Effective Argument

Read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in your yellow Seagull Reader book. It's kind of a lengthy one, but it's a good read, I promise. Go ahead—I'll wait.

Done? Ok, now that you've read it, I want you to do some analytical thinking. Who's he addressing? What is he addressing? What is the tone he's using to address these people? Taking all that together—audience, purpose, tone, context—what in it is effective? What's ineffective? Where does he utilize logical fallacies (they're in there, I promise) and where does he make sound logical arguments? How does he balance the ethos, pathos and logos parts of his argument?

And, perhaps most importantly, how can you utilize any of this in your paper?

He is addressing eight of his fellow clergymen and all human being who believe racism and do discrimination according to racism. The purpose of the letter is the awareness of civil right. He addresses all human beings are created equally, so we should all have the same rights as the next person, and people do not have rights to discriminate according to race. He is using diplomatic and political tone. He uses a very strong pathos while writing and speaking to his audience. He tries to help them to see things from his perspective. He uses detailed stories that make the reader feel like they are seeing what is going on. He also uses his ethos to show his respect for the audience, which in turn puts a positive spin on the negativity of the whole situation.