Rhetorical and Visual Analysis
By: Juan Gonzalez MWF 7:30-8:20a.m.
Being able to analyze papers and visuals is an important aspect to succeeding in
both school and life. Analysis can help with understanding, and can assist the reader in
comprehending the audience and how the author argues their point. With this said there
are many different ways to analyze a paper. Ethos, pathos, and logos are the three
most popular ways that an author argues their point of view. So I will be analyzing the
use of these strategies in “Death Penalty Persuasive Essay” by Shannon Rafferty. She
uses many different forms of ethos, pathos, and logos, all of which are very effective
when put together. In her essay she argues for Capital Punishment and the benefits that
come with it.
Ethos is defined as when the writer tries to appeal to the reader by establishing
their credibility. They try to make themselves look like they are someone that actually
has knowledge on the subject. This helps make the reader feel like the author is
someone to be trusted on the subject. As far as ethos goes, Shannon Rafferty doesn’t
really have any expertise in the field herself. She is just a student who wrote this essay
for her class with the target audience being both her professor and class. What she
does to establish ethos is that she uses other outside sources that do have some form
of credibility. She puts forth statistics from two different websites, including ProCon.org
and the Death Penalty Information Center. ProCon.org provides some facts and
opinions but for both sides of the argument which would lead someone to believe that it
is an unbiased website. In fact the website is all about education of the public and never
takes a specific side on any of the topics. Death Penalty Information Center gives many
different statistics on the website and doesn’t actually provide an argument for either
side. The way that she choose her sources helps establish some sort of credibility and
that she can be trusted from what she puts in her essay and that she is not providing
me with biased sources that only argue for her opinion. Another thing that she does that
make me believe in her argument is instead of ignoring the opinions that try to argue
against her, she welcomes them, and then provides counter arguments. For example
she states that “Those opposed to the death penalty say that it is immoral for the
government to take the life of a citizen under any circumstance.” Right after this she
states that “This argument is refuted by Immanuel Kant who put forth the idea that, “a
society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else’s
life is simply immoral” (ProCon.org).” (Death Penalty Persuasive Essay). By doing this
she is establishing her credibility, by bringing in an argument by another person with
more credibility. That way the reader feels more comfortable accepting what the other
person has said instead of just Shannon’s opinion. She also brings forth claims from
other people such as Ernest van den Haag, and J. Budziszewski. Both of these people
are professors at their respective universities and both have PhD’s. This sounds like
Shannon Rafferty is not just giving the opinions of some random people but the opinion
of people who have knowledge on the subject. I believe she does a very good job of
establishing her viewpoint and then establishing some credibility for her side of the
argument. The way she structured her essay is also a great because she doesn’t just
list out facts but actually integrates them into her work; however, ethos alone would not
make a great essay. She also establishes some pathos in her papers which is great for
getting the reader’s attention. Pathos is when the writer tries to connect to the reader
emotionally, authors probably do this to connect with them on a deeper level. Another
strategy for this is that it makes the reader more interested in the topic if it they are
emotionally attached. Shannon Rafferty approached this idea in many different ways.
For example she used emotionally charged word like “Immoral, torture, humane, cruel,
punishment”. These words alone are strong enough to evoke some sort of emotion in
readers but when read in the full length of the sentence is pushes the reader towards
the side of the author. For example when Shannon goes onto talk about morality she
claims that “it is immoral to not properly punish a person who has committed such a
horrendous crime”. If we begin to dissect that sentence we begin to feel no remorse for
the offender and take the side of Shannon. She uses the word “horrendous” to make the
reader feel like the criminal is a monster and deserves no sympathy. Then with the
words immoral and properly she makes the reader feel like the culprit will be taken care
of and not subjected to any form of torture. Another example of the author doing this is
when she states “this proves that the process is made as humane as possible so the
inmates do not physically suffer.” When we read this sentence it makes us feel like it is
ok for the inmate and they are not hurt when being subjected to the death penalty.
Words like “human”, and “do not physically suffer” makes us fully aware that the person
who committed the crime will feel not be subjected to pain. This is important because it
makes the reader feel as though it is morally permissible since the person will not be
suffering. Morality is a big counter argument to capital punishment and with this quick
brief sentence it the author makes us feel slightly more comfortable with the idea. She
did a great job establishing an emotional connection with the reader to help sway them
to her side. With pathos and ethos already explained the last thing to review is logos.
Logos is the author’s use of logic in her paper, both inductively and deductively. In
inductive logos the readers are required to draw a conclusion based on many similar
examples. Deductive logos is giving the reader a more general line of reasoning to draw
conclusions from. The way that Shannon Rafferty established logos in her paper is
more inductive than it is deductive. She states in her paper “The use of capital
punishment greatly deters citizens from committing crimes such as murder. Many
people’s greatest fear is death…” With this in our minds it easy to acknowledge that if
death is many people greatest fear than without the death penalty many people would
have nothing to fear for committing murder. Which would in turn make the rates of
murder rise. So the logical conclusion is that without capital punishment people will be
more likely to commit murder. Another example of inductive reasoning is when she
states “the only part of the process that could be considered painful is when the IV is
inserted, but that is done in hospitals on a daily basis and no one is calling it
unconstitutional.” She states this because an argument on the other side states that the
death penalty is unconstitutional because it is cruel and unusual punishment. If the only
pain that the criminal suffers is the IV and this is done at hospitals than it would be
logical to assume that there is no cruel punishment in capital punishment. If this is true
then its stands to reason that this specific
argument against the death penalty has no
real premise. Shannon Rafferty was able to
establish ethos, logos, and pathos in her
essay which made it all the better. She
established her credibility, made swayed us
to her side with emotion and finished her essay by making us believe that allowing
capital punishment is the only logical way to think. However this was not the only thing
that I analyzed. I also went ahead and analyzed the figure 1. When it comes to ethos in
the image it doesn’t have very much but it does have a little bit. The very first sentence
is the only rea ethos because it is a law that has been passed and there is no denying
that credibility. Similarly there also isn’t much of logos either. Perhaps the only bit is that
the man in the picture is being put to death and that the people outside the window are
family, officers, and a priest. These are really the only conclusions one can draw from
the picture. Pathos is the most prevalent in the picture. One gets the feeling that this is a
satirical cartoon because of the quotations above intentional. Not only this, but the
people outside the window had a very grim look on them. Which gives the viewer a
feeling of remorse, and then it goes onto the man saying that it may “sting a little”. This
is obviously satire because he can’t say that it may “hurt” because under the Supreme
Court’s ruling that would make it illegal. It’s a very well done little comic and it proves its
point flawlessly.
Throughout our lives we may be asked to read and comprehend many different
papers and even visual. The ability to analyze a paper and an image can come in handy
in all sorts of different aspects of life. Analyzing ethos, pathos, and logos, are perhaps
the most important because they can offer insight that may have been looked over
before. This is why it is important to know how to do this. I believe that both Shannon
Rafferty and Danziger do good jobs in establishing credibility, emotion, and logic
conclusions.
Figure 1
Works Cited
Danziger, J. (2008). Kentucky Death Penalty. [Cartoon]. New York Times. New York,
NY. http://libguides.reynolds.edu/content.php?pid=77037&sid=1355340
Rafferty, S. (2013). Death Penalty Persuasive Essay.
http://sites.psu.edu/sraffertyportfolio/2013/04/24/death-penalty-persuasive-essay/