Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in "How legalizing pot could save America's economy"

In this post, I will further analyze the ethos, pathos, and logos of my chosen text.

Alves, Kevin, "013." 2/16/2011 via Flickr. 

Appeals to Credibility or Character 

Which items on the bulleted list of "Appeals to Credibility and Character (Ethos)" on page 182 can you recognize in your text?

• Tone
• Appeals to the values or beliefs shared by the audience- "For a country obsessed with free market capitalism and government spending, the United States has been slow to act on repealing marijuana prohibition, thanks to the tangled associations between marijuana and morality."
• References to credible sources

How and why would the author(s) use these strategies?

• The author uses these strategies by using an informative and realistic tone, and citing many credible sources throughout her writing. The author would use these three techniques to help make the claims within her writing seem more reliable and relevant to the American belief system.

How do these strategies affect the audience’s perception of the author's/authors' credibility and character?

• These strategies make the audience perceive the author as a very credible source. S.E Smith doesn't just provide broad reasoning for legalizing weed, instead she backs up her assertions with evidence from other reliable texts, which really helps the audience believe her. Also, the author's honest tone gives her credibility in the eyes of the audience, because she is not too aggressive about the way in which she shares her beliefs, which would otherwise make her seem less trustworthy.

How does the use of these strategies impact the effectiveness of the text’s overall message?

• The use of the listed strategies improves the text's overall message because they all help to prove that the text is not just a representation of subjectivity on an issue, rather it is based on facts and a well thought out argument that is attempting to appeal to its audience. These strategies really make the text's audience reflect on their own value system in order to assess whether marijuana should be made legal or not.

Does/do the author(s) seem to have any biases or assumptions that might impact their credibility?

• The author definitely has a bias for the pro-weed side of the debate surrounding the debate around marijuana legalization. However, this does not effect her credibility because she supports her opinion with a lot of evidence, and her bias on the one issue that she discusses in this text would not take away the credibility that she has obtained as an award winning author.

Appeals to Emotion 

Which items on the bulleted list of "Appeals to Emotion (Pathos)" on pages 182-3 can you recognize in your text?

• Shocking Statistics- "An estimated one in four people are in prison solely because of non-violent drug offenses, including possession, sales, and repeat offenses related to marijuana."
• Repetition of key words- economic, prohibition
• Humor- "In a nation where substances like tobacco and alcohol remain legal, highly regulated, and highly profitable, it's surprising to see marijuana still tarred in stigma — especially when
  Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all admitted to having a toke (whether they inhaled or not)."

What emotional responses is the author attempting to create?

• The author is attempting to create the feeling that the idea of prohibition of marijuana is beyond out-dated. She makes this attempt by appealing to many different aspects of her audience's emotional spectrum from empathy to financial logic to humor. She wants people to feel like legalizing marijuana is crucial for the prosperity of America.

What is the actual result?

• I think that the resulting emotional response is indeed what the author is trying to achieve. The author appealed to several of my emotions, which helped to make me believe the overall idea that the author is attempting to share in her writing.

Are these emotions effective or ineffective for this particular audience and rhetorical situation?

• The authors varying use of emotional appeal in her writing gives off the general idea that marijuana legalization will help many people. Since it is a common belief among Americans that helping others is crucial to being a good person, it would thus be un-American to be apposed to making weed legal.

How do these emotional appeals affect the credibility of the author(s) or the logic of the text?

• The use of these emotional appeals gives the author more credibility. Due to the fact that the author is willing and able to address both serious and light-hearted portions of the emotional spectrum within her writing, it is apparent that she is not overly biased on the issue. If the entire article was too serious or too sarcastic the author's credibility and main point could have been undermined, but since she has a good combination of both extremities the text seems balanced.

Appeals to Logic
Which items on the bulleted list of "Appeals to Logic or Rational Decision Making (Logos)" on page 183 can you recognize in your text?

• Effective organization of sentences
• Historical records- "In a 1970 essay for the New York Times, Gore Vidal
  spoke to a previous era of prohibition in U.S. history, cautioning the reader to avoid repeating the lessons of the past. Vidal wrote, "No one in Washington today recalls what happened during the years alcohol was forbidden to the people by a Congress that thought it had a divine mission to stamp out Demon Rum and so launched the greatest crime wave in the country's history, caused thousands of deaths from bad alcohol, and created a general (and persisting) contempt for the laws of the United States."
• Statistics- "Average annual trade in marijuana is estimated at $113 billion, which represents nearly $45 billion in taxes slipping through our fingers, ... Without being able to regulate and monitor the sale of marijuana, tax authorities miss out on municipal, state, and federal taxes that could fund a broad assortment of initiatives."

What response is the author attempting to create by employing these strategies?

• The author is attempting to show her readers that there are several economic benefits of legalizing marijuana, by presenting her data in in short organized paragraphs, some of which include convincing statistics. She is trying to show how the prohibition of marijuana is a lot similar to the failed prohibition of alcohol in the past, and how much financial profit America is missing out on.

What is the actual result?

• The actual result, in my opinion, is exactly what the author is trying to create. I think that she supports her logical claims quite well by incorporating statistics and references to history.

Are these strategies effective or ineffective for this particular audience and rhetorical situation?

• Yes these strategies are definitely effective for this particular audience because Americans tend to share the belief that history repeats itself, which is what the author is trying to persuade within this portion of her writing. Also, since Americans like money and the many benefits that come along with it, using powerful statistics would be effective for this

Reflection:

I learned quite a bit from reading and commenting on Breanna's and Katherine's posts about rhetorical strategies. I really liked Breanna's use of details and direct quotes from her text made her analysis seem really effective.  Katherine's post on the other hand executes brevity very well. I feel like my post is a good combination between Breanna's and Katherine's therefore, I am pretty confident that my post is detailed and reflects the substantial amount of time that this post took me to complete. I think my analysis has just the right amount of content.