Saturday, October 3, 2015

Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in Sound Check

In this post I will examine the rhetorical strategies found in the article published by John Schwartz, titled "Sound Check."

Appeals to Credibility or Character

  • Personal stories - Schwartz describes his own experience recording his own audiobook. In his article he writes about the art of the audiobook, the qualities that make up a successful audiobook, and then he himself demonstrates this through recording his own audiobook which deems him very credible. The reader also gets more insight into the mind of the author.
  • Reference to credible sources - Schwartz spends a great deal of time discussing other authors that have recorded audiobooks and also discusses actors and their feelings towards recording an audiobook. For example, Schwartz discusses Tina Fey as an example. This leads the reader to believe that Schwartz has done his research and is thereby an authoritative figure that enables him to give a sound opinion on audiobooks.
Schwartz carefully goes about writing his article. These strategies above are very handy in making him sound more credible and luring the reader into understanding more of the audiobook. He is sort of biased since he wrote an audiobook himself.

Appeals to Emotion
  • Personal stories - This enables Schwartz to connect with the reader on a more personal level because not only is he providing research about audiobooks but he is also giving the reader insight into his own experience with the audiobook.
  • Level of formality -  Schwartz writes that a general audience could understand the concepts present in his article. This also enables the reader to connect with Schwartz on a more personal level because he is not too formal
Schwartz is trying to elicit an interest from the reader about the audiobook. He is somewhat successful through the use of his personal stories and informal writing. These qualities do not detract from his credibility however.

Appeals to Logic or Rational Decision Making
  • Interviews or expert opinions - Schwartz interviews various authors and actors to gain their input on the audiobooks. This is helpful in deeming him more credible.
  • Clear transitions between sections of text -  Schwartz shifts ideas without detracting from the main idea. He organizes his paragraphs in such a way that they flow together very nicely.
These strategies are the most effective because while this is somewhat an opinion piece, Schwartz creates himself as a more credible source as he provides information about other writers. Also, paragraph organization is essential in making a coherent argument.

Janson, Johannes. "Book." 03/08/11 via Wikipedia. Creative Commons License.
EDIT:
For this reflection I read both Isaac's and Hallye's blog posts. Something that they both did that I didn't do was incorporate quotes into their argument which I thought was very effective. Like me, Hallye wrote quick blurbs about each of the rhetorical strategies and how they are relevant to the main argument. I think I did a fairly good job of addressing each point however without the need for quotes.

4 comments:

  1. After reading through your post I found that your text certainly has a larger presence of personal stories. It makes the author seem much more personable and allows the audience to connect to the author. One thing that seems to be lacking in your text is the presence of images. Since my text is a video images play a large role in attempting to draw the audience in, and are primarily used to create certain emotions. It seems like personal stories and references to credibility are the strongest appeals for your article. Good luck to you on Project 2!

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  2. After reading through your analyzation, it was clear that personal stories held a significant role in your text's rhetorical strategy. My text didn't have any personal stories, so it was interesting to see a text like yours. Its good to see that the personal stories do not take away from the author's credibility. Sometimes to many personal stories can take away from an author's credibility because it may seem bias. All in al your post looks good and good luck on project 2!

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  3. I feel like I'm repeating my other comment quite frankly, but once again, personal stories are critical in persuasive texts. The element of familiarity in these pieces adds lots of "ethos" appeal to the text. It seems like without a personal experience or two (I have a theory they're not always entirely true by the way), a rhetorical piece could fail.

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  4. I feel like I'm repeating my other comment quite frankly, but once again, personal stories are critical in persuasive texts. The element of familiarity in these pieces adds lots of "ethos" appeal to the text. It seems like without a personal experience or two (I have a theory they're not always entirely true by the way), a rhetorical piece could fail.

    ReplyDelete