In her article, “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis”, Laura Bolin Carroll breaks down rhetoric, and explains how powerful discourse may be if it abides by the rules of context (exigence, audience, and constraints) and argument (which involves logos, pathos, and ethos). One of the sentences that interested me was when she said, “What we choose to wear (tennis shoes vs. flip flops), where we shop (Whole Foods Market vs. Wal-Mart), what we eat (organic vs. fast food), or even the way we send information (snail mail vs. text message) can work to persuade others”. What do these choices “work to persuade others”? Status.

What you wear, says something about you. Where you shop, says something about you. What you eat, says something about you. The way you communicate, says something about you. Some people are extremely concerned with their self-image, always conscious of how their choices might “persuade” others’ thoughts and judgments about them. This got me thinking about how certain producers (different company brands) exploit this weakness of consumers, by investing millions of dollars in their marketing campaigns to push an image (that sheds positive light about their product) unto prospective customers. This marketing is pure rhetorical strategy, as they are ultimately trying to persuade you of something, like how “happy” this product will make you or how “status-superior” you may look with that product. “Advertisement fonts, colors, page layout, types of paper, or images” (55) are all crucial to tapping into and “winning” the hearts of its audience. A font color that’s too bright or an image that’s poorly formatted can adversely affect the reader’s attention and interest in continuing to read the ad.

And the use of rhetoric does not necessarily need to be projected in the form of an ad. Rhetoric, or anything that tries to persuade you of something, is truly everywhere. I appreciated how Carroll enumerated a few types of rhetoric (56) that we may encounter on a day to day basis; it showed how widespread and indispensable the power of rhetoric is.