The CNN documentary “Ivory Tower”, created by Andrew Rossi, highlights some of the questions surrounding the issues within the higher education system of America. The main question debated throughout the film, is whether or not higher education is worth the continued rise in tuition. In order to make an affective argument that will convince and engage the audience, it is important for Rossi to use different kinds of appeals. The appeals, which include the ethical appeal, the pathetic appeal, and the logical appeal, all add to the effect of persuasion that the piece can have on the audience. After watching “Ivory Tower”, and coming away with a new outlook about the higher education system, this film definitely had moments that included these …show more content…
This appeal mainly focuses on the credibility of the creator. In “Ivory Tower” there were many experts brought in to explain facts about college life, and what is contributing to the current national student debt of $1 trillion dollars. Two facts that stood out to me were that, “35% of students don’t study more than 5 hours per week” and “68% of public university students don’t graduate in 4 years”. These facts supported Rossi’s theory that students that attend college, are not excelling the way they should be and are spending thousands of dollars a year to focus more on socializing rather than their studies. Students from different universities throughout the United States, like Arizona State University, explain how students like themselves just look for the “easy” classes. This film brings up the website “rate my professor”, and how students aren’t looking for a challenge, they just want to get by. This meritocracy is what is causing a bachelors degree to be less and less prestigious among the work force. These facts make me question if college is really worth the cost, which Rossi’s main …show more content…
This appeal focuses on the emotions that an audience can demonstrate. An example in this documentary of emotional involvement is when Rossi documents the occupation of the Presidents office at Cooper Union. Cooper Union has not had its students pay tuition since its founding, until recently when a new tuition program was implemented by the schools president. There were many examples of how emotional and heated the situation between the students and the administration at Cooper Union got. One example is when the students had occupied the President’s office, and the president agreed to meet with the students, after many days of protest. When the students confront the President with their issues, you can hear the emotion in their voices. Another example of ethos was at the Cooper Union commencement ceremony. President Jamshed Bharucha was giving his commencement speech, when one by one the graduating students stood up and turned their backs on him. The inclusion of this scene in the documentary shows the audience the lengths the students at the Cooper Union are proving to go to invoke what they think is right. After seeing how deeply charging tuition affected the students, it is hard not for the audience to have an emotional reaction to what they students feel they are going
In the “180” movie Ray Comfort outstandingly used rhetorical appeal throughout his argument in a thorough way to further grasp his audience’s attention. He used pathos, ethos, and logos during the course of his dispute of abortion and the Holocaust. Comfort uses pathos more frequently than the other two appeals, to plea to the audience’s heart strings. An example of when pathos was used was when
In an article originally published in May 2003 in USA Today called “College Isn’t For Everyone,” by W.J. Reeves combined these rhetorical devices to make a compelling argument that although colleges are easily accessible, higher education lacks students with the capabilities of academic success. To validate this claim, Reeves uses persuasive appeals to convey an effective argument by influencing the audience, however, he limits his reach because of the excessive pathos and condescending tone used to present his argument.
College is not for everyone, although, everyone should have some form of higher education. "Should everyone go to college?" is an essay meant to inform students of the pros and cons of going to college. Owens and Sawhill state that the cost of a college degree may not be worth the money that students put into furthering their education. In their article, Owens and Sawhill use three different rhetorical appeals; egos, logos, and pathos; to persuade the readers to think consciously about attending college. Their argument was effective because it forces the readers to look at the overall college experience in different aspects.
In “Two Years Are Better than Four”, Liz Addison argues against Rick Perlstein’s article “What’s the Matter With College?”. While Perlstein questions the value of college as it currently is, Addison argues that the “community college system is America’s hidden public service gem”(Addison 257). By way of that, she defends the value of college. Unsurprisingly, as with most situations, the truth is somewhere in between ends of a spectrum created by these two articles. While I agree with Addison’s idea of community college being an accessible starting point for everyone, she fails to appropriately represent the unique culture often found in these types of colleges. Also, I think that she also fails to look at the overall purpose of attending school and then neglects to acknowledge the benefits of a four year university.
Upon further analysis of Expelled: No Intelligence allowed, we can see that the documentary is tied up in fallacies of ethos, pathos and logos, misrepresentation of facts, and the deviation from the main theme of the documentary. With this in mind, Ben Stein fails to persuade the active viewing audience, but succeeds in persuading the inactive viewing audience. The inactive viewing audience will be convinced from Stein’s use of appeal to ethos, pathos and logos, and will overlook the fallacies in the documentary. Stein uses appeals that are rooted in fallacy, incredible information, and misguided reasons to persuade us of this. Stein wants us to raise our voices to bring down the wall between academic freedom, but we must look at his motives and reasons he takes to instill us with these notions.
Instead, Sanford J. Ungar presents the arguments that all higher education is expensive and needs to be reevaluated for Americans. He attempts to divert the argument of a liberal arts education tuition by stating “ The cost of American higher education is spiraling out id control, and liberal-arts colleges are becoming irrelevant because they are unable to register gains i productivity or to find innovative ways of doing things” (Ungar 661). The author completely ignores the aspects of paying for a liberal arts degree or even the cost comparison to a public university. Rather, Ungar leads the reader down a “slippery slope” of how public universities attain more funding and grants from the government, while liberal arts colleges are seemingly left behind. The author increasingly becomes tangent to the initial arguments he presented by explaining that students have a more interactive and personal relationship with their professors and other students. Sanford J. Ungar did not address one aspect of the cost to attend a liberal arts college or how it could be affordable for students who are not in the upper class.
