Bordering on Absurdity is trustworthy

Michael Mandel wrote an article titled "Bordering on Absurdity" for Business Weekly. Right underneath his title he said, "Cars can move more easily from country to country than people, and that is crimping both human potential and economic growth." I thought it summed up the article quite nicely. Mandel is pro immigration and he will use the article to tell the readers why.

Ehtos is a "persuasive strategy built on trust" says Gary Layne Hatch (Writing and Rhetoric chapter 4). We generally trust those who have authority and/or those who have good characteristics (is. knowledgeable, experienced, reliable, etc.). There are a few moments in Mandel's paper where he makes it easy to trust him.

The first thing I noticed was that the article was found on businessweek.com. The title is exactly what it says. Weekly Business articles. An article on this website would seem trustworthy to the reader because the website itself is truthful and trustworthy.

Mandel also gains the readers' trust in paragraph 6. He is talking about an other economist's research to prove his pint on immigration. Not only does he give this economist authority by telling the reader that he is from UC Berkeley, but he also gives the reader al ink to the economist's own article on the subject. Showing the audience where he got his information is a huge sign to trust him.

At the very end of the article it says "Mandel is chief economist for BusinessWeek." That shows the reader that Mandel is also in a position of authority, and so he is therefore trustworthy.

Audience Analysis

Mandel's article on immigration is written very well for any audience. The reason why is hte structure of his article. He has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Inside of the body he has headers to organize the different catagories he will talk about. So it is very easy to understand where his article is going. An other good thing he has in his article is that he has a rebuttal with every point he makes. he lets the reader know what the other side is saying, and then defends his side according to the other side's opinion. The structure makes it easy for all audiences to read this article and understand Mandel's opinion. He can't hide anything, there is no reading in between the lines. This allows the reader to take the information given to them and go their own way. I think that it is important that his article is written to all audiences so that he has the opportunity to change some reader's opinions to his own.

Standing On a Soapbox

"Think about the people you trust. Why do you trust them? You might trust them because they have authority... Generally, we trust people who are knowledgeable and experienced... Because we can't know everything about every issue we need to form an opinion on, we often value the opinion of experts" (Writing and Rhetoric, pg. 56). Ethos is all about trust. We trust people that believe what we believe or who have a greater level of knowledge than we have. Oftentimes we feel most comfortable trusting those who respect our intelligence and who act as such.

In Roy Beck’s NumbersUSA article What a Jobs-Focused State-of-the-Union Ought to Say About Immigration, he tries to set up his ethos by saying “What Pres. Obama says—or doesn’t say—about immigration will be the easiest tip-off to whether his first priority truly is putting Americans back to work. Or whether his talk about jobs is mainly a political ploy to gain back support from Independent voters. Here is what he should say (be sure to send this fax to President Obama with State of the Union suggestions)” (par. 1) Here Beck is trying to establish trust with his readers by talking in what he thinks will be an easier way to understand him. Like saying “Pres.” instead of “President.” By using writing in an informal style, Roy Beck is giving up a lot of credibility in showing that he’s not a professional writer. Readers read that and think he’s inexperienced and believed Beck doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They aren’t sure whether they can take his writing seriously or not. They're also not sure if he's doing that just because he doesn't believe they're smart enough to understand him if he talks less informally.

A little later in his article, Roy Beck writes “Thus far, federal spending to put (or keep) nearly 1 million Americans in jobs has cost between $200,000 and $350,000 per job. (See my earlier blogs on Stimulus jobs vs. opening u jobs held by illegal foreign workers)” (par. 2). Here instead of linking a credible source to back up his information, Beck puts up a link to his own blog where he wrote his own opinion on the matter. This doesn’t add to his credibility because it makes the reader wonder if what he just said is really fact or if its his own opinion. It makes the reader wonder if its really worth their while to continue to read this article if all its going to do is advertise Beck’s opinions instead of addressing issues that the reader’s themselves are looking for answers to.

RJeremy's view on immigration

I want to shortly describe RJeremy's Ethos. Here's a man who uses relatively good logic. He uses good logic to prove his point on the article, but he lacks one important point. He does not establish his Ethos. From his absolutely ridiculous picture, to the end of his article, he gives his audience very little, if any reason to trust him. In turn, because of this, I am sure that his audience will be less inclined to listen to his argument. Now it would be bad enough to see a picture of a man who already seems to have little respect for his country, but then he continues to poke fun at candidates, which his audience of Americans voted for. Of course, he is allowed his opinion and his own freedom of speech, but his audience will most certainly not see any credibility behind his words. Instead they would only see the picture of a fat deranged poser, posing in front of an American flag, trying to give them advice on how they should run their country. Without an eloquent establishment of ethos I would much rather that an individual just kept his freedom of speech to himself.