Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in "Year End Review: Journalism Ethics Took Major Hits in 2014"

Arbeck (2013) "Credibility Trust Provenance Data" via Wikimedia
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In this post, I will be answering various questions from A Student's Guide to First-Year Writing on my article for Project 2. 

Credibility/Character:

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

• References to credible sources
• The author provides several hyperlinks to various sources of information. Additionally, she provides sufficient information and evidence to support her argument. By doing this, she is proving her credibility. Additionally, because the article is about questionable use of ethics, or lack-there-of, and how that relates to the credibility of journalists, she is reinforcing her own credibility by NOT making the same mistakes she claims they make. Her opinion is, she assumes, the same as her audience's. 

• Word choice/tone
• By using and re-using keywords in her text such as "ethics", "journalism", "credibility", "trust", and "media", she emphasizes the importance of the issue in our society. This strategy is effective because she is consistently referencing her opinion she states at the beginning of the article without overwhelming the reader with her opinion. Additionally, the tone in her article, particularly when talking about examples of ethical failures in journalism, is consistent with her opinion but also is not overwhelming or overly aggressive. To me, this makes her seem more credible because she is taking a mature route to expressing her opinion without overwhelming her readers. 

• Author's expertise
• The website provides information on the author's expertise, giving more background on her education and past or current jobs. Additionally, through the author's credible and ethical writing, the reader is able to see the Powell's expertise. She implements the values in which she is arguing about in her own writing, providing her more credibility.

• Appeals to the values or beliefs shared by the audience
• Yes, the author assumes that her audience agrees with her opinion. In our society, I think it is safe to assume that we value credible and ethical journalism because we want to be told truthful information. 

Emotion:

Which items on the bulleted list of "Appeals to Emotion (pathos)" can you recognize in your text? 

• Repetition of keywords
• Like I said above, by using and re-using keywords in her text such as "ethics", "journalism", "credibility", "trust", and "media", she emphasizes the importance of the issue in our society. This strategy is effective because she is consistently referencing her opinion she states at the beginning of the article without overwhelming the reader with her opinion. In relation to emotion, the use and re-use of keywords draws the readers attention and could evoke emotion in certain circumstances, particularly when referencing examples, and cause them to further agree with the author.

• Level of formality
• The author maintains a professional tone and word-choice throughout the article. It is easy to see that she understands the information she is writing about. When she states her opinion, because she recognizes why readers have a hard time trusting media and then provides her opinions and ideas of a solution, she creates a more emotional connection with her readers. This is effective because she is getting her readers to side with her (if they hadn't already) and continue reading. 

• Tone of voice
• Like I said above, the tone in her article, particularly when talking about examples of ethical failures in journalism, is consistent with her opinion but also is not overwhelming or overly aggressive. To me, this makes her seem more credible because she is taking a mature route to expressing her opinion without overwhelming her readers. 

Logic: 

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

• Effective organization of sentences, paragraphs, ideas, images, etc.
• The organization of the article helps the author create a certain response from the reader. She starts out by explaining the problem and then stating her opinion and solution. This is effective because is leads the reader into the purpose and main idea of the text gradually and logically. 

• Clear transitions between sections of text/Arrangement of text for emphasis and focus
• Because the author decides to list her examples in the article, she creates a more organized and logic flow between sections. This is effective because when a reader views a list, it almost seems as though there are more examples than if they were just talked about within the text in paragraph format. Having listed the multiple examples of where journalism has failed ethically in the past year, the author influences the reader's thoughts of how often media fails to report truthfully/ethically and therefore influences their opinion.