One of the appeals is ethos, which is the character of the speaker/writer. This refers back to how credible the writer’s knowledge is. An example of this is that Wright speaks about his experience trying to purchase a home in America as well as in France. In the text, he states, “In the home of my
The argument about if college is worth it or not has been one of the biggest arguments throughout the media for decades. Students suffer a lot from the debts that they get from college and also the amount of studying that they do in college and when they graduate they ask themselves “is graduation from college really worth all the money that we paid and all the work that we have done?”
In this society, almost every high schooler is told they need to go to college in order to be successful, but that is not necessarily true. Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill questioned if everyone needs college to be successful in their article, “Should Everyone Go to College?”. In the article, Owen and Sawhill discuss that even though college is very helpful for many people, but for some the benefits of a college education do not outweigh the costs. Owen and Sawhill discuss this and show the statistics on the pricing of college and general student success throughout the article. Overall, this article does a very well job showing ethical appeals with statistics, does an average job with emotional appeal, and does a very well job showing logic
In the article “College is Not a Commodity. Stop treating it like one,” Hunter Rawlings explains how people today believe that college is a commodity, but he argues that it’s the student’s efforts; which gives value to their education. Rawlings states that in recent years college has been looked at in economic terms, lowering its worth to something people must have instead of earn. As a professor Rawlings has learned that the quality of education has nothing to do with the school or the curriculum, but rather the student’s efforts and work ethic. Rawlings explains the idea that the student is in charge of the success of his or her own education, and the professor or school isn’t the main reason why a student performs poorly in a class. Rawlings
One example of Ethos is “I started out just a mom-fighting for the life of her child. But along the way I learned how unfair America can be today, not just for people who have HIV, but for many,many people-poor people, gay people, people of color, children.” She shows to the audience that she understands the struggles of the aforementioned groups, because she has HIV. She understands just how unfair America can be to people who don’t fit in. She knows that she doesn’t seem like the best representative for the group of people she mentioned, but she wants the audience at the DNC to know that she has their best interests at heart. Mrs. Glaser wants the DNC audience to join her in the fight against AIDS. Glaser also uses Pathos in her speech. “Exactly four years ago, my daughter died of AIDS. She did not survive the Reagan Administration. I am here because my son and I may not survive four more years of leaders who say they care, but do nothing.” In this appeal Mrs. Glaser is appealing to her audience’s emotions, especially the emotions one feels when talking about their family like love and empathy. She mentions that her daughter has died because of this disease and that her son and herself are dying as well to show that this is a disease that can affect anyone and that it is crucial to work on cures or vaccinations to prevent others from suffering the way her family has. No mother or father
The right and privilege to higher education in today’s society teeters like the scales of justice. In reading Andrew Delbanco’s, “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be, it is apparent that Delbanco believes that the main role of college is to accommodate that needs of all students in providing opportunities to discover individual passions and dreams while furthering and enhancing the economic strength of the nation. Additionally, Delbanco also views college as more than just a time to prepare for a job in the future but a way in which students and young adults can prepare for their future lives so they are meaningful and purposeful. Even more important is the role that college will play in helping and guiding students to learn how to accept alternate point of views and the importance that differing views play in a democratic society. With that said, the issue is not the importance that higher education plays in society, but exactly who should pay the costly price tag of higher education is a raging debate in all social classes, cultures, socioeconomic groups and races.
(Owen and Sawhill 208) After all, if our country’s leader is preaching about college being a good thing, it should reflect the views of a majority of people in this country. They then continue to try to make connections with the audience by emphasizing that this is a “we” problem and by recognizing that the decision to go off to college is not an easy one for everybody. These first words in the essay demonstrate a call to the ethos of President Obama and clear cut pathos to bring the authors down to the same level as their audience; However, the rest of the essay is absolutely dominated by
The author Charles Murray says there are too many people going to college without really saying it. The essay is written in a way that his audience will understand by the time they finish reading that he has many valid points. He Persuades his readers with facts and counters arguments to false stereotypes involving college and success. By questioning whether college is for everyone makes "you" the reader want to rethink if your time spent in college was really worth it in the end.
Throughout the years, America has always debated whether education is needed- if it helps people succeed or not. The argument in the past was always over high school education, which is now mandatory. That decision has helped the US rise economically and industrially. Today, the US is in the middle of the same debate- this time, over college. Some, like David Leonhardt, a columnist for the business section of The New York Times, think a college education creates success in any job. Others, such as Christopher Beha, an author and assistant editor of Harper’s Magazine, believe that some college “education” (like that of for-profit schools) is a waste of time, and can even be harmful to students. Each stance on this argument has truth to it, and there is no simple answer to this rising issue in an ever changing nation full of unique people. Any final decision would affect the United States in all factions- especially economically and socially. However, despite the many arguments against college, there is overwhelming proof that college is good for all students, academically or not.