Rhetorical Analysis 1: My Paper A

The goal of Paper A is to help the audience, BYU college students who think that student employment does not help academic success, to see that it can help. The claim is that having a part-time job (while being a full-time student) increases academic success. The reason is because having a part-time job increases time management skills. The implicit assumption is that whatever improves time management skills also improves academic success. 

The argument is made using some weak pathos, but mainly ethos and logos. The paper begins by appealing to the readers pathos. I talk about my plight as a poor college student in need of funds. But that appeal ends at the end of the intro. Throughout the paper I attempt to appeal to ethos—I try to call upon my own credibility as a student employee to make my point. This is weak because I am not really an expert. What works for me may not work for every student employee. Also throughout the paper I attempt to appeal to logos. Logically, I try to make the argument, that improved time management will improve academic success. This appeal to logic could be clearer and more concise. All three appeals, to pathos, ethos and logos, could be more consistent, and the appeals to ethos and logos should definitely be backed up by more empirical research as opposed to simply personal experience.

            The facts behind the paper could be typical, but the way it is presented is under-researched and therefore there is no way to tell if it is typical or not. The paper fails on this end. Also, the paper makes a last minute point that employment on-campus is more helpful to academic success than off-campus work. This idea is not relevant to the original enthymeme. Other than that most of the rest of the paper is relevant to the argument.

            Overall, the argument made in Paper A is not effective.

PAPER A:

Student Employment: Good or Bad?

Let’s face it, college is expensive.  As one whom, in High School, focused mainly on building up my academic resume in order to gain acceptance into the university of my choosing, my financial health and future obligations were negligently pushed to the wayside.  So, once I reached my goal of getting into college, I realized that I either needed to get to work or take out some serious student loans. What was a girl to do? Work a part-time job while going to school and risk the chance of harming my precious transcript? Or maybe take out loans to make tuition and housing payments with the risk of starting my independent life already in debt? After weighing the costs and benefits of each I decided to get a job. But I still couldn’t help but wonder, what are the consequences of having a part-time job on the academic success of a full-time college student?

You could argue that having a part-time job on top of full-time student responsibilities would be overwhelming and cause unnecessary stress, and that stress would in turn interfere with academic success. It can be inferred that time and energy are finite resources and hence, a job would use up these resources and harm a student’s grades. This is indeed a valid argument. However, I would argue that the real cause of stress is not having too many responsibilities that take up these resources; what really causes stress is not being able to effectively fit all of those activities into your limited amount of time. So, if feeling overwhelmed is a result of feeling like you do not have enough time to fulfill your responsibilities, effectively managing your time can help to solve that. I submit that a part-time job, instead of increasing stress, would increase time-management skills allowing students to make better use of their finite resource of time.

The majority of research shows that students who work fewer than 20 hours a week more often than not report higher GPA’s than students who do not work at all. A job is only so overwhelming when the student is working more than 20 hours a week (Dundes & Marx). When one has a structured, rigid schedule filled with specific times for classes and for work, they must schedule specific times for studying and social life, making better use of their time, decreasing stress and improving academic success. The BYU Stress Management Center encourages cultivating time-management skills in order to relieve stress, and having a job helps students to cultivate those necessary time management skills.

During my time as a part-time student employee, I have found that my time-management skills have skyrocketed. When you have all of the responsibility and time commitment of a class schedule on top of a rigid work schedule mixed in with friends and family obligations, it is necessary to learn how to balance all of your responsibilities. Even though you have more on your plate, you are more aware that time is precious, and you use it more wisely. The acquirement of these time-management skills makes more effective, successful students, and by extension more effective human beings.

You could also argue that the time constraints of a job on top of the time commitment to school would not even leave adequate time for an active, healthy social life despite keen management of time. The reason we are away at university is because we want to learn and to get an education, and academic achievement and success should be our number one priority. However, it could also be argued that a social life is one of those things that keep you balanced which is also important to keeping optimal grades.  Yes, having a part-time job does take at most 20 hours from your week, but you still have 148 hours to budget to school, sleep and social activity. Having a part-time job could decrease the amount of social activity, but it would increase academic success which is our ultimate goal.

It could also be argued that only on-campus jobs are beneficial to academic success. I think that this is a very valid argument. During my time as an undergraduate student I have worked both on and off campus, and I definitely excelled more academically while working on-campus than I did while working off. A.W. Astin (1975) concluded that on-campus jobs increase student integration which in turn increases academic success, while off-campus employment is more often associated with a lower GPA. On-campus jobs lead to more exposure to similar people, for example, students who also are seeking academic success. It also could expose you to professors and other professionals that could help to build your resume. Not to mention the geographic location of on-campus jobs, especially at BYU, are very localized decreasing travel time and increasing the amount of time you have left in your day. Dundes and Marx also concluded that amount of time spent on-campus has a positive correlation with GPA. Off-campus jobs take students away from campus and decrease said exposure. Also, off-campus employers are less likely to be sympathetic to the academic needs of students. In an off-campus job it is expected that the job comes first, but on-campus employers are required to put academic well-being before vocational.

