Shari Neuroth
Professor Abby Ruby Crew
Spring 2017 – English Comp II – Rhetorical Analysis
February 12, 2017
Work Chosen for my Rhetorical Analysis:
The Amethyst Initiative; It’s Time to Rethink the Drinking Age (The Harbrace Guide to Writing, 2013, p. 29).
The Amethyst Initiative (AI) was founded by John McCardell, a former history professor and President of Middlebury College in Vermont, and a group of U.S. college presidents and university chancellors in 2008. The AI is an organization whose mission is to call on the United States Congress to reconsider the minimum drinking age of 21, which formed the basis of the National Drinking Age Act of 1984 (U.S. Code, title 23, chapter 1, subsection 158). This act required all U.S. …show more content…
29). While emotions are important, to Congress, they are typically not enough to repeal laws. So, the AI also uses logos. By framing their logical argument regarding the maturity of young adults, whom at the age of 18 have the legal authority to enter into a number of legal contracts, is where the members of Congress can really feel the logical impact of the AI’s argument. Because young adults at the age of 18 are currently legally “deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military,” the logic that they are “not mature enough to drink a beer” doesn’t ring true when directly compared against one another (p. 29). Our collective system of laws that enable young adults from the age of 18 to be of sound mind enough to join the armed forces, to hold their peers accountable in a court of law, to sign purchase contracts requiring decades of repayment, and being informed enough to choose their government representatives, is the evidence necessary to prove to the members of Congress that those same young adults can be taught to consume alcohol responsibly before the age of 21. After all, it is by the power of the laws of this nation that young adults are considered mature enough to make independent decisions when they reach the age of 18; and the argument presented proves that …show more content…
Congress repeal the current law, they would also be removing the “ethical compromises that erode respect for the law” that students make when they obtain and use fake IDs (p. 29). The use of fake IDs for the intention of purchasing and consuming alcohol is another aspect why “[t]wenty-one is not working;” an appeal that uses both pathos and ethos (p. 29). The AI succeeded in pointing through logos, pathos and egos that if young adults are given the opportunity to be taught accountability regarding alcohol consumption rather than the duplicity and fraud of how to bypass the minimum age law, this kind of insightful informed education will make their campuses safer for
Professor Abby Ruby Crew
Spring 2017 – English Comp II – Rhetorical Analysis
February 12, 2017
Work Chosen for my Rhetorical Analysis:
The Amethyst Initiative; It’s Time to Rethink the Drinking Age (The Harbrace Guide to Writing, 2013, p. 29).
The Amethyst Initiative (AI) was founded by John McCardell, a former history professor and President of Middlebury College in Vermont, and a group of U.S. college presidents and university chancellors in 2008. The AI is an organization whose mission is to call on the United States Congress to reconsider the minimum drinking age of 21, which formed the basis of the National Drinking Age Act of 1984 (U.S. Code, title 23, chapter 1, subsection 158). This act required all U.S. …show more content…
29). While emotions are important, to Congress, they are typically not enough to repeal laws. So, the AI also uses logos. By framing their logical argument regarding the maturity of young adults, whom at the age of 18 have the legal authority to enter into a number of legal contracts, is where the members of Congress can really feel the logical impact of the AI’s argument. Because young adults at the age of 18 are currently legally “deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military,” the logic that they are “not mature enough to drink a beer” doesn’t ring true when directly compared against one another (p. 29). Our collective system of laws that enable young adults from the age of 18 to be of sound mind enough to join the armed forces, to hold their peers accountable in a court of law, to sign purchase contracts requiring decades of repayment, and being informed enough to choose their government representatives, is the evidence necessary to prove to the members of Congress that those same young adults can be taught to consume alcohol responsibly before the age of 21. After all, it is by the power of the laws of this nation that young adults are considered mature enough to make independent decisions when they reach the age of 18; and the argument presented proves that …show more content…
Congress repeal the current law, they would also be removing the “ethical compromises that erode respect for the law” that students make when they obtain and use fake IDs (p. 29). The use of fake IDs for the intention of purchasing and consuming alcohol is another aspect why “[t]wenty-one is not working;” an appeal that uses both pathos and ethos (p. 29). The AI succeeded in pointing through logos, pathos and egos that if young adults are given the opportunity to be taught accountability regarding alcohol consumption rather than the duplicity and fraud of how to bypass the minimum age law, this kind of insightful informed education will make their campuses safer for