Summary
Culture. We all have some sort of culture, even if we may not realize it. Culture is something that defines who we are, for the most part, as it is our way of connecting with people. Our culture stems from our environment, mainly our family, as we spend most of our time around them. Slowly but surely, they're culture rubs off on us to the point that we call it our own. But sometimes, as people grow up, we start implementing different aspects of mainstream culture distancing us from our family.
The article “Cultural Orientation Gaps within a Family Systems Perspective” attempts to make a point to inform readers of the connection between culture and family. The authors get their points across by incorporating the use of logos within their article. After defining a point they want to make they add multiple studies as well as analytics to help support their thoughts and evidence. For instance, when trying to explain the correlation between mainstream culture and heritage culture and its effect on family the authors refer to a study that was conducted. “ In one study with 90% of families of Mexican heritage, Martinez (2006) conceptualized the parent-adolescent mainstream behavioral gap as youth having a greater orientation to American culture than their parents. Results of this study indicated that the mainstream cultural gap was indirectly related to adolescent substance use likelihood via affecting parenting behaviors”. The use of “in one study” or “90% of families” can make a reader more susceptible to trusting articles as they seem to sound more trustworthy.
The article “The Effects of Family Culture on Family Foundations” attempts to address the impact of your family's culture on one's own life. The author makes some good points here and there but doesn't utilize any sort of logos, unlike the previous article. The main strategy used in this article would be pathos and ethos, as the reader essentially tells stories of instances where culture and family worked hand in hand. “The values of the family set the basic tone for the family foundation”…” One such man was A. Lincoln Filene, who founded the Lincoln and Therese Filene Foundation in 1946. Born shortly after the assassination of President Lincoln, he was named by his immigrant parents in honor of the fallen president.” By reading this article it is noticeable that the author likes to state a prompt and then answer it by relating it to a story. The use of pathos and ethos are very persistent within this text as the author attempts to build a connection with the readers by telling heartfelt, happy-ending stories. This can help contribute to making this a trustworthy article as the readers now have a connection with the author through the stories.
Both articles seem to make the same point of, how an individual's familial cultural background affects their life, by using different methods. While one is using logos and the other is using pathos and ethos. Comparing the two articles side by side they both seem to have some pros and cons. While the first article contains a good amount of logos it seems to lack an aspect of pathos. As texts seem to only have statistics to support the author's thoughts sense of emotion can help boost its credibility for it could appeal to the readers. On the other hand, the second article makes use of pathos as well as ethos but fails to incorporate logos within the texts. The second article doesn't seem to have an analytical aspect to it. This makes the article incredibly weak as we now are forced to go off whatever they are saying. Overall first article would be a a better source to cite as it is a more trustworthy source and it uses real concrete evidence to get its points across.
In conclusion, in order to have a great article or essay the author must find a way to incorporate the use of all rhetorical triangle methods. By doing so the author will have an essay that not only makes them trustworthy but will also appeal to the emotions of the readers
One reply on “Assignment 2”
Yours is really good! It’s straight to the point and clear! The only errors I found were small ones, like “they’re” instead of “their” in the intro. Also, don’t put a comma when you say “both articles make a point of…” just keep the sentence going until the period, or change it to be “Both articles make the same point: familial background effects the individual’s life.” After “Overall” on the bottom, there’s no “the” before “first article.” At the end, just add a comma after overall when you said “overall the article “ Also, don’t forget to cite your sources in MLA format, and add a comma after “distancing” in the introduction. Overall, it is really well written!