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Throughout Kathryn Lopez’s article “Egg Heads”, she uses many rhetorical strategies in order to encourage her readers to agree with her argument, as well as to inform them of the harm that is done to young women’s bodies during in-vitro fertilization (IVF). With the use of pathos, ethos, and logos, Lopez makes her argument rather easy to agree with.
Lopez executes the rhetorical element of pathos very well throughout her article. When stating that, “They risk bleeding, infection, and scarring” and “weeks of abdominal pain (At worst, complications may leave her dead).” Lopez uses great emotion.
When using words such as, “dead” many emotions can be brought to the reader’s attention, encouraging them to agree with the argument at hand. Emotion is also brought to the readers because Lopez lets them know exactly what these young women are doing to their bodies and for what reasons, such as money.
Lopez really gets into the readers emotion when explaining that, “College girls are the perfect donors”, because, who would not get emotional with knowing that young women are basically being tricked into the possibility of damaging their bodies permanently? With no heads up or warning at all.
These appeals to emotion in Lopez’s article made her argument very convincing and I believe that many people who read or have read this article will be touched by it emotionally because of the way Lopez has incorporated the rhetorical element, pathos.
When Lopez states that, “Unlike sperm donation, which is over in less than an hour, egg donation takes the donor some 56 hours and includes a battery of tests, ultrasound, self-administered injections, and retrieval” she is incorporating ethos in her article.
With stating facts about the process of IVF, Lopez shows the readers that she is knowledgeable about the topic and is able to inform them of important information about IVF that many young girls participating in egg donation, are not aware of. By discussing the amounts of money that these different IVF centers are making and the amounts of money the young women could possibly make by donating their eggs, Lopez’s knowledge of the topic is executed yet again. This is informing readers of one of the reasons why young girls are doing this and also shows just how much money this horrible thing is bringing into the economy. By showing her knowledge of these things, Lopez was successful in encouraging women to consider the risks and affects of IVF.
Lastly, the rhetorical element of logos has been executed within Lopez’s article as well. Much like the rhetorical elements of pathos and ethos, Lopez has also executed logos successfully within her article. Although Lopez makes it very known throughout her article that she is very against IVF, she continues to show logic of the topic and makes sure that her readers know that she has logical reasoning for her opinion. By explaining the negative effects to young women’s bodies due to IVF, Lopez is able to show her logic of the topic because she states many facts about the effects of IVF, such as, “When too many eggs are matured in one cycle, it can damage the ovaries.” Lopez is able to present much logic of the process and effects of IVF, causing many readers to agree with her argument and executing the rhetorical element of logos successfully.
In my opinion, Lopez did a very good job in executing these three rhetorical elements. By using pathos, ethos, and logos, I believe that she was able to persuade many readers to agree with her opinion of in-vitro fertilization. With that being said, I believe that her article was a success and that she was able to inform as well as persuade many of the people that have read her article, “Egg Heads”.
This is a good analysis of the rhetoric of the author’s argument in the essay. You provide an effective reading of her use of rhetoric essay and make a case for whether you find the use of those elements successful or not, as well as show a clear understanding of the elements of rhetoric and how they are used in constructing arguments. I would have loved to see you give more examples from the text of the problems you point out and also to make clearer what elements of rhetoric these good examples you point out represent, as well as if they are used successfully or not by Lopez to make a convincing case for her argument. In other words, how do these good examples affect the rhetoric of the argument? Do they make her case more compelling? Why or why not? There are also some issues with clarity and style that detracted a bit from the overall ethos, or your own credibility as a writer, of the essay. Overall, though, this is a good reading of the essay that offered rhetorical analysis but one that could have been a bit more developed and explained more fully.
rhetorical analysis example. (2016, May 01). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/rhetorical-analysis-4-essay
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