Philip Hensher Rhetorical Analysis

Sentorria Chatmon
Period 2
Rhetorical Essay #2 In this particular article, the author, Philip Hensher, explains how handwriting and actually putting a pen to paper is more important than it seems and as a modern society who is caught up in technology, we should treasure hand­written communication more than we really do.
Mainly pertaining to us people who are currently living in an era all about electronics, Hensher makes us aware that something handwritten is way more valuable than something that is electronically written. Hensher uses pathos appeals to explain how emotionally investing just a handwritten letter could actually be. For example, when he mentions how handwriting can be “untidy” or “difficult to read” but someone who understands the worst of handwriting still treasures it because of who
He then states “But these days, to tell other people about these possessions, we reach for electronic media.” which connects back to his purpose of informing us about how much more valuable and meaningful handwritten text is rather than electronic. Another significant factor in Phillip Hensher’s article is how he uses logos appeals to get across his point on how important handwriting used to be and how the relevance of it should remain the same. He uses expert opinion when he mentions how a 19th century handwriting reformer said that by practicing handwriting, he was able to turn away from a drunken dissipation to a modest, useful life and later reformers thought that handwriting practice could lead to constructive careers in commerce or the public service. Hensher then moves on to explain his research conducted at a University which states that schools that were addressed about bad handwriting improved not only in how they wrote, but they had better reading skills, better word recognition, and better memory, just to name a few. Incorporating logistics into his article really pushes
Just at the beginning of the article he uses an ordinary diction by stating everyday statistics such as “The average time since an adult wrote anything by hand was 41 days.” and “One in three people surveyed said that they hadn’t written anything by hand for at least six months.” This article undeniably has some emotional diction in it has well, specifically when he mentions how a love letter or letter of condolence needs to be on paper or written by hand, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth anything. Also when he mentions how Skype, email and text messages won’t be treasured in the way that letter, journals, and postcards have been for

years. This all ties together with Hensher’s purpose of informing the modern society about the treasures of handwriting. Throughout the whole article, the author is giving off a frank somewhat forthright tone to justify the relevance of handwriting. He gets straight to the point at the beginning of the article by bombarding us readers with questions about the last time we’ve wrote handwritten something or the last time we received something handwritten to basically let us know how nobody really manually communicates anymore. Immediately after that, Hensher begins to volunteer