Student ID: 1815520150 – Hoang Van Anh

Mrs. Vu Thi Diem Phuc

VJCC.1 – English 4: Business Writing 101

June 4th, 2020

Rhetorical Analysis – Draft

I. Introduction:

- Publication: “Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers” is

written by Josh Keller, published on The Chronicle of Higher Education on June 11th,

2009.

- Targeted audience: education administrators, college professors, students.

- Context of the article: When social media reached the peak and “new technologies are

driving a greater number of people to compose with words and other media than ever

before”.

- Purpose of the article: provide a multidimensional viewpoint about out-of-class

writing and convince readers to come up with better methodology of writing that

balance out-of-class writing and academic writing in class.

- Thesis statement:  How Internet affects students writing competency.

II. Body:

1. Summary:

Josh Keller proposing his opinion by quoting his colleague Mr. Mark Otuteye’s scenario

that digital evolution explodes the demand of writing, however, written topics are into

social than academic side. He made a point by listing several researches done by

multitude of Universities stating that people find it more meaningful in writing about non-
academic or daily topics than their in-class work. He also believes this is so controversial

and discusses in detail about those researches. Then, he analyze two premises about

whether or not bring the new writing into class.

2. Analysis:

- Logos:

 Author wants readers to take these facts into serious consideration. The fact

about that students use writing as a mean of expressing their common and

day-by-day problem more than academic and how low-skilled students can

exercise their competency via writing those topics.

 Logical progression of the idea: Figure out benefits of the new writing =>

Propose to consider new writing as a part in class => How apply

- Pathos:

 Tone and voice is also very impactful. As a professional writing, his writing

tone is very formal and subjective while he subtly conveys article with a bit

worried and concerned voice. It makes readers virtually emotionally

convincible. We can figure out by looking the example “Although he had

vague dreams of becoming an English professor”, “academic writing as a

"soulless exercise" that felt like "jumping through hoops.””. The word

“soulless”, “vague dream”, and contrast sentences, these are very well-

managed used method to express his argue with emotional expression.

 Stirs up readers’ worry about low-skilled writers that they are not concerned

enough as advanced writers. He claims advanced writers, they apply out-of-

class writing tremendously to leverage their skills, yet low-skill do not. This

will be not solved if no one brings out new methodology of writing coaching

for those people. He quotes, “If we don't invite students to figure out the
 lessons they've learned from that writing outside of school and bring those

inside of school, what will happen is only the very bright students” will do it

themselves, Ms. Yancey says. "It's the rest of the population that we're worried

about”.”

- Ethos:

     As clear to be seen, he uses numerous Ethos appeals to consolidate his

credibility in this article. He uses many findings from initial researched done

by renowned University and Professionals, this makes his arguments more

reliable and trustworthy. For instance, he insists that digital progress definitely

has a great impact on people writing behaviors, along with quotation from

longitudinal studies, which track large numbers of students over several years

to shorter project, undergraduates in a first-year writing class at Michigan

State University.

 Josh Keller establishes strong credibility in many different aspects of his

article. Very early on in the article he portrays both sides of the argument in a

clear, effective way. He gives the perspective of many different people who

are affected within the arguments’ criteria such as Haliburton Stanford

graduate, Mark Outeye, and numerous different university professors. Reading

about Outeye’s story is important because without it, the article would lack the

vital perspective it needs to effectively reach the targeted audience. The article

is written for college professors and while it is important to learn about the

opinions of other college professors on the subject matter, it is equally

important to hear from the most effected member of the issue: the student.

Keller gives the perspective of the student who feels that academic writing is a

“soulless exercise” (qtd in Keller 596), the professor who feels that “writing
 online encourages the kind of unfocused thought that results in a limited

vocabulary” (qtd in Keller 600), and the professor who sees the value in both

outside writing and academic writing stating, “college writing should help

students become better writers academically and in the outside world” (qtd in

Keller 599). Through providing strong evidence regarding all sides of the

issue, Keller’s consistent use of ethos is very evident.

3. Weakness:

- Appeal to authority:

- Professional background of the author is ambiguous.

III. Conclusion:

To sum up, Josh Keller’s article is generally very well-executed in terms of rhetorical

application for an effective writing.

The author made the writing persuasive by using 3 angles of rhetorical model in mixture.

However, the weakness of the article is that Josh Keller as the author does not clarify his

professional background that would leads to a question among readers about credibility of

article.