Mmmm...

Oh, the sweet scent of a homework pass in the evening when you are already behind on your British Lit and precalculus homework and need a chance to catch up! I'm trading in my get out of jail free card this time, hoping I won't regret it!

He compared gay-rights activists to Muslim terrorists

This title is a line from the argument (see link below) that I have chosen to use from my final rhetorical analysis. This is obviously just a sloppy attempt to inflict a pathetic appeal in the audience in a fallacy-ridden way. 

  Perhaps this assignment (R.A. #1) doesn't quite fit with those of us who are writing a rhetorical analysis for our final project, because we are arguing, surely, but not in the same manner. I am not arguing an issue, but rather the effectiveness - or, in my case, the ineffectiveness - of the presentation of an argument by a rhetor. Therefore, I will deconstruct the argument that I will be analyzing for my final project using the steps described in the classical argumentative structure, namely exordium, narrative, partition, and peroration - and describe the ineffectual nature of each.

The exordium should "prepare our audience in such a way that they will be disposed to lend a ready ear to the rest of our speech," and should be "dignified and serious. [The exordium] should not be vague or disconnected from the issues or the situation" (Crowley 295). This is the easiest part of my whole analysis - there isn't an exordium present in this article. It just jumps right in, describing the argument, and sets nothing up for the audience.

The narrative of this piece is the clearest of the four sections of this argument. It uses a definitive narrative form, and states the facts clearly, if not somewhat vaguely.

The partition is negligent, if even present at all. Of course, "not every argument requires a partition; if only one point is to be made, a narrative will suffice" (Crowley 306).

There are three options given in our book for the peroration: "composing a summary, composing appeals to the emotions, and/or enhancing ethos" (Crowley 314). This argument neither summarizes nor enhances the ethos of Utah senator Buttars, but it does create an emotional appeal, letting people connect their wallets to the futures of the children in this state.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/utah-mulls-eliminating-12th-grade/story?id=9853553

Can You Smell the Inaccuracy?

Rhetorical Activity 8.2

I love it when my classes intersect! I recently wrote a paper on the very subject of trusting the senses to provide evidence. There are two schools of thought, Materialism and Idealism, which attempt to answer this metaphysical question. The first believes that everything that is real is that which can be sensed using the empirical evidence of the five senses. Idealism, however, states that all we can prove to be real is the perceptions our minds receive.

Materialists hold that “there is only one valid source of knowledge about the world around us: sense perception” (Velasquez 145).  Velasquez continues, “Any ‘things’ we cannot perceive with our senses – such as souls, god, or any other spiritual ‘realities’ – cannot be said to exist at all” (Velasquez 145).

Idealists believe, according to Manuel Velasquez in the text, Philosophy: A Text with Readings, “The universe is not matter, but only mind and idea” (151). As Velasquez explains, “Because perceptions and sensations can exist only in the mind, it follows that every object must exist only the mind” (Velasquez 153).

Our book tells us, "Rhetors should never accept facts at face value" (Crowley 281). In this sense, I think it would be unwise, no matter whether you adopt the Materialistic or Idealistic viewpoint, to simply believe and trust in the senses to provide "truth." Senses, in many situations, are too subjective to be trusted. A person who is feeling a very strong emotion of any kind, likewise called "passion," may have very unreliable perceptions or memories of a certain event that took place during this period. Think crimes of passion - people can claim temporary insanity in such instances. Wouldn't something similar be true for witnesses to such crimes? Even if the witness believes he or she is telling the truth, external forces can alter the senses as the mind perceives the stimuli.

Our book also mentions, "Today rhetors often assume that whatever is written down and published is accurate and trustworthy, since, in a sense, it represents someone's testimony about something" (Crowley 267). I have two quick examples to leave you with: Wikipedia, and the Twilight series. I would hope that Wikipedia would be self-explanatory. The Twilight series though, as I read through it, was riddled with grammar, consistency, and even spelling ("stoppd" instead of stopped, for an example) errors. Without establishing this kind of ethos, can we really assume that an author's "published" work is credible and accurate?

