Argumentative Text Essay In the book Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author argues how challenging it is to live in a life of poverty. To prove to herself as well as others that this statement is accurate, she makes the decision to experience this lifestyle firsthand by taking low-wage jobs and recording the results. Ehrenreich took on jobs including a maid service, waitressing, and assisting the nursing home to make enough money for a place to sleep and food to eat. The work’s central argument is the fact that minimum and low wage workers face a myriad of difficulties in getting by in America; they receive very low pay, harsh treatments from their employers, and the inability to have an actual life. The author provides various amounts of evidence from her factual recordings, her personal insight as an effective technique, and rhetorical choices of ethos, logos, and pathos to support her position. The central argument of Nickel and Dimed circulates around living with insufficient …show more content…
Ethos, logos, and pathos are forms of the rhetorical choices the author used to further convey her argument to her audience. Her use of ethos is noted in the beginning of the nonfiction piece, where she discusses her career as an author and newspaper writer; she lists her credentials and gives the readers information about her life. Each of the footnotes Ehrenreich inscribed at the bottoms of pages in the book serves as a use of logos; they are statistics and historical records providing data about companies, labor laws, and other information pertinent to previous passages. Pathos involves the author appeals to the audience’s emotions, and Ehrenreich achieves this when describing her co-worker's lives. They have limited time with family and friends due to being occupied full time by their
The author used different elements of ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos to effectively communicate with the reader. Eve Tushnet the author of this essay does not have a whole lot of ethos. Eve is lacking credibility and character because she is not an established author. Eve is not a credible author because she is a freelance writer. Eve does not have good credibility because she blogs and contributes to an opinion magazine and website.
In a New York Times article, “Too Poor to Make the News,” author Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the impact the recession has caused to the lives of the working poor. She begins her article by describing how the newly group, known as Nouveau poor, have to give up valuables where as the working poor have to give up housing, food, and prescription medicines. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to inform her readers who are blessed enough not to suffer like the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich’s article examines the impacts the recession has on the lives of the working poor, by demonstrating pathos, and makes readers aware of the sufferings the poor have to face. Barbara Ehrenreich examines the aspects that are impacting the working poor from the recession.
This scandalous coinage, also known as the penny, is a lousy excuse for a currency and should be abandoned. The penny costs the American people precious time and money as they attempt to scour through their purse or wallet just for a 1 cent coin, which is having devastating effects on the economy. The obvious solution to this ordeal is removing the penny and rounding all prices to the nearest nickel. On the other side of the argument, people view this as an opportunity for businesses to charge extra for a product or service that you originally would of although, there is simply no hard defining evidence that this would even occur. With everything considered, the penny is a nuisance to society as a whole, we need to abolish it before it creates
In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.” Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.”
No Nickels or Dimes To Spare In the book, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich writes the story, “Serving in Florida.” She describes her experience living as an undercover waitress when in reality she’s a journalist for culture and politics with a doctorate in biology. Ehrenreich experiences trying to survive on multiple low income jobs to understand what it is like to be in their shoes instead of being apart of the higher middle class.
The writers accurately depict ethos because they represent multiple viewpoints and they have connected themselves to the topic. Pathos is used in the document because they expressed their emotions for
People in poverty are generally portrayed as worthless and this is because culture today illustrates a man’s worth from how materially successful they are. Hooks explains how this kind of representation of the poor can mentally and emotionally handicap and entire society of people in poverty. She goes into an example of how a
One of the best-selling authors, Barbara Ehrenreich, in her narrative essay, “Serving in Florida,” describes her personal experience working in a local restaurant called Jerry’s. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to attach importance to the low-wage America workplace. Using rhetorical strategies such as negative diction, simile, images, and pathos, Ehrenreich attempts to raise public awareness of the low-wage workers’ life in her readers. Firstly, Barbara Ehrenreich exploits connotation of words and simile to emphasize the difficult life of the lower class.
The novel, The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by Sasha Abramsky is about how he traveled the United States meeting the poor. The stories he introduces in novel are articles among data-driven studies and critical investigations of government programs. Abramsky has composed an impressive book that both defines and advocates. He reaches across a varied range of concerns, involving education, housing and criminal justice, in a wide-ranging view of poverty 's sections. In considering results, it 's essential to understand how the different problems of poor families intermingle in mutual reinforcement.
Off with the Head The penny is one of America 's most iconic coins, but yet people toss them once in their possession. Most thoughts about the penny are more negative than positive. Lewis, Mark’s passage (Source A) shows the reason is has not been banned yet. Kahn, Ric’s passage (Source B) explains the penny was only good in its prime, and now is wasting our time.
The use of ethos, pathos, and logos in any type of writing or speaking can create a commanding and arresting effect on the reader/listener.
Mantsios’ compares the profiles of different Americans lifestyles in his text and develops the idea that an individual’s class standing can affect their livelihood in detrimental ways, “The lower one’s class standing, the more difficult it is to secure appropriate housing, the more time is spent on routine tasks of everyday life, the greater is the percentage of income that goes to pay for food and other basic necessities, and the greater is the likelihood of crime victimization” (293). Mantsios explains that one’s class standing can affect the chances of survival and success. Ehrenreich describes her own housing experiences as a low income worker. To reduce her overall costs and to obtain a second job, Ehrenreich moves closer to Key West. Ehrenreich has just enough money to pay the rent and deposit on a tiny trailer at the Overseas Trailer Park.
Jack Nguyen AP English 3 30, July 2015 Nickel and Dimed Rhetorical Strategies and Notes Thesis: Ehrenreich’s personal use of varied rhetorical strategies allowed her to divulge the working conditions and struggles of the poverty-stricken class to the readers in order to provoke them to realize that something has to be done about poverty.. First Body: What: Allusion Pg. 2, Logos Pg. 37. How & Effect: Ehrenreich uses these personal, rhetorical strategies based on her experiences as a low-wage worker in the poor working class. The effect is that Ehrenreich is able to show the readers the conditions in which the impoverished work in and the daily obstacles that they face in life; also there is an appeal to logic and a reference of a poverty idiom. Why: Ehrenreich is deliberately using these rhetorical strategies to incite the readers about the fact that changes need to be done to poverty because it is a detrimental thing to society.
Describe one of the social issues presented in Nickel and Dimed. What is the author's point of view about this issue? What is your point of view? INTRODUCTION: [Hook] (a quote from outside the book about how hard menial jobs are and how hard it is to get enough money). [Introduce the book] Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, can identify with the majority of people who struggle to pay off expensive rent bills with their low income.
As a reader reads Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed on (Not) Getting by in America, they get an insight on what it is like to live a low income life. Ehrenreich proposes the argument in the introduction that poverty is a serious matter and just because one has a job does not mean they are not considered poor. She wants to persuade us to realize that American is not the land of opportunity as promised and portrayed and there are regular people who are struggling to live a comfortable life. Throughout her book she mentions her experiences with living on minimum wage, the hiring process, and how she felt being put in that position. After reading Ehrenreich’s book I am thoroughly persuaded.