Elizabeth Kolbert's writing, "Why Candidates Need to Make Fun of Themselves," takes a closer look at what presidential candidates hope to accomplish through humor. In my essay I hope to find out why certain presidential candidates think humor will help them get more votes. Are the presidential candidates hoping to target a certain age by using humor in their campaign? If so, why will humor draw a certain age to them? Do they think the young voting population will be attracted to a candidate who can relate to them on a humorous level?
* What is the purpose of the argument? What does it hope to achieve? The purpose of my argument it to find out why presidential candidates find it necessary to use humor during their campaign.
* Who is the audience for this argument? The voting population.
* What are the contexts – social, political, historical, cultural – for this argument? Whose interests does it serve? Who gains or loses by it?
The contexts are political and it serves the interests of the voting population. The presidential candidate will gain or lose votes based on his success or failure with comedy. The contexts could also be social because the presidential candidate is trying to relate to the voting population and make us believe he is an ordinary guy.
* How does the language or style of the argument work to persuade an audience? Some people believe humor makes people feel comfortable while other people are naturally drawn to humor so presidential candidates tend to use humor to gain supporters.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think that your point that candidates are trying to use humor to target a certain age is a good argument. You can say they can either target an older age group or a younger age group depending on what type of humor they use. I think you can expand on who the audience is for the argument. You can say it is everyone who is of age to vote because by using humor you can attract someone who may have otherwise not voted at all.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a great idea for future essays in this class, but not really for essay #1, at least not as you have it framed here in your proposal. For this essay, you want to focus on how the writer of the essay you're focusing on creates his/her argument. What devices are used, meaning, if you are convinced by the writing, why? If you're not convinced, why not? Also, how does the writer appeal to the logic/reason and emotions of his/her audience? How does the writer establish credibility? Don't let yourself get bogged down by the message of the piece; focus on how the author gets the message across.
ReplyDelete