Kinga Mamulska

WRD 103

Rhetorical Analysis for Petition

A petition usually has the goal of convincing and informing an audience about an issue

and gives an idea of what should be done, and that is exactly what I did in my petition. The

audience for this genre would mainly include people of all ages 18 and older that could take

action and sign a petition but also be willing to listen to or read the change that should be made.

The petition doesn’t really contain the technique of ethos to make the argument convincing since

there are no instances where I try to relate to the issue. In a petition I wouldn’t expect anyone to

use ethos since a petition doesn’t usually reveal an author’s background and most time the author

may even be unknown. In my petition I used a lot of logos and some pathos to convince readers

to take an action because those two techniques are more dominant in a petition.

I mostly used the technique of logos because I assumed my audience to be uninformed

about the issue. In my first paragraph of my petition I give a lot of information on why nursing

homes are bad. While I am giving this information I also include many examples of how people

are treated badly b saying specific things like the people not being bathed and fed properly and

often. I argue that people in prisons get treated better because of the facts that people in prison

get more attention and better care than people in nursing homes. A counter argument that isn’t

dealt with in depth is the issue of money but I do touch on it by saying that the government

spends more money or prisoners anyway. I also mention that often times the people who are in

nursing homes have it paid by their own money or their family’s money. I don’t believe I have

left anything out when trying to use logic because everything I put into my petition explains my

argument and there is nothing I would have left out. I believe that the technique of logos that I

decided to use is very convincing for my audience and really backs up my use for pathos later on

in the petition.

I use some pathos to have people realize why it is important to take action on this issue.

A part in the petition that could affect the reader emotionally could be the instances of

unnecessary death that happens in nursing homes because death is usually a strong topic for

anyone since most can relate with losing someone close. I also use pathos by saying that people

who don’t do anything wrong in their lifetime shouldn’t have to be tortured. This may also

effectively convince my audience since most people know torture is very bad and may even try

to imagine the level of unfairness that may be dealt with people in nursing homes that may not

have much control. I don’t think I try to manipulate the audience’s emotions because I don’t

focus mainly on pathos and I have evidence to back up my claims. I don’t think that any readers’

emotions will be found conflicted with the logical interpretation of the argument because there is

not too much of pathos and the logos is very closely ties with any pathos I do use.

Overall, my petition has the right amounts of logos and pathos to convene my argument

to the people. Since I thought my audience was not well informed of this issue it made sense to

include a lot of logos with some pathos. Ethos is a technique that was wisely neglected because it

is not important for the reader to know who the author is. It would actually be more ineffective to

have someone use ethos because the reader would think the petition to be biased. The petition I

wrote had the right amount of logos and pathos to make my argument convincing and followed

the format of a petition very well.