Running head: RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 1

Rhetorical Analysis:

Queer America

by Vicki L. Eaklor

Wendy Perez

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

October 17, 2018

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Abstract

The problem that was under investigation was the injustice with the LGBT community.

“Queer America (2008),” presents all the crimes committed against the LGBT community and

how should people should do a change to this problem. Since the book talks about the LGBT

community, then this paper focuses on all the people who are part of the LGBT community. The