Velasquez, Manuel G. Philosophy: a Text with Readings. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth,

(2008): 145-165. Print.

To: Dr. Euthanasia

Hey fool!

I saw you speak last Thursday about putting old people to sleep. What’s the word for that? Anyways, I think your argument sucked. How can you possibly say that we should just kill all the old people in hospitals and nursing homes? I’ve never even heard of this topic before, and I’ve never heard you speak before, but I still thought the whole thing was bogus. I mean, who gave you the right to decide this kind of thing? Did you think about what this would do to someone like me – someone who actually cares about other people? The fact that you say that ALL people deserve a choice to live or die, well that’s just not right. Some people have to get these things decided for them. It’s just the way society works. You should really think about shutting up (or at least not speaking publically) about something as important as this.

Signed,

Igor Ignorance

Did you notice lack of/problems with:

·         Lack of “doing homework”

·         Lack of “securing goodwill”

·         Utter ignorance

·         Inappropriately informal language

·         Word size

·         Qualifiers

·         Punctuation

·         Logical fallacies

Chapter 7: You Make Me Angry

People say that you should always avoid two thins in conversation to avoid conflict: religion and politics. Well, what about cloning, homosexuality, Darwinism, euthanasia, gun control, terrorism, extra-terrestrial life, and last, but certainly not least, education? Surely, all of these topics are going to create some kind of emotional response, and in most cases, depending on how the rhetor approaches the topic, of course, will be anger. The best way to begin is with a well-placed enargeia:

Take a trip to your local zoo and look around you. There is a chimp sitting in a cage, simply for entertainment’s sake. You can feed him, and he has been taught to smile at you afterwards. He may know a few tricks, and may be able to turn over or jump when instructed by a zookeeper, and at his most intelligent stage, understand a few words of sign language or figure out a puzzle in order to get to the treat he desires. However, he is  by no means intelligent. Looking into this animal’s face, however, is simply a look at yourself a few million years ago.

However, the well-trained and responsible rhetor is able to construct an appeal to more than anger, the easiest emotion to appeal to. They may use their skills to appeal to their audience’s sense of anger, love, hate, fear, shame, compassion, pity, indignation, envy, joy, and hope.

What about an appeal to fear concerning cloning?

You walk through the main entrance of the local mall, searching for a specific shirt that you saw in a newspaper ad this weekend. It should only take five minutes, which is good, since you don’t like the feeling of being cramped in the crowds that always exist in the mall. It makes you anxious. The store is just past the food court, and you decide to stop for a smoothie. The line is long, and you’re frustrated before you reach the counter. You start to tell the person behind the register that you would like a raspberry-banana twist when you suddenly stop. This person has your face. You start to think about the identical-twin-separated-at-birth scenario, when you see their nametag. Their name is the same as yours, and the small freckle you have above your lip? It’s there on their face, staring back at you like the ugly truth. You forget all about your smoothie and run, as fast as you can, back to your car, never looking back.

Or, perhaps, if it’s more your style, an appeal pity and euthanasia?

Your eighty-nine year old grandmother lies in the hospital bed after she has broken her hip for the second time. She has been told that she will never walk again, though that was before her Alzheimer’s got so bad that she couldn’t even remember the names of her children. She tells you that she is in incredible pain when she is coherent enough to express how she is feeling. The hospital has her connected to many machines to keep her alive, and the bills are becoming larger every day. Her power of attorney is in your hands, and you must decide if you will have her continue this existence until she can no longer be resuscitated or allow her to ease the pain with the “inhumane” procedure of euthanasia. 

Pass the Blame

In that rhetoric calls for a dialogical approach, it is most appropriate to provide both an encomium and an invective to the subject.