I have found in my time here at Brigham Young University that having a part time on-campus job, in addition to funding my intellectual endeavors, has added to my resume, boosted my time management skills and complemented my academic career.

Rhetorical Analysis 3: "Speech"

The goal of this argument is to get the redheaded girl to stop sulking and put on a happy face. The audience is the redheaded girl—let’s call her Sally. The essential claim of Albert’s argument is that putting on a happy face will make Sally’s sad thoughts go away. His reason is because putting a smile on her face will cause her to actually be happy. Therefore, the implicit assumption is that whatever actually makes you happy also makes your gloomy thoughts go away.

Alfred uses several tools to form his argument. Firstly, he appeals to ethos. He tries to get her attention by stating his authority: “Little girl, this is an adult speaking!” But this appeal to his so-called authority does not work on his audience, so he takes a different route. Also, later in his argument he calls upon his previous experience with the subject matter “I knew a girl so gloomy… she wouldn’t listen to me, now she’s a mean old thing.” And this builds his credibility. More often than ethos though, Alfred appeals to Sally’s pathos.  He acts silly and makes her laugh in order to achieve the ultimate goal of “happy face.” There is sufficient content for the audience. Alfred makes several statements of how gloominess does not become sally, and that she will be better off being happy. One major issue with this argument is that it is not very relevant. Sally is upset because she will be too old for Conrad Birdie when he gets out of the army, and Alfred does not address that at all during his argument. The argument is relevant in that the girl is sad, and he addresses that, but the root of her sadness will still be there as soon as Alfred leaves.

His argument is obviously effective. The girl is smiling and dancing along by the end of the argument. I think that in real life, if this was not a fictional musical, that his argument would not be as effective because he fails to address her main concern.  However, considering the audience and the unique situation, his argument is effective.

Rhetorical Analysis 2: Movie Trailer

What are the consequences of watching this move on the audience's entertainment? The claim of this trailer is that watching this movie will cause the audience to be very entertained, because this movie has a great story line, famous movie starts and stellar music. The implicit assumption is that whatever has a great story, movie starts and awesome music will also cause the audience to be entertained. The target audience of this trailer is movie-goers, especially music and dance lovers. The goal of this trailer is to persuade people to go and see the movie. 
They use several tools to make this argument. They use all four aspects of “STAR,” but the most effective one is sufficiency. First of all, the trailer is four minutes long, so they definitely didn’t skimp on content. There is a taste of every single musical number, song and dance. There is a taste of the drama, and the conflict in the plot. There is a taste of the love story. There is a taste of the comedy and playfulness. They also name every important cast member that is in the movie. There is definitely sufficient material used to persuade their audience. They also appeal to the audience’s ethos and pathos. At the very beginning of the trailer they state their credibility of “MGM” and by flashing the names of Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor—famous, credible movie stars of the era. The trailer also appeals to the audience’s pathos. They try to make the audience feel excited, happy, playful, concerned and in love all through this four minute clip. I think that they do a very effective job at making their argument.

Rhetorical Analysis 1: Advertisement

Below is an advertisement for Dove’s new Anti-Frizz Cream. The claim being presented is that this product will “turn unruly hair into foxy momma hair,” changing your overall image. The implied reason is that, by applying the product, your frizzy up-tight hair will be transformed  into flowing, modern, luscious locks. The audience is women, probably in the young adult to middle-aged range, but more specifically, the audience is women who watch, or are familiar with, The Simpsons. The goal of this advertisement is to entice the audience to buy the product. To make this argument the advertisement appeals to the audience’s ethos and pathos. Marge Simpson is a popular, widely-known figure, and one very unique thing about Marge is her crazy beehive hair style. The fact that Marge is the center of this ad lends to its credibility because of her fame. As a result of the audience’s previous knowledge of Marge’s personality and crazy hair, the ad becomes comical, appealing to the audience’s pathos. This ad is also humorous because it is an accurate depiction of Marge, and how she would react to this situation. As an occasional Simpsons viewer, I can interpret Marge’s facial expressions, and hear in my mind Marge’s voice as she decides to use the product and then is very satisfied by it. I think that this advertisement is very effective. It has sufficient information, and it successfully appeals to the target audience.