Modes of Persuasion in Do Americans Expect Too Much From a College Degree - Book Report/Review Example

Examining modes of persuasion in Do Americans Expect Too Much From a College Degree? and Mathematical Scaling Laws Applied to City Growth It is obvious that expressing one’s argument in a concise as well as easy to understand manner should be considered to be an art. Indeed, Rhetoric teaches people to structure their speaking, whether verbal or written, in such a way that it would convey the message with the greatest efficiency. In this paper is will analyze two articles. One of them is titled Do Americans Expect Too Much From a College Degree? by Dan Berett and the other one is Mathematical Scaling Laws Applied to City Growth by Jacob Rupe. Based on different examples this paper will prove that they are significantly different in various rhetorical aspects. First of all, it would be important to analyze the role of the title of each piece of writing. As one can clearly see, the former article asks the reader a rhetorical question. This is a rather good opening strategy since the audience is likely to focus its attention in order to learn answer to it. In spite of the fact that it is not answered directly, the article provides enough evidence for a person to make an objective judgment. In other words, the use of the rhetorical question may be justified as it is a great attention grabber strategy. Contrary to that, the latter article features quite a different title. It is more descriptive and does not interact with the audience at all. One might suggest that it is a rather inexpressive article that does not catch eye of a person. What is more important is that it gives the reader a general understanding of what will be discussed in the paper, leaving no space for mystery. In other words, when the audience sees the title it knows exactly what the paper will be about and thus make an objective decision whether or not it should read it further. It is clear that this approach is more characteristic to scientific texts while the previously discussed one is more common for publicistic ones. The next point that should be noted is the use of subtitles. The first article has very short and quite intriguing ones: “Tale of 2 Grads”, “Jobless and in Debt”, “Colleges to the Rescue” (Berett). It is clear that this is done deliberately to contribute to the interest of the audience so that it would read the respective subsections more attentively. In addition to that, the subtitles enter some kind of a mind game with the text, allowing the readers to guess why they were chosen. This means that the author would like to enhance the relationship with the audience and engage them into further discussion. Unlike that, the subtitles of the second paragraphs are straight forward: they correspond to the road map of the article which was presented in the beginning. It is obvious that this was done primarily to focus the readers’ attention on a specific topic allow them to easy follow the logic of the arguments. However, it is clear that such an approach towards the organization of writing does not grab attention or enhance interest in further reading. In other words, people with strong dedication to learn the point of the author are likely to read it until the end. There is no wonder in that: the text in question is intended for academic purposes and not for amusement. That is why it is likely to be read while taking notes, not for pleasure. The two articles are also different in the rhetoric appeals that they use. For example, the first article puts a great emphasis on pathos, namely appeal to the emotions of the audience. Thus, while describing a graduate who was named Beth, the author wanted to reinforce his claims by describing the situation in rather sensitive terms that everyone could relate for: being desperate about a new job Both “finally got to a point where I just straight-out said… I just need someone to give me a chance to prove myself” (Berett). There is not doubt in that this is a rather powerful appeal to feelings. The publicistic style does not limit the expressive power of the writer which allows one to describe rather moving moments into to prove emotional response of the readers. The second article does not try to engage the emotions of the audience at all. In spite of the fact that the topic which was chosen by the author is not purely abstract, the researcher tries to keep the tone of the narration as dry as possible. It is done primarily to contribute to the seriousness of the article. What is more important is that the scientific style which the article belongs to does not allow authors to engage any kind of emotions. In other words, one can hardly use pathos while writing this kind of texts. It must be noted that both articles use appeal which is called ethos. For example, the former author bases his article on the research of other scientists, referring to them directly in order to obtain numbers that would impress the audience and prove that he is competent to make an objective judgment about the situation: “Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa found that 53 percent of the graduates they studied earned less than $30,000 a year” (Berett). This is quite significant for a publicistic article to feature some data for reliable resources since otherwise it will be considered to be merely personal considerations of the author which are not backed up by any evidence. Similarly to that, the author of the latter article engaged the same appeal. The very beginning of the article features the name of the researchers that it is based on: “In 2010 Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West presented research” (Rupe 38). One might suggest that this is the point where the two articles go hand in hand, since they both try to convey a certain message, backing it up by data which was obtained from other source that are considered to be trustworthy. In other words, the two authors acknowledge that it is important to base assumptions on a solid ground. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that engaging previous researches as well as data that was obtained in them is one of the requirements that are made by the scientific style of writing that differs it from other styles. Finally, there is one more appeal that was used by the authors of the articles in question. Logos, or appeal to logic, is reflected in the way the author use their basic argument to lead the reader to a general conclusion. For example, having introduced a piece of statistics, the first author states: “Clearly, such numbers suggest, college isn’t worthwhile” (Berett). This is also seen in the rhetoric questions are asked later in the text: “Is it higher education’s job to fix the economy?” (Berett). Appeal to logic is also frequently engaged by the author of the second article. For example, having made the comparison between big cities and beehives or ant hills, he concludes: “This indicates that aspects of cities are appropriately comparable to aspects of biology” (Rupe 39). One might point out the fact that later in the text the author uses a lot of numerical data and draws connections between different information, synthesizing new ideas out of the already existing ones. At last, it would be rather valuable to analyze the way the arguments are constructed in both papers. Speaking of the first article, one should note that it begins with a vague assumption that is reinforced latter in the text by different appeals. What is more important is that the author explains the logic behind these considerations: “our main way of evaluating the knowledge and skills that graduates developed in college is to look at their wages and employment rates” (Berett). Having elaborated on this topic he comes to a logical conclusion. Contrary to that, the author of the second articles clearly knows the answer to his topic question from the very beginning and presents the readers with a road map of the paper, showing the sequence of the arguments that are about to be made. He starts from a broad connection to Biology and narrows down to exact numbers about the recent growth of big cities. This results in the fact that the conclusion simple restates the claims that were made in the very beginning. As one can easily see from the analysis which was performed in the previous paragraphs, the two articles in question have adopted different ways of persuading the audience in the validity of the claims which are made by the authors. Thus, the biggest difference in them lies in the way they engage the reader. The former article is trying to present the topic from an interesting as well as exciting point of view that would contribute to the desire of a person to continue reading the text. Contrary to that, the second article merely presents the fact in logical sequence, not paying attention to interaction with the reader. Works cited Berrett, Dan. "Do Americans Expect Too Much From a College Degree?." The Chronicle of Higher Education. N.p., 2 Sept. 2014. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. . Rupe, Jacob. "Mathematical Scaling Laws Applied to City Growth." The George Mason Review 23 (2013): 38-47. Print. Read More