Rhetorical Analysis Of Friends By Kate Dailey
Julie Dinh
Instructor: Vicki Hodges
English Composition I
March 30, 2017
Friends or Just "Friends" ? A Rhetorical Analysis of “Friends with Benefits: Do Facebook Friends Provide the Same Support as Those in Real life?” Henry Adams, a famous historian, once said “Friends are born, not made.” Is this true? One enquiring woman, author Kate Dailey, wrote “Friends with Benefits: Do Facebook Friends Provide the Same Support as Those in Real Life?” published in 2009 in the Newsweek, and she argues that Facebook is able to provide and create “friends”. Dailey argues that while Facebook serves as a great alternative for real world’s social life, Facebook is not a replacement to the same support as those in actuality. Dailey starts building her credibility …show more content…
By this time, Dailey had graduated from the School of Journalism at Columbia University and was the health editor of Newsweek Magazine. The tone of the article is relaxed while also friendly. The language overall is sympathetic and easy to understand with her simple sentence composition.
In order to understand this article , the key term "friend" must be understood. There are many varying definitions of "friend" but Dailey ultimately defines "Facebook friend" as being people who you interact with most frequent. This definition is supported by Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sciology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Adams states that "friends" are not as voluntarily as they seem but rather is restricted by education, age, and background (203). Like the definition of "friend", Dailey's assertions are supported with sufficient and convincing evidence from research and studies conducted from graduate work and research from students or professors at distinguished universities. Dailey provides many logical appeals in her argument. A common logo Dailey used was the "better and worse"(140) logo presented in her argument that "because happiness spreads …show more content…
Therefore, the opposing side of the article’s argument undermines the level of effectiveness in the appeals to emotions that Dailey has been discussing throughout the article. For example, Dailey summarizes from a study from Michael J. Bugeja, a professor of communications at Iowa State University, that the different worlds, virtual and real, provides different levels of support when encountering difficulty (204). The car crash example presented describes this idea in depth. If an individual is in a car crash, Facebook “friends” can only provide blessing comments or at best a sad face but the friends in real life could provide you help by offering a ride or come to the individual’s side and offer assistance (204). This damages the strength of Dailey’s argument and potentially weakens Dailey’s credibility because Bugeja is a credible source and he has provided extensive research in his book Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age, which contradicts Dailey’s
Instructor: Vicki Hodges
English Composition I
March 30, 2017
Friends or Just "Friends" ? A Rhetorical Analysis of “Friends with Benefits: Do Facebook Friends Provide the Same Support as Those in Real life?” Henry Adams, a famous historian, once said “Friends are born, not made.” Is this true? One enquiring woman, author Kate Dailey, wrote “Friends with Benefits: Do Facebook Friends Provide the Same Support as Those in Real Life?” published in 2009 in the Newsweek, and she argues that Facebook is able to provide and create “friends”. Dailey argues that while Facebook serves as a great alternative for real world’s social life, Facebook is not a replacement to the same support as those in actuality. Dailey starts building her credibility …show more content…
By this time, Dailey had graduated from the School of Journalism at Columbia University and was the health editor of Newsweek Magazine. The tone of the article is relaxed while also friendly. The language overall is sympathetic and easy to understand with her simple sentence composition.
In order to understand this article , the key term "friend" must be understood. There are many varying definitions of "friend" but Dailey ultimately defines "Facebook friend" as being people who you interact with most frequent. This definition is supported by Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sciology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Adams states that "friends" are not as voluntarily as they seem but rather is restricted by education, age, and background (203). Like the definition of "friend", Dailey's assertions are supported with sufficient and convincing evidence from research and studies conducted from graduate work and research from students or professors at distinguished universities. Dailey provides many logical appeals in her argument. A common logo Dailey used was the "better and worse"(140) logo presented in her argument that "because happiness spreads …show more content…
Therefore, the opposing side of the article’s argument undermines the level of effectiveness in the appeals to emotions that Dailey has been discussing throughout the article. For example, Dailey summarizes from a study from Michael J. Bugeja, a professor of communications at Iowa State University, that the different worlds, virtual and real, provides different levels of support when encountering difficulty (204). The car crash example presented describes this idea in depth. If an individual is in a car crash, Facebook “friends” can only provide blessing comments or at best a sad face but the friends in real life could provide you help by offering a ride or come to the individual’s side and offer assistance (204). This damages the strength of Dailey’s argument and potentially weakens Dailey’s credibility because Bugeja is a credible source and he has provided extensive research in his book Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age, which contradicts Dailey’s