Ok, back to statistics about my paper. One interesting thing they talked about was that people are divorcing earlier and earlier in their marriages. What used to be the seven-year itch is now the two year-itch. After 5 years of marriage approximately 10% of marriages end in divorce.
1. The argument is that marriages are ending sooner and sooner.
2. The audience is whoever would look up this study, so probably not the average person.
3. Obviously, since this is a statistical study, there is a lot of logos used. They have done research on a lot of people to find out divorce rates. Ethos is used, because this is from the U.S. Census Bureau Reports. Being that they are the official government census agency they are obviously very credible. Pathos is not really used, because these are straight facts, and there's no real arguing with the numbers. Their argument is sufficient, because they did poll a lot of people to get their information. Their argument is typical, because they didn't really do anything too out of the ordinary. Their argument is accurate, because what is more accurate than a census? Their argument is definitely relevant, because the stats don't lie.
4. I think they make a good argument, because everthing makes perfect sense. More than anything it's just surprising.
2 comments:
Do they provide any interpretation of the data or just raw numbers? If just data, be careful about what you choose to include in your paper, it might be off-putting for your audience.
Another aspect of the numbers is that they can be used easily as an emotion based argument: the way you present the numbers in the first paragraph makes it feel like a big jump. Although I'm a little confused about what two year itch means, and how it relates to "After five years of marriage..."
Post a Comment