Marshall Mcluhan The Medium Is The Message

As we move forward, we will be critically examining the article using through three kinds of proofs - Ethos, Pathos and Logos; defined in Aristotle’s rhetoric theory which will be explained in more details in the following paragraphs.

In the newspaper The New York Times, an article was recently published pertaining to the upcoming 2016 election titled, “Don’t Like the Candidates? Vote Anyway.” The author, Adam Grant, forged this persuasive-argumentative selection to convince readers to vote, despite both candidates lacking in several areas(3). Grant makes good use of all three of Aristotle’s ideas to construe a well thought out and convincing message to his audience. His ideas are executed in an excellent manner. Furthermore, not one of Aristotle’s ideas is used more than any other. This helps to streamline his main points, and create an even harmony within the article. Grant’s article effectively argues his point that people should vote no matter what, with the use of Aristotle’s three rhetorical ideas in a balanced fashion.

Abstract This rhetorical analysis looked into the article “The Bird and the Machine” by Loren Eiseley and how he used elements of rhetoric such as: implication, audience, argument, and rhetorical appeals. This paper also looked at the “5W and How” questions and how they applied to this text. The analysis breaks down the similarities and differences between humans, nature, and machines. Eiseley wants the reader to rethink their views on technology and look at some of the disadvantages of focusing entirely on technology. The author published this article during a time of great technological advancement.

‘A text of timeless appeal is marked by effective construction of rhetoric to support its main ideas.’

McCullough uses logos to convince his audience of Boston College graduates, to keep reading and learning throughout their lives. He uses quotes, several examples, and one statistic to persuade the students. He first uses logos to persuade them that information can be worth a fortune and can save lives, and that “The value of information, facts, figures, and the like, depends on what we make of it” (p.2).

In Grant Davie’s “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents,” he stresses the importance of both the rhetoric and the audience in various situations.

Rhetoric Review is an academic interdisciplinary journal of rhetoric. The journal issues in all areas of rhetoric and writing, and delivers a professional debate for its readers to reflect and discuss the topics and issues. The journal issues texts that investigate the extent and complexity of the discipline. We can conclude from the information that Porter’s main audience were college students mainly in writing classes. Porter’s motive could be helping college students by claiming that once the author knows how to write for a particular audience, they will be more likely to become a successful writer. Porter talks about how students should learn to write for a discourse community instead of writing to

Andrew Abramson believes that a conversation is needed to occur about inequalities and injustices in our country. Andrew wrote about how our views for our flag and patriotism is different for every person but, our respect and our honor need to be a constant of our different views as part of our responsibility as American citizens. Andrew believes that this respect and honor needs to extend to eliminate our prejudice actions and disrespect to the various races in America, specifically native americans.

We live in a world, which is dominated with technology. Marshall McLuhan theorized that technology will and has become an extension of the human body in order to improve on it and better its functional value and we shall all be united in a “Global Village”. In this essay, I shall cover some information about Marshall McLuhan, his theories, and analyze the Nintendo Wii gaming console using a tetrad of questions to explain his theory.

Our teacher, Mrs. Hetrick, provided the answer to our question: “These essays could have easily been generated by a computer program. They tell me nothing about yourselves; why in the world you are telling me all of this? You need to make me care about the message you are conveying, otherwise, your writing is useless.” She then told us that while we were all communicating in the proper format, we had failed to take into consideration whom our audience was. In order to truly persuade and influence our audience, we had to do more than place complicated ideas into a grammatically immaculate sentences; we need to show the audience why they should care about our writing; otherwise, they will just lose interest. I realize now that this experience provided a stable foundation for what I consider to be an example of passionate rhetorical ability, which helps me reflect on what authors Wallace deems as “good” through their rhetorical strategies.

The last and most notable rhetoric element in this article is logos, which refers to the logical appeal of the argument. In this article, Robinson’s strength lies in her ability to make logical appeal to the readers. Robinson used causes and consequences, analogy, testimony and syllogism to appeal to logics.

The ability to challenge and question texts continuously is a skill that is essential to have as a student. From an academic perspective, analyzing written works is often done by recognizing the ethos, pathos, and logos that is commonly embedded by the author in an argumentative piece. This method of writing is frequently used to persuade the audience to believe in a specific side of an argument. Authors use ethos to gain trust from an audience by establishing credibility. Pathos is used in text to sway the audience by using tugging at the emotions of the audience and lastly, logos is integrated into writing with the purpose of using facts, research, and statistics in the argument. The text that will be analyzed in this essay is written by

MacDonald’s argument was written in the 1940’s. Now it is the 21st century and his argument hardly applies to how information is processed today. Our society has become a more fast paced and busy lifestyle. Time is something that people do not have to spare. People like instant gratification and that is the same way we like our information. Literature is written in a way to obtain the most information with the least amount of time. Newspapers for example, are purposely written where the first couple of paragraphs give you the gist of what is going on and then the rest is detail. If you are interested in the topic then you would continue reading or you just move on. MacDonald’s example of a 16th century man reading today’s newspaper is a very flawed argument. Reading is something that only people with money and high social status is able to accomplish. Not only is it restricted to the upper class, but in the 16th century people were mainly farmers, and could not read. Most

Politicians are the most persuasive people in the world. During an election, the most successful politicians are those who use Aristotle’s three appeals (Logos, Pathos, and Ethos) effectively. By not only establishing themselves with voters, but also appealing to voters’ emotional side and using evidence to support the effectiveness of their political platform. As a politician persuades voters, an author must similarly persuade their audience. For an author to persuade an audience, the author must use the three appeals effectively; in which, when observing the works of Nicholas Carr, Alexis Madrigal, and Rev. Billy Graham respectively, it is shown that all three authors use one of the appeals effectively.

From experience, I for one believe that technology has had a major impact on my culture , In Fiji if a man wished to be with a woman by our culture he has to go and let the woman’s family know about his intentions of being with the woman and ask them for permission before taking her out on a date. Nowadays this important part of our culture is history, a man just has to call the woman on her cell phone and ask her out on a date without her parents knowing. Now that I look at the changes that have happened in my culture, I think that it is a shame to watch our culture and traditions being influenced by technology. McLuhan with his writing’s makes us think about the power of technology and its abilities to rearrange society.