A Vote For Reason and Escaping One's Own Shadow: compare and contrast rhetorical strategies

     After reading both of the essays: A Vote for Reason and Escaping One's Own Shadow, I feel that both authors have good rhetorical strategies. Both authors use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos when trying to convince their readers that their way of thinking is the best way of thinking. Ethos is the author's credibility; pathos is pulling at the emotion of the readers to get the audience to take the author's side of the argument. Finally Logos is logic-the author uses logic and reason as well as research to educate the reader of their argument as a final attempt to get the reader to accept their views.

     A Vote for Reason: by Michael Lynch, in my opinion, is a difficult article to read. This article is all about rhetorical strategies and how politicians use rhetorical strategies to try to convince the people to vote for them in the election. Such as, in his opening paragraph he states "What if I offer to drop a drug into the water supply that would cause everyone to vote the way you do this November, you would probably feel at least a bit tempted to take the deal" (Lynch 2012). Personally, I would not take the deal. Yes, I vote, and no, I do not feel it is a life or death fight that some people do believe it is. Further on in the article Lynch mentions that "To engage in democratic politics, means seeing your fellow citizens as equal autonomous agents capable of making up their own minds" (Lynch 2012). I also feel that this is a fallacy, considering this is a presidential election year, anyone who watches TV, reads the newspaper or listens to the radio are constantly bombarded with political campaigns, usually negative slander, trying to convince the people that one person is wrong. Trying to convince us that their opponent is not a good candidate, they are a liar and a big spender who is not going to help the economy. So, I think that people who participate in politics do not consider us their equals; it always seems as if they are talking down on us, thinking we are stupid enough to believe these negative advertisements.

     This article is not just about voting and elections; it is an article about reason. This, again, pulls us back to rhetorical strategies. Another article I found online, states that "A Vote For Reason comes at a time when advertising wants us to abandon reason and accept their version of reality, and a time when the future leader of our great empire is being sold to us as a product " (Schwartz 2012).  I believe this is a true statement...not only in politics, but in everyday life. We turn on the TV in the middle of the night, and what is on? All infomercials, which are trying to sell us their product that will miraculously make our lives easier and perfect.  Even political things, are all about advertising. The product they are selling is themselves. They are trying to make them seem like the best choice, over the cheaper, generic brand represented by their competition.

Rhetorical strategies used by Lynch are logos, he does extensive research with theorists, scientists and psychologists and confirms his ideas by using quotations from these people that back up his way of thinking. Ethos- he is a NY Times published author who seems knowledgeable about the ways that politics and politicians use rhetorical strategies and other ways they use to get voters to see their way of thinking.

     On the complete opposite end of thinking about reasoning, there is the article Escaping One's Own Shadow: by Michael Erard. Erard is trying to convince us that basically, the more writing you do, the better you get at writing. Regardless if it is writing a boring research paper or if it is writing the next new and hot novel. To put my two cents in, I think it is the same with reading. The more you read the better you get at it, as well as the better you will write. This is true because every time you read something like a scientific journal  article about the way bodies work on the cellular level, to reading 50 Shades of Grey to reading the latest issue of Vogue, even Facebook and Twitter feeds; you learn different styles of writing, thus improving the readers writing and reading skills. Like Erard says "I'm a dancer who walks for a living" (Erard 2012). Basically saying, he is a writer who writes boring things for his job (or as he says 'less juicy') than the things he likes to write in his everyday life. Is this why throughout school, as long as I can remember, we have been forced to read and test on 'required reading'? So that we can develop our own style of writing and find out what we like to read. No matter how much you like to write, you must get used to the fact that writing is part of everyday life. No matter what type of job you do, you will be writing at some time, and if not writing, you will be speaking to other people, and you don't want to sound like you do not know how to form a basic sentence, do you? The very first tip on this online newspaper article about how to improve your writing is "good news, writing makes you a better writer" (Jaksch 2010).

     Immediately upon opening the article, Erard establishes his Ethos by stating “before we get started, there is something you should know about me. I've written news articles, essays, reviews and a couple of non-fiction books" (Erard 2012) He is credible that he knows about writing because he is a professional writer, as well as being a published NY Times author. He establishes his Logos by writing in a logical and flowing format that makes it easy to read, as well as interviewing different people who are expert writers. As well as using Pathos to almost make you feel sorry for him, as he cannot write the way he dreams about writing, it appears he is trapped in this bubble of writing for his job, that he hates; but is somehow thankful for all of the practice writing he gets.

So who did a better job at getting me, the reader to take on their views and accept them as my own? Michael Erard, in Escaping One's Own Shadow. It could be that I am biased, I have always believed that writing and reading and even speaking properly helps to improve your writing skills. When you are introduced to new styles of writing in doing different types of reading, you are expanding your knowledge, and thus help to broaden the vocabulary, which will improve both your speaking ability and your writing skills. I also think politics are boring and reading about them and how they crudely attempt to convince us that they are the right choice, is even more boring.

References

Erard, M. 2012. Escaping one's own shadow. NY Times Opinionator. Retrieved from:

     http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/escaping-ones-own-shadow-in-writing/

Jaksch, M. 2010. Writer Wednesday: 73 ways to improve your writing. Huff Post Books. Retrieved from:

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/writer-wednesday-73-ways_n_651065.html

Lynch, M. 2012. A vote for reason. NY Times Opinionator. Retrieved from:

     http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/hope-for-reason/

Schwartz, S. 2012. A vote for reason-The stone. OpEdNews. Retrieved from:

     http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-Vote-for-Reason--THE-ST-in-Best_Web_OpEds-121001-

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