Rhetorical Analysis of a Scholarly Article. In Keith McPhersons 2008 article Product Placement: Facing Yet Another Dark Art, McPherson attempts to persuade teacher-librarians to assist students in developing their abilities to ident

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Schneider

Jon Schneider

Professor N. Hartlan        

Film And Cultural Studies

22 March 2012

        

Rhetorical Analysis of a Scholarly Article

Product placement is a form of advertising that has become progressively popular in today’s business world. In Keith McPherson’s 2008 article “Product Placement: Facing Yet Another Dark Art”, McPherson attempts to persuade teacher-librarians to assist students in developing their abilities to identify the intent of product placement messages, make reasoned judgments in light of this intent, and take sensible actions. I believe that McPherson is successful in persuading his audience by demonstrating specific examples from different kinds of evidence, by appealing to readers through the use of logos, pathos and ethos, and by using some of the nine major rhetorical strategies to support his argument.

McPherson’s ability to use precise examples through different categories of evidence is his first step towards a successfully persuasive article. McPherson’s begins his article by asking the readers to imagine they are viewing the sitcom Friends as well as a telecast of a Major League Baseball game. The author then asks the audience to pretend they are one of the few people who have noticed, and are surprised of, the use of modern product placement advertisements within the two examples. An initial persuasion is established with audience through the use of these plausible hypothetical scenarios. McPherson continues to explain product placement by using data from library or Internet research. “[T]he placement of Coca-Cola glasses in front of reality-show hosts and the use of an Audi within the movie iRobot” (McPherson, ¶ 5) are just two of the many examples that display a powerful type of researched evidence. With the intent of backing up his research, McPherson even goes so far as to cite screen-shots of some of his researched examples so the readers can become less skeptical of the accuracy of the data. Finally, McPherson uses data from field research in order to list the many different types of activities that teacher-librarians should use to educate students about product placement. McPherson says “the instructional activities that [he] include[d] in this article make use of the tools and media with which students are already engaging and the product placement that advertisers are utilizing (McPherson, ¶ 25). This type of research is important for the readers because it delivers the feeling of scientific credibility and increases typicality by expanding the database beyond one example. McPherson demonstrates a successful use of examples because there was a sufficient amount of evidence, the evidence represented his topic clearly, and his accurate and up-to-date information was completely relevant.

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McPherson’s three appeals to readers are the second fundamental reason why his article is successfully persuasive. McPherson establishes the use of Logos, otherwise known as the logical structure of the argument, at the beginning of the article by using a simile in the title, stating that product placement is like a dark art. McPherson waits until after examples of product placement are given in order to reintroduce his argument, stating, “product placement is important, as are the actions that we choose to take against such deceptive advertising” (McPherson, ¶ 15). The argument is established in such a way that the ...

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