trisha Prabhu: Rhetorical Analysis

I will be rhetorically analyzing a speech given by 14-year-old Trisha Prabhu. The purpose of her speech was to bring awareness of cyberbullying and to convince teenager and adolescent to stop cyberbullying. The speech had an emotional tone, which provoked feelings of sadness and disappointment.

There were different rhetorical strategies used in this speech to achieve its purpose.

Trisha appealed to the audience’s emotion by reciting the stories of the teens that committed suicide due to cyberbullying. In addition, Trisha clearly emphasizes the purpose of her speech by stating, “I’m passionate to stop cyberbullying at the source before the damage is done” (Prabhu,2014). This statement appeals to Pathos, by surrounding her conviction with the sad stories of teenagers committing suicide.

When exploring Logos, Trisha noted that, “Cyberbullying is a huge problem 52% of adolescents in the United Stated alone have been cyber bullied and 38% of them suffer suicidal tendencies” (Prabhu,2014). After Trisha did some research she found that, “Younger age group, ages 12 to 18 was 40% more willing to post an offensive message than an older age group.”

After, conducting an experiment Trisha could prove that, “rethink before you type rethink before you post rethink before the damage is done is an effective long-term method to stop cyberbullying at the source” (Prabhu,2014). It was revealed by her research that, “93% of the time when adolescent receive an alert that says whoa, you’re about to post an offensive message the change their mind,” (Prabhu,2014) therefore, “decrease the willingness to post offensive messages from 71.4% to 24.6%” (Prabhu,2014). Nevertheless, she was effective in appealing to Logos, by incorporating data from her research and statistical evidence to support and promote her idea of rethinking to stop