Paper #2 Rhetorical Analysis- Rough Draft

Jose Mejia

Ms. Reyes

English 1302-65R

2-20-2017

Whether it’s with a “tweet”, the notorious “hashtag” or even a spontaneous picture upload, Twitter has found many ways to let people all over the world express their stories. Thousands, and even millions of posts are posted and passed along through twitter implementing opinions of all kind. All posts mainly are made or composed of national or even global situations that are happening. One’s opinion can be another’s total opposing reason on what they believe is right or wrong on certain dilemmas. Once the app begins to gain an immense amount of tweets regarding certain subjects, a trend is officially instituted within the app itself. Celebrities, athletes, politicians and iconic figures have the greatest influences on the app being able to connect their posts, to the public audience. This matter is an extremely important rhetorical connection because of the words in which the iconic figures use in their posts.

In Ramage, Bean, and Johnson’s, “Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings,” the authors mention something known as the ‘Rhetorical Triangle’ in page 55 of the book. This template or structure characterized key points such as the audience, message and the writer or speaker. To get into further knowledge of what the authors meant by this, they mentioned the persuasive appeals of Pathos, Logos and Ethos. Each appeal is related, but generally distinctive as well. I’ve chosen Ethos to represent the actual representation of the post made by a notorious celebrity. Chris Evans, better known as, “Captain America” is a constant user of Twitter. His posts throughout the last year have received all sorts of feedback and even backlash by the media and public users of the self-platform.

Mr. Evans mentions in this post I chose to portray my information saying, “Obviously we must prioritize keeping Americans safe. But we mustn’t become un-American in the process.” Evans was a huge follower of Hilary Clinton in this past Presidential race which in terms, made him greatly dislike the opposing candidate, Donald Trump. This post was uploaded after Mr. Trump was inaugurated as the 45^th President of the United States. Therefore, Evens is responding in his own rhetorical opinion on one of these suppose actions that will be applied by the President, in his first 100 days in office. Ethos is greatly being portrayed in this post made by Evans, due to his major political overview in past remarks. In the book, “Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings,” the author mentions in page 55, “ethos is also a function of the writer’s reputation for honesty and expertise independent by the message.”  This post mentioned backs up on how it is that Evans appealed with his persuasive opinion.

The audience, in respective to this matter, is intended to every single American. Regardless if they are or aren’t a follower of Donald Trump and his actions, Evans is trying to create a powerful opinion in saying that the protection of every single American is a priority. However, the actions Mr. Trump is doing mainly involving immigration, has become the un-American way of fixing the country. I mention this because it’s strictly what Chris Evans is trying to wrap around to the U.S. public. Trump is trying to send as many illegal immigrants back to their respective countries in order to make a “better” and “safe” America. Evans mentions, “We mustn’t become un-American in the process,” by saying this he expresses how doing this sort of injustice isn’t the true American way in solving civil problems. Logos is greatly being used in this concept.

This post although repeating some words and being short, stated more than one can actually realize. Evans made his statement clear and sparked a great argument on such a self-narrative platform. To enhance more into perspective, the rhetorical analysis from this comment goes to show a very profound way of getting a solemn opinion across on such a delicate issue. This specific piece compared to other arguments isn’t as complex as others, but Evans saw that you don’t have to be complex to get such a self-persuasive “American” rhetoric opinion across.

            

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. Boston: Pearson, 2016. Print.