"Love and Law"

“Love and Law”
Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Audience: The target audience is parents of wayward children, particularly Latter Day Saint parents. This talk was given at the October 2009 general conference of the LDS church.

Enthymeme:

Claim: Obeying the law of God will bring choice blessings
Reason: because obeying the law of God prepared and enables us to feel His love and mercy.

Goal: The goal of the argument is to help parents to realize the need for balance between love and discipline in their family relationships. This recognition will also help parents to find a way to create unity in their families in times of hardship, such as when a member of the family is being disobedient.

How:

Relevant: The examples are relevant to the message and provide support for the point Elder Oaks is trying to make. Also, Elder Oaks includes a variety of examples that demonstrate different aspects of his message. He uses the example of a child living in cohabitation, and relates the common points of misunderstanding and contention between the parents and the child on this subject. He also mentions children who are using drugs or alcohol, and acknowledges the difficulty in dealing with this problem. The examples are fairly general, but the audience is more likely to connect to the subject matter by not using very specific examples. This helps the audience to relate more personally to the message, thus making it more meaningful to them.

He also uses examples from the Savior’s life. This provides a connection with the audience that will lead them to want to implement this message into their life. The audience is trying to be the best parents they can be, and they are also striving to become more like Jesus Christ. Therefore, by giving examples from the Savior’s life about the law of God and the love of God enables the audience to become better parents while at the same time helping them progress in their striving to become more like Jesus Christ.

Tone: The tone of the talk is of a serious nature, and denotes the importance of the message; however, it is not too stern or compelling. There is an expression of love incorporated in the seriousness of the subject matter.

Ethos: The sources that Elder Oaks uses to make his argument are credible, especially to the audience. He uses scriptural references, which the audience will not likely question or doubt. Elder Oaks presents these scriptures in such a way that the audience can gain a new perspective and draw new insights from existing truth.

Is it effective? Yes, the audience not only view the sources that Elder Oaks uses in his talk as credible and trustworthy, but they also trust Elder Oaks as a leader of the church. They will listen to what he has to say, and to the best that they can to implement the message into their own lives.

The Clock is Ticking

Nickelback - Savin' Me

Kurt MySpace Video

Audience: The target audience consists of those that do not value the time that is given to them in their everyday life, which is true for every person at one point or another. Whether life is just beginning, coming to an end, or at any point in between, the message presented in this video applies to those of all ages, but most especially to adults who have become too self-absorbed to recognize the importance of helping other people.

Argument: The fragility of life as defined by the limits of time urges us to live the way we want to live and help those that we can along the way, because the fragility of life created by the limits of time characterizes life by the time we have left, which is continually becoming shorter by the second.

Implicit Assumption: Whatever characterizes life by the time we have left also urges us to live the way we want to live and help those that we can along the way.

Goal: To cause us to re-evaluate the way we think about our own lives, and the role we have in the lives of others.

How:

Logos:
At the beginning of the video, a man saved another man from being hit by a bus. The man that was saved then realized that he was able to see the allotment of time that the people around him had left to live. At the end of the video, the man saves a woman from being crushed by a falling object, and the woman is then able to see the time each person has left to live. This helps establish that those that have been helped by others are more able to see the needs of others that are in the same situation. This produces a chain that starts with one person and continues to grow as more people are being helped.

Accurate: The man could not save everyone, and not everyone needed to be saved, showing that everyone is at different stages of life. For some life was just beginning, for others they still had a long time to live, and then for some others, like the woman in the ambulance, it was her time to go.

Symbolism: By showing that each person has an allotted amount of time to live, and that the course of life can be altered by one person, we are able to see that one person can mean the difference between life and death, but not just in a physical sense. There are times in all of our lives when we are struggling with loneliness, frustration, or discouragement. In those times, we can help each other overcome those struggles.

Is it effective? Yes, but perhaps not to the same extent for everyone. The audience is most likely to think ore about the video due to waht I identified as logos. For those that spend time thinking about the video after watching it, the goal of the argument is likely to be achieved.

The Effects of a Soda Tax on American Health

Audience: The audience consists of those in Congress that are in favor of the soda tax, or that have not decided one way or another on this issue.

Argument: A soda tax will not change the behavior of Americans enough to improve their health. The tax will lead to a decrease in consumption, thus possibly decreasing obesity, but this change will not be long term or sufficient enough to decrease obesity, neither will it improve the health of Americans.

Enthymeme:

Claim: Taxing soda drinks will not improve the health of Americans
Reason: because taxing soda drinks will not lead to a change in behavior.

Implicit Assumption: Whatever will not lead to a change in behavior also will not improve the health of Americans.

Goal: To persuade legislators to consider methods other than taxation to decrease soda consumption.

How:
The main elements that are used to try and persuade the audience include:

Sufficient information: The information supplied is sufficient and displays understanding of the issue.

Relevant argument: The statistics included in the paper are relevant to the issue. They are also current, or applicable to the point being made. The paper does not drift far from the issue, and any measurable steering away from the main argument is simply a means of producing support to the argument.

Pathos: The proposal of changing the way people think about soda has an emotional appeal, because it implies going deeper than enforcing a tax, which is a superficial means of causing change. Whether or not the audience agrees that this can be done, it does provoke thought and greater emotion than anything else in the paper.

Logos: The paper is well organized and contains logical flow and argument. The organization of the paper aids the purposes of persuasion because the audience’s stance is not rejected at the beginning of the paper. There is a significant portion of the writing that develops common ground with the audience, and establishes a mutual connection. The argument then stems off of that common ground, helping the audience to understand where the concessions are coming from.

Is it effective? This argument will probably not convince those that are already decided on this subject to change their minds, because it is very likely that those individuals have already thought about everything presented in the text of this paper. However, there is a possibility that those that are undecided on this subject will be pushed to the side that opposes the soda tax after reading this. The argument is not all together ineffective, and will cause the audience to at least think more about the issue, but the audience will probably not be thoroughly convinced of the ineffectiveness of a tax after reading this one argument.