Rhetoric, in itself, is the most useful tool within the human tool belt. It is used, both effectively and ineffectively, by everyone who is capable of communicating on this planet, from describing in detail how the dog ate the homework assignment to arguing political or ethical issues we see on a daily basis. Rhetoric is most difficult to define because it has so many facets and uses within a language. It can provide a person with the capability, when used appropriately, to persuade another individual into agreeing with them on any subject. According to the dictionary provided by Princeton University (worldnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn), rhetoric is "using language effectively to please or persuade" or "study of the technique and rules for using language effectively (especially in public speaking)." However, this dictionary also provides two more definitions of an opposite outlook. Rhetoric can also be defined as "high-flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation" and "loud and confused and empty talk." In the same breath, I can easily praise rhetoric, and, for the same reasons, compose an negative invective. The fact that a person can effectively persuade another into believing most anything is where the largest problem with rhetoric lies. When individuals use empty language to persuade, as the sophists were accused of, they begin treading on very dangerous ground. The easiest and most common example to use is the speeches of Adolf Hitler. His best quality was his charisma and ability to convince the masses by telling them what they wanted to hear, an effective, though not always moral, form of rhetoric. Keep in mind that the most useful tool is often also the most dangerous.

Hey, Pass Me Your Answers!

PROLOGUE: Walk into any high school or college classroom during the first big exam, and you can be sure to find at least one student, though probably more than that, committing what we in the academic community call “academic dishonesty.” Sure, every institution has laws in place, but you would be surprised how little difference these make to the student.

CONTRARY: We have laws in this country for a reason, usually to protect. Academic dishonesty is not only unfair to the cheater, but also the honest student who spent six hours the night before reviewing her notes, as well as the student whose test is being copied. If a student feels that she is not capable of performing well on the test, perhaps she should contact her instructor in advance instead of resorting to such heinous methods.

EXPOSITION: Most of the time when a student cheats, it is not because the work is too difficult, or even that it takes a great deal of effort to study. America, on average, is very lazy, and with Facebook, television, and video games, the youth often wait until the last possible second to prepare for class the next day, which leaves them in quite a quandary. Fail the test, or employ some not-so-ethical strategies to get the grade. I’m sure you can figure out which one they usually choose.

COMPARISON: From drive-thrus at Sonic because waiting in your car just wasn’t fast enough to blaming others for their own actions, Americans are quick to take the easy road, and academics, unfortunately, does not escape this cultural paradigm.

INTENTION: Most of the time when students commit academic dishonesty, they are not thinking of the consequences or the atrocity of their actions. They simply want the easy way out, as they are taught from an early age.

DIGRESSION: If a student was refused aid from their instructor, perhaps they might have the right to cheat on a test. Honestly, though, how many times have you heard about the college professor who told the student to figure it out on their own? Personally, I never have. Teachers are paid to help their students, if only the students would not be too afraid or embarrassed or lazy to ask.

REJECTION OF PITY: Any student who has enough of a corrupted moral code to cheat will be quick to formulate a tragic sob-story good enough to win any professor over. Any professor, that is, who doesn’t know better. It’s a bit too late to crank up the waterworks once the professor has caught the student, and the professor must be sure not to soften or take pity upon the offender.

LEGALITY: Cheating and plagiarism are both illegal, especially in the university setting, but that stops very few students into refraining from it. Just as college students engage in underage drinking and other illegally reckless behavior,

JUSTICE: We, as a society, need to better enforce the academic dishonesty laws. For every student who is caught cheating, I would say that another five are getting away with it, and therefore will continue to do so in the future.

ADVANTAGE: As I mentioned earlier, cheating doesn’t only affect the cheater. If cheaters can be completely eliminated (good luck with that one) then students will be more motivated towards completing their work and preparing for tests, and the grading scale will be far more far. You shouldn’t be able to cheat your way into a good grade in a class under any circumstance.

POSSIBILITY: Everything is easier said than done, I’m afraid. Saying that you are going to better enforce academic dishonesty decrees and actually catching the students in the act are two different things. However, if both students and teachers take a step toward honesty, much can be done to prevent people cheating first in class and secondly in life.