Rhetorical Analysis Outline

Introduction: The hot topic recently set forth in the beginning of June of 2012, when the Anti-Doping agency charged Lance Armstrong with Doping and trafficking performance enhancing drugs. The article "Legacy at stake: Lance Armstrong's legal fight against doping charges". This is written by CNN’s Alex Bath who’s a sports journalist at CNN. The author’s main goals in the article are to inform readers about the topic and you need to take your own stance on the subject.

Thesis: A close analysis of the Article "Legacy at stake: Lance Armstrong's legal fight against doping charges" written August 24th 2012. Charges against Armstrong for Doping were set in June of 2012. To me leads to a very unpersuasive article for readers but allows you to take your own standpoint on the situation.

Audience: Audience: The publisher of the Article was CNN. The author is writing to the general public i know this because in the article he’s not referring to anything or anyone he is more so just trying to inform the readers.

Background Info about Lance: During the peak of his career, what seemed to be so perfect wasn’t. Lance was diagnosed with testicular cancer which spread from there to his lungs and brain. Despite doctors giving him a 50-50 chance of living he immediately began chemotherapy and other special treatments recommend. His results began to improve rapidly and as an effect he thought more and more about getting back on his bike. After Lance’s miraculous recovery from cancer and return to cycling he won seven consecutive Tour De France titles from 1999-2005. Lance retired from the sport in 2005 after his final championship but his work still continues to inspire people to this day. The reason is he partnered up with Nike to form the yellow Live Strong wrist band which has become a sign of hope to many in hard times.

Logos:

 Discuss Structure of essay: The structure of this article is kind of written in a chronological order from the first event, moment, or step to last event, moment, or step. Throughout the body of the essay the writer has a topic such as “what are the charges” then he branches off of that telling the reader what they are. The author then goes into his next topic such as what is the USADA and continues to repeat this process throughout the paper.

 Provide roadmap of the essay’s organization/logic for your readers   (who we are pretending have never read the essay). 2. Do so by describing how the essay opens, how it unfolds, and how it concludes:  The introduction opens with a very short narrative about how Lance is fighting to keep his seven Tour De France titles as well as keep his reputation as one of the sport’s most premier athletes. Stated earlier the author then starts to write the paper chronologically from the first event, moment, or step to last event, moment, or step. The end of the article doesn’t have a conclusion, leaving the reader to form his own opinion about the article and situation.

 Evaluate argument’s structure: conclude this section by commenting on how intended audience might respond to the argument’s overall structure. * Note strengths as well as possible weaknesses: The article as a whole really only has one argument and it is whether or not Lance doped during his seven years of winning the Tour De France. The argument is presented to the reader in the beginning of the writing. Some of the strengths of the argument is it provides the fact that he has passed 500 tests over 20 years of competition.  Weaknesses of the argument is that several of Lances teammates from the United States Postal Service Team (USPS). Two doctors and a trainer have been suspended as well that were part of Lances USPS team.

 Describe what kinds of argument they are–definition, causal, evaluation, proposal–and how these arguments fit in the overall argument: The article really only offers one type of argument which is causal. This is because this particular argument looks at the primary cause, which is if Lance was doping or not.

 Describe how the author supports these claims–what reasons he/she offers: The author really supports these claims by going on in detail about different facts like how all the drug test he’s taken and passed and the author provides both sides of the story I think but ultimately leaves it to the reader to decide if Lance doped or not.

 

 Provide a handful of specific examples of representative (key and clear) instances of the author’s reasoning–how he/she links reasons to a claim: "Lance has passed nearly 500 tests over 20 years of competition,".  On the other side the author provides examples that he was doping  like “Along with the cyclist, several members of Armstrong's former team were charged. These included Luis Garcia del Moral and Michele Ferrari, both team doctors, trainer Jose "Pepe" Marti, team physician Pedro Celaya and Johan Bruyneel.”

 

 Discuss Kinds of evidence used: throughout the article several types of evidence was used such as facts about Armstrong, facts about his teammates and other cyclists that have faced similar situations.

 

 Provide a few key examples of different types of evidence:  Lance has passed over 500 drug tests in 20 years. Some others are, the USADA alleges that Armstrong took steroids throughout his career, and says it has testimony from former teammates to support the charges. the organization has refused to reveal who has provided the evidence.

 

 Analyze each example briefly: discuss how the author uses that type and/or specific bit of evidence to persuade readers: the first example is simple and states how many drug tests Lance has passed over the years. The author uses this as a begin to persuade the reader that he hasn’t doped. Later on in the article the author provides a statement from the USADA stating that Lance’s teammates came forth and testified against Lance.

 

Evaluate argument’s evidence: conclude this section by commenting on how the intended audience will likely respond, overall, to the author’s use of different forms of evidence and the quality and quantity of that evidence. * Note strengths as well as possible weaknesses: The audience will probably respond in different ways due to how the author wrote the paper allowing the readers to form their own opinion on the subject using pieces of evidence from the standpoint Lance is innocent and from the standpoint his guilty using the USADA information.

 

IV. Ethos

 

 Discuss briefly author’s extrinsic ethos: how it is established, how it contributes to the author’s character/credibility, and how it might influence the intended audience: the authors ethos is established in the beginning of the paper showing he has credibility because it is published on CNN which is a highly looked upon news source.

 

 Provide a few key examples of how the author builds his/her ethos throughout the argument:

 

 Analyze each example briefly: discuss how the author uses that strategy to persuade readers:

 

 Evaluate author’s ethos: conclude this section by commenting on how the intended audience will likely respond, overall, to the author’s ethos. * Note strengths as well as possible weaknesses:

 

 Pathos

 

 Discuss author’s appeals to pathos: appeals to intended audience’s emotions, values, assumptions, sense of identity:

 

 Provide a few key examples of how the author uses pathos in different ways to persuade his/her intended audience:

 

Analyze each example briefly: discuss how the author uses that particular strategy to elicit certain responses/feelings from readers:

 

 Evaluate author’s use of pathos appeals: conclude this section by commenting on how the intended audience will likely respond, overall, to the author’s appeals to pathos. * Note strengths as well as possible weaknesses:

 

VI. Counter-arguments and qualifiers:

 

 Discuss briefly how, where, and why the author might qualify main claims of his/her argument in crucial ways and what effect these qualifications might have on the reader:

 

 Discuss more fully how the author addresses counter-arguments, concessions, and refutations:

 

 Provide a few key examples of how the author addresses counter-arguments to persuade his/her intended audience:

 

Analyze each example briefly: discuss how the author handles the counter-argument (how respectful he/she is to the opposition, how much he/she concedes and refutes) and what effect these strategies have on readers:

 

 Evaluate author’s use of counter-arguments, concessions, and refutations: conclude this section by commenting on how the intended audience will likely respond, overall, to the author’s treatment of the opposition and its arguments.       * Note strengths as well as possible weaknesses:

 

VII. Conclusion

 Concluding paragraph should highlight the argument’s strengths and weaknesses (as concerns the intended audience):

 

After weighing strengths and weaknesses, offer a final evaluation of the argument’s overall persuasiveness relative to the intended audience: