Kid kustomers lit analysis
Kelly Gold
Mrs. Blum
AP Lang
12 November 2013
Kid Kustomers Analysis Essay
Every person who has been to a store has seen a child whining, screaming, or yelling over an item they so desperately want, while the embarrassed parent is forced to walk around with a screaming child, or simply yield to the child 's wishes. In “Kid Kustomers” by Eric Schlosser, he reveals some of the tactics that advertisers may use to draw in a child. Schlosser employs simple yet effective rhetorical strategies to create a clear point. The most prominent rhetorical strategies used in the essay were Logos, to give specific facts and references, Linear syntax, to increase clarity and organization, and a strong diction to gain the validity of himself and his point from the readers. These devices ultimately help convey his view, which is a logical view of the reprehensible actions that companies use for marketing and that it is ethically wrong to do so.
Schlosser uses an incredible amount of logos, nearly every sentence in the paragraphs two through six, contain a statistic or fact that was gained from another source. His use of logos is important because rather than proving an opinion and persuading others to follow his opinion, he uses facts to essentially perform inception on the minds of the readers. This is a highly effective tool in his essay because the facts and statistics he uses are about children, which by default create a strong emotional bias of the reader (pathos). Statistics like how in a “...1991 study... found that nearly all of America’s sixyearolds could identify Joe Camel”(Schlosser 354) create a very strong reaction in readers, knowing that children were able to identify the mascot of a cigarette brand “as easily as they could
identify Mickey Mouse” (Schlosser 354). Further he is able to connect this to ethos by the fact that advertisers are focussing on the power of nagging and immature behavior to sell products to children.
Mrs. Blum
AP Lang
12 November 2013
Kid Kustomers Analysis Essay
Every person who has been to a store has seen a child whining, screaming, or yelling over an item they so desperately want, while the embarrassed parent is forced to walk around with a screaming child, or simply yield to the child 's wishes. In “Kid Kustomers” by Eric Schlosser, he reveals some of the tactics that advertisers may use to draw in a child. Schlosser employs simple yet effective rhetorical strategies to create a clear point. The most prominent rhetorical strategies used in the essay were Logos, to give specific facts and references, Linear syntax, to increase clarity and organization, and a strong diction to gain the validity of himself and his point from the readers. These devices ultimately help convey his view, which is a logical view of the reprehensible actions that companies use for marketing and that it is ethically wrong to do so.
Schlosser uses an incredible amount of logos, nearly every sentence in the paragraphs two through six, contain a statistic or fact that was gained from another source. His use of logos is important because rather than proving an opinion and persuading others to follow his opinion, he uses facts to essentially perform inception on the minds of the readers. This is a highly effective tool in his essay because the facts and statistics he uses are about children, which by default create a strong emotional bias of the reader (pathos). Statistics like how in a “...1991 study... found that nearly all of America’s sixyearolds could identify Joe Camel”(Schlosser 354) create a very strong reaction in readers, knowing that children were able to identify the mascot of a cigarette brand “as easily as they could
identify Mickey Mouse” (Schlosser 354). Further he is able to connect this to ethos by the fact that advertisers are focussing on the power of nagging and immature behavior to sell products to children.