Richard Blank's Weblog

The presidential campaign that I am analyzing is one of Barack Obama’s first commercials for him running for office entitled “Believe Again”. In the beginning of the commercial, it starts off with many pictures and words that describe the picture. This really appeals to our emotions because he uses a lot of strong messages and words such as hope, and replace fear. Right after this, it goes onto him giving a speech on his policies and points of views and it shows pictures of him shaking hands with people and kissing a baby. When I see this, it really makes me think that he is a respectable figure and I can trust him. They put this in the commercial in the beginning because it really makes you trust him and think he is a great person and candidate for the president of the United States. All of these so far really build up his character and it appeals to the people’s ethos and pathos. Towards the end of the commercial in the last twenty seconds he makes some comments that really make a lot of sense. He discusses health issues in America; the war in Iraq, and many other hot political issues that effect us every day. All of his different ideas and thoughts appeal to the logos emotion and with the combination of the logos, pathos, and ethos, makes this commercial successful. It is successful because it satisfies all of the different emotions that satisfies a persons needs and wants.

1.Authority- Authority is when you have some ideas and thoughts about a certain topic and the reader or listener has to understand what you are saying. You also have to make sure they can trust you so they believe what you say are true.

Emotion- Emotion is when you make a connection with the audiences level so it makes you seem more personable. When you make this connection with the audience they will understand you clearly and make you seem to know more.

Logic- Logic is when you use evidence on the same level of thinking as the audience. This allows the readers to relate to you.

2. The good strategies to use when appealing to the reader’s trust in authority are to have some knowledge and self-confidence. You want to be able to sound like you have some experience with the topic so you seem credible in some sort. This is advantageous to you because when you are confident, this proves to the audience that you believe what you are saying.

3. Some good strategies for appealing to emotion when you’re formulating a reasonable argument is to connect on an emotional level with the audience because it establishes common ground by using sympathy. An example of how this could be advantageous is if I was talking to an audience of widows, I could possible relate to them by explaining the loss of my father.

4. There are potential disadvantages of using a heavy appeal to emotion. The potential disadvantages of using heavy appeal are that it can make the claims and arguments you said earlier easily forgotten. For example, if you are watching a football game and you dislike John Madden and hear him discussing things and you are just so mad at his personality instead of what he is saying, you will miss information that he is saying.

5. The ways that you can use logos to build up a strong argument is that they can improve your claims by using facts and evidence to back up your statements. Logos is extremely important when formulating a reasonable argument because statistics from a credible source is always helpful. It is important because if you are just stating your opinion to an audience and you aren’t using any facts, it makes you seem less knowledgeable and it makes it very hard to relate and believe you.

6.Ethos, pathos, and logos are not separate from each other at all, but are linked together. In many ways they help each other by flowing together to make a sound argument and case. If you are going to give a speech to a person, and all you do is give them facts and information that you believe without connecting to that person it will not be effective at all.

Environmentalism as Religion Run Amok by Michael Crichton.
In this essay by Michael Crichton, uses ethos, pathos, and logos to made valid points and reasoning to his belief. He uses the ethos appeal very much in his essay to back up what he has to say. He uses multiple sources to help him seem more credible and knowledgeable. Michael uses his knowledge that he has possessed from his research to make him seem more confident. He flows through his thoughts and ideas with much understanding on the topic. Michael uses pathos the most throughout his story to appeal to the reader’s sense of emotion. He creates common ground with all the ongoing problems that are consistently in the news today. Then he uses this common ground in his favor because once we start to believe what he is saying, it makes the information more reliable and authoritative. At certain times Crichton did use emotion too much when he was complaining about all the problems, he strayed away from the argument a few times. Crichton used logos to make the readers to make decisions from his reading. He fine-tuned some major points to make them easier to understand and relate to for us. This way, it made me think on my own and determine my own meaning and understanding. Michael Crichton used these three appeals in his essay very well. He touched based on ethos, pathos, and logos throughout his essay to make it flow smoother. By using these three appeals, it makes his essay very persuasive and understanding.

Claim: I think a claim is a statement that is not factual, but more of persons own opinions and beliefs. It can also be a plea that a person makes to persuade a person in agreeing with them. This serves as the central idea for your main argument in the speech and will set up the rest of your argument and speech.

Support: The support gives reason behind your claim and allows the audience to make the topic seem right. Support serves as the second most important part of your speech. It makes the speech credible and backs up your argument with your own opinion.

Evidence: It is information that you use to prove your claim and support. It can be in the form of statistics, examples, and facts. Evidence is very important because it makes the argument seem true with facts. It really is the backbone of the argument because it gives good reasons on why it is right.

Explanation: This helps your review and makes your theory correct. It is usually at the end of the speech and summarizes everything you said in depth. This is where you capture the reader/listeners attention to make it all add up.

1. My immediate response to Crichton’s argument is that it is insane. There is no way he can compare environmentalism to Christian religions. People do not believe in environmentalism because it is simply not a religion and he compares environment and organic food to church and Communion. It makes me feel that he is trying to make an argument that doesn’t have much reason behind it. I don’t think he has logical reason behind it, you can’t argue something that doesn’t have anything in common. What stuck out to me was that he brought up Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead, and then he says I have no wish to debate these convictions because they aren’t facts that can’t be argued; they are issues of faith.
2. I think that Crichton’s tone is that he is mad and upset about people believing in religions such as Christianity. He is mad because in today’s society, we have discovered so much of the world and the past and people still believe that there is no Eden. He is making the reader feel that they need to realize that everything has changed and there was no Eden, so that religion is wrong. He wants them to believe that they have been lied to and should realize it.
3. I think that Crichton’s main claim is that people don’t base their decisions on the truth but what the government and religions tell them because they like to have structure in their life with facts. He makes supporting claims with facts and examples.
4. He supports his claim by using an example in the book that the government knew that DDT was not harmful to birds but they took it off the market and it harmed the third world country. He also uses the example of too much carbon dioxide in the air and the government said there is no way to lower it. Even though the United Nations said that there was technologies that could control the greenhouse gases. This evidence supports him claim fairly well because he uses reliable sources to back up his reasoning and the topics are everyday stuff that we are constantly around.
5. The reason why Crichton doesn’t cite his sources are that he doesn’t have a great deal of time and that these references would only impact more than a handful. I do not accept this because I would like to know if it truly is a reliable source. How am I supposed to know if it is not a wacko magazine? By Crichton not citing his sources it does hurt him. By not citing his sources there is no proof that these numbers and statistics are real. They seem to appear to just be his opinion and that won’t convince a reader that he is right.
6. Crichton’s argument is very strong in this argument because in some way we can all relate to something or other that he has stated. He used some facts and evidence to help his argument. He seemed to know what he was talking about and it made a difference when he used every day examples.