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Rhetorical analysis steve jobs speech
Rhetorical analysis steve jobs speech
Rhetorical analysis steve jobs speech
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Rhetorical Analysis on Steve Jobs’s Commencement Address
Entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, in his commencement address at the University of Stanford, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish,” describes his life in three very different stages. Jobs’s purpose is to explain what he went through in his life and to inspire the people who have just graduated from a very prestigious university. He adopts a sincere and motivating tone in order to relate his story and situation to his audience. Jobs begins his commencement address by narrating his college experience that shaped his life of success. He appealed to the audience’s pathos when he explained how he dropped out due to all of his parent’s savings being spent on his college education,
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When Jobs talked about starting Apple he used ethos due to him talking about how he and Woz worked hard and how they started from the bottom, “Woz and I started Apple in my parent’s garage,” then rose to the top, “in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees,”(2). Another appeal that he used was overcoming obstacles as he was fired from Apple, which left him devastated, but it allowed him to explore other possibilities creating a new fire under Jobs, “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me,” (Jobs, 2005, pg 2) this appealed to logos. Towards the end of the story he talked about how you need to find what you want to do and don’t stop until you do, “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle,” (Jobs, 2005, pg 3), this appeals to the audience’s pathos, because everyone is scared of getting stuck in something they don’t enjoy. He uses these appeals in order to prove that hard work and determination are essential to success and happiness. He warns the audience to never settle for something that you don’t like and that through hard work you can end up where you want to
David McCullough Jr., delivered the commencement at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts on June 1st 2012 to staff, the 2012 graduates, and their family and friends. The speech was straightforward and supplied valuable information for their future. . McCullough’s speech at times felt harsh, offensive, and insulting. His words and examples were given to achieve insight, knowledge, and awareness for each student’s future. The commencement expressed a great deal of achievement, but conveyed that there was more work to be done. His speech was effective and appreciated through humor parallelism, repetition, and anaphora. His point of view has obtained respect and determination by all those that have been challenged and have heard his words.
To regard the importance of the bigger picture, he maintains parallel structure and utilizes the repetition of words in the body of the speech. “The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life” occurs when one seizes the day—when one finds the joys in life by realizing “you are not special”. The pauses and short sentences also adds to the conversational aspect and pace of the commencement piece. To continue, he notes how in this moment of time, every single one of them is dressed “exactly the same” and their diplomas are “exactly the same”. The unification of these prospective seniors further augments the message of settling. McCullogh further critiques the phrases that defy logic. High school students have perceived that “good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C”. The goal into doing one’s best has been shaped into doing the capabilities of another, in which McCullogh responds metaphorically to only focus on the betterment of the self: “climb [the mountain] so you can see the world, not so the world can see you”. All of these seniors have fallen into the preconceived mindset of superiority, unifying them together but it is their personal capabilities that distinguishes one from another, successes from failures. The support and inspiration he is aiming for is clearly portrayed in proposing to the students to, “[d]ream big. Work hard. Think for yourself”. He inspires them to experience life instead of accomplish
At the 2012 Freedom to Connect Conference in Washington D.C., Aaron Swartz gave an effective speech titled “How We Stopped SOPA.” In his speech, Swartz recounts how he was able to stop the “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeit Act,” later called the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” from passing through Congress. This seemed like an impossible task, but Swartz goes into depth regarding how he and his peers made the impossible become reality. Swartz’s purpose is to create a sense of patriotism throughout his speech and prompt his audience to protect and defend the most valued right given to American citizens: freedom. Swartz employs a relatable and honest tone using anecdotes, gains the trust of the audience by appealing to ethos, and emphasizes his ideas with the aid of repetition. Swartz
A short while after entering college Jobs makes an enumeration about college and how he doesn’t see the value in college anymore. Making significant points on how he still does not know what he want to do with his life and had no idea how college was going to solve that issue for him. Even after making a digression from college, he continued to drop in on classes that interested him. One class in particular will alter his future significantly. He became a poor sleeping in others dorm rooms and returning bottles for five cents, that way he could eat. Continuing to drop in on classes, he drops in on a calligraphy class that interests him. This class makes a large impact on his life ten years later. If not for dropping in on that class, his first large success the Macintosh would have not had multiple typefaces or evenly spaced font that the calligraphy class inspired him to put into the computer. Jobs makes a euphemism on how Windows copied the mac and that no personal computer would have them if it wasn’t for him. This pun creates the audience to show pathos toward to speech making them laugh. He proceeds to make an aphorism on how he couldn’t connect the dots on how that calligraphy class was going to help him, and how sometimes “you have to trust in something- your gut, destiny, life, karma whatever. He used Logos to show how this approach towards life has never let him down, using logical thinking to come to his
Following the collapse of France during World War II, the conditions the Allied powers faced became bleaker by the day. The United Kingdom was standing alone in the face of Germany, and under Hitler’s reign, the German “blitzkrieg” or “lightning war,” a tactic involving bombardment, tanks, and ground troops in quick offense proved too much for many countries. Winston Churchill would be the one to reignite hope in the hearts of the British people, delivering his “Their Finest Hour” speech on the 18th of June, 1940. Churchill utilized persuasive rhetoric whilst appealing to the people's logic and emotions, to raise morale and spirit in the United Kingdom to fight.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American Composer who is worldly recognized for his musical named “In The Heights.” Throughout his life, he’s won a variety of awards which leaves him only one Oscar away from achieving EGOT status. EGOT represents that a person has won all four of the major entertainment awards such as an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. (Liebman Entertainment LLC) Due to the fact of his accomplishments, Miranda was chosen to speak at the University of Pennsylvania graduation in the year 2016. Lin-Manuel Miranda states “ Your stories are essential” encouraging the graduates to go on and share their stories with others.
Job uses his from nothing to everything story to make the audience go from feeling pity for him to feeling like he is superman. He does so by declaring how he used to walk seven miles to get one good meal every week at one point. During this time, he was also sleeping on floors in his friend’s dorms. His parents were giving up everything so that he could go to college and he did not see the point anymore. Job’s says, “We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees.” These statements pull on the audience’s heart strings and boosts their confidence because many of these students have it better than he did, so why can’t they accomplish the same? They are graduating from one of the elite universities in the world, Stanford. Job’s even jokes that “Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation”. At the time of the speech he was a billionaire, so the fact that these students have a better education them him, enhances their
Jobs uses more pathos throughout his speech than any other rhetorical appeal because he uses his experiences to explain why find what you love is the best advice. In the speech he mentioned about when he dropped out of college, when he created Apple, and after getting fired from his own company he created NeXt and Pixar which is where he met his wife. With all these experiences he tries to convince students that by never giving up on what they love, they will achieve their goals. He states, " You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work." He gives good advice to these graduates about finding what they love to make everything else workout just like what Haden did, the only difference is that Haden also said that sometimes what you "love" isn't truly what makes you happy that's why you must explore different options, but Jobs doesn't do that. He thinks that just by giving his life experiences and what he accomplished will happen to other people. But not everyone has the same luck he
In Steve’s graduation speech on June 12, 2005, he stated, "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.” This is what Malcom describes as qualities that work has to have to be satisfying—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward. Steve Jobs’s approach to his work was a large contributor to the overall success of Apple. By following his interests, he created some of the most influential products to the technology field that 500 million people use—second only to Facebook. The Wright brothers hardly gave birth to the idea of an airplane. Dozens of inventors were trying to build kite-like structures with broad wings and engines to power them; the Wrights methodically gathered all they could learn from those others and figured out how to use a lighter
"What has been the focus of my entire adult life was gone." Jobs lost the company that he built form the ground up. Through the use of pathos, he uses the loss of Apple as a door way to "the Most creative period" of his life where he went on to become co- owner of two new companies and to fall in love with the women who would become his wife. He uses this experience in order to encourage the graduates to never "lose faith." This story of love and loss helps to set a compelling tone that motivates the audience to keep
Steve Jobs use of pathos easily makes people believe they can go through hardship and somehow achieve great things in the end. He talks about his college experience or lack there of and not being able to afford it, also he brings up being fired from apple. These two things made the audience feel for him but then as he explained how successful he became the idea of perseverance and not giving up seemed easier. Along with emotional appeal his anecdotes captured the audience. He describes his college calligraphy class,
Fear of the unknown can be a very terrifying situation, many people graduate college thinking they are done when in reality they are just getting started with life. In Steven Spielberg’s Commencement speech to the Harvard Graduates, class of 2016. Spielberg exploited the fears and truths in life, what he was faced with and how life turned out for him. In my opinion Steven Spielberg did a really good job of structuring his speech and keeping the audience’s attention, Spielberg’s speech was well written and well delivered. He used some very nice quotes in the speech to inspire the audience. Steven Spielberg’s Speech was effective in persuading the audience, he really showed great use of ethos in his speech because many of the audience could relate. And just like in his movies Spielberg used pathos in his speech when he connected some of his popular movies with the speech in order to appeal to the audience.
The first months after Steve Jobs came back to Apple were the hardest-working in his life. He reviewed every team at Apple and asked them to explain wh...
Jobs starts his speech with humor. He said, “I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation,” this statement instantly added an element of humor to his speech and this was well observed by the audience. The opening statements of the speech automatically lightened the mood. Steve jobs’ introduction appeals to the emotions of the audience, giving Jobs a valuable opening into the rest of his speech. In the whole speech, Jobs recites three stories from his personal life, which gave him inspiration.
In his message before the graduates enter into a new world, Jobs used personal setbacks in his life and how he ascended from them in an effort to encourage them to pursue their dreams. In the initial stage of the presentation, I questioned whether Jobs was the right speaker to motivate college graduate since he admitted that he was a college drop. I mean, who is Steve Jobs to talk about sticking to your dreams when he could not even finish college. However, listening to the successes in his life, he could not be better suited for the task as success is what everyone strives for; especially those college students who would have spend years studying. Judging from the audience’s attentiveness and applauses during the presentation, it would seem that his message had been well received.