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.