Rhetorical Analysis Thesis

A Government in Thrall to Religion

While very disagreeable on certain points, Zindler is very effective in delivering a clear-cut argument about how religion has taken over the government. Even for those who are religious, his arguments are very powerful because they are directed with force and backed up with sound logic. Like the "Faith in America" speech, this article fails to see the point of view of the opposing side. However, this articles has a specific audience and is very persuasive to one belonging to that audience.

Zindler appeals to science, not necessarily with facts but with real-world problems that seems to be blatantly avoided by the Bush administration. He also appeals to those who want to be informed by mentioning the ignorance that religion throws on science and reality. His use of rhetoric keeps the reader interesting, feverishly continuing to read to know what he has to say next. Even though this article was published in an atheist magazine, he still strongly appeals to atheists with his call to action being even more urgent because of his use of 'We' and the way he comes across as an authoritative figure by telling people that they have a responsibility to dispel the blind religion in the government due to the Bush administration.

Faith in America

Purpose
          In his speech, Faith in America, Mitt Romney is trying to persuade the public that his religion will not interfere with his presidency if he becomes president.
Ethos
          Mitt Romney is very effective in his ethos because he is a religious man and he points that out very clearly. Even though he is a Mormon, he defines very well that he will not let his own faith or the faith from other religions dictate his actions should he win presidency. His appeal in this category is with his testimony and his experiences that have brought him up to welcome those of any and every faith. He did not apologize for being a Mormon and said that if his faith sinks his candidacy then so be it. He talked about the founders not wanting the president to be a spokesman for their faith.
Pathos
          Mitt Romney said he needed the prayers of every faith, so he is relating to those of every faith. Another way Romney relates is by describing what he loves about every religion. Throughout his speech he uses language familiar to those who belong to various religious faiths, by doing this he becomes even more relatable and also becomes trusted.
Logos
          Romney starts out by explaining one basic belief of the LDS (Mormon) church about what he believes about Christ, bringing his background to support his position. He then goes on to say that he won't speak any more about his faith because he would be taking the very religion test that the founding fathers did not want to happen. Using the goals of the founding fathers as part of his speech he is using logos very effectively because it shows where his goals are as well. Romney makes himself very accountable for his words because he states that he will not denounce or distance himself from his beliefs. One defining part of his speech was when he spoke about freedom and religion and about their necessity of being together. He also spoke about how this was a nation under God, which further solidifies his point that freedom needs religion and religion needs freedom to work out the best way possible.
Extra thoughts
          I feel Mitt Romney’s speech connected very well to those belonging to a religious faith. He related himself to them through familiar language and also through similar beliefs. Making himself seem more human to them and also making himself known as a religious man is very convincing to those of similar beliefs. However, I feel that he had a very large disconnect with the atheist audience. The religious terminology and the fact that his speech mainly reach out to those who belonged to faiths would create the feeling of being excluded for them. Even though his speech was very powerful for his intended audience, it was not a convincing argument to those who do not belong to any particular faith or who are atheist.

Opinion Editorial Reflection

          One of the main strategies that worked for me was putting out a broad topic and narrowing it down. Specifically, I took the topic of specialization and talked about how and why it is bad in the education system. A second strategy that worked extremely well for me was using personal experiences to strengthen my position for my topic. Using sentence combining from what we learned from Style Academy was not my strongest strategy to use. Instead of making unique and creative sentences I would usually over complicate them and end up making long boring sentences, most of them being run-on sentences. I am not usually the greatest at writing papers, so I did not know what to expect from this paper. As I started to write though, I found that, after my rough draft, that my paper had more structure to it and ended up with a more cohesive final draft.
          In my opinion editorial, the thesis for my rough draft was not very clear. However, after reviewing the rest of my paper I could more clearly see what my thesis was. I feel that this will be very helpful in the rhetorical analysis because, by reviewing the smaller points of the paper I will be able to see what the author’s thesis is and what the author wants to convey to their intended audience. In the future I could work on my sentence structure to better convey my analysis of papers.
          Overall I learned a lot from this paper. I learned about balancing ethos, pathos, and logos. I want to be able to maintain this balance in the future. I also want to be able to more readily organize my thoughts for papers so I can be a more efficient writer. These skills combined, along with more organization of time will make writing papers easier and allow for more time to edit my papers.