A Rhetorical Analysis Of Speech By Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs demonstrates his speech with confidence and is comprehendible. When he speaks he looks at the crowd and is very attentive. He presents himself very professionally. Jobs used many different strategies within his speech to connect his ideas to his audience and he does this first by setting the scene for his speech and then he gives us an overview of the three areas of his speech and finishes with a strong take-away point for the audience. Jobs was very clear about his purpose for the speech, He first acknowledges the situation and then he addresses his own connection to the situation. In Steve Jobs’ Commencement Address to the Stanford Class of 2005, he uses a deeply personal anecdote regarding his adoption and dropping out of college to agree that despite not having made it as far as his audience in terms of education, he was still able to be successful given his circumstances. You can tell that the audience was mesmerized by

He first shares his life story about his adoption. His biological mother puts him up for adoption and the family he is put with pushes him to strive and be the best he can be. The family reinforces rules for him to go to college and find a career so he can make something out of his life. The speech leads up to where he is now in life and where that took him. Steve Jobs gives some examples about the classes he took and what he learned about in college. In the speech, Job says “he dropped out of college and stayed a drop in for about 18 months”(Steve Jobs Speak). He was still in school but attended computer classes. Jobs called upon ideas and experiences that many people in the audience of this rhetorical situation can relate to in their own lives, having experienced it themselves, allowing them to draw their own connections to Jobs’ speech. Jobs connected with the audience on an emotional and personal level rather than leaving it up to meaningless prattling to get his point