Jarrod Cook

Professor Liliana Naydan

English 15, Section 15

26 September 2004

Rhetorical Analysis Proposal

I plan to write my rhetorical analysis on an ad for the Coalition for America’s Children, which was released over four years ago when Bill Clinton was in office. The ad uses many techniques to attempt to prove its argument. This ad obviously predates the impeachment of President Clinton because he would not have been a logical choice after this occurred. This incident causes the ad to have a poor effect on today’s audience because Bill Clinton can no longer be thought of as an honest man.

This ad is attempting to reach a very wide audience, from teenagers all the way to retirees. They are trying to persuade these people to help to support children using many rhetorical techniques. They try to build there credibility by using a very well known figure, the president, to support their cause. This helps and hurts their cause because after the release of this ad Clinton is morally discredited in a court case with Monica Lewinski. Since children are the focus of this ad they use a lot of pathos to argue their cause. Everyone can associate themselves with children in some way and therefore will have sufficient knowledge of the cause.

This ad aims at convincing people of contributing their free time to help children as parental figures and as emotional support. The ad addresses the many problems of today’s society with drugs and crime as a side effect of not giving children enough attention. This paper can be written in the form of a review and will analyze the many rhetorical techniques used in the advertisement.

In my review I will be able to address the issue with Bill Clinton and how it both credits and discredits this ad and its cause. Every one in the nation knows the story of what happened with Bill Clinton so it will allow them relate to this ad and the analysis. It will also be wise for me to explore the pathos used in relation to children in this ad because it is also very effective in convincing the audience. There are several other well-known groups and facts woven into this ad as well that ad more credibility to it.