I'm just going to quickly analyze a government study done about marriage and statistics based on age and race. It's not so much taking one side as it is presenting just a lot of numbers about marriage.
1. There are a lot of arguments presented, but the one I think is most interesting that I'd like to focus on is the issue of age. The argument is that women 25 or older when they get married are less likely to have marriage problems than women who are younger than 25 when they get married.
2. The audience is not really specificed. I guess it would be educated people who are likely to read a government study in the first place.
3. The logos is definitely there. A lot of people were studied over an extensive period of time. In addition to age they also looked at race and other factors that could possibly play a role. Their conclusions are very methodical and they don't draw conclusions where they shouldn't. Ethos is important, because the government is obviously a very credible source. They don't publish things that are too wacky. Pathos isn't really a big deal here, because above anything else they just have a lot of statistics. It's hard to tie in emotion with numbers. I think their argument is sufficient, because they definitely have the data to back it up. If their audience is well-educated people numbers are a good way to make an argument. And they have a lot. As such, their argument is quite typical as well. It's completely accepted to present data in the form of graphs and tables. It's actually very convenient. Their argument is accurate, because you can tell a lot of effort was put into making sure the data was as accurate as possible. They studied this for years before they published anything, so we know they didn't draw any hasty conclusions. And their argument was definitely relevant. They wanted to prove something and they did just that by using diferent studies.
4. I think they made a very good argument and I will probably use their data in my paper. It is very straightforward and completely believable.
2 comments:
Hey Kylie,
Just curious, where can I find the study?
Thanks, Robert
What kind of information did they present about women over 25 that were different than those younger? I'm just curious as to why the government thinks women over 25 will have less problems in marriage. Something you'll notice, I really like to be SHOWN information and not told. It's something a professor taught me a while ago and has only strengthened my arguements and papers...when I remember to do it myself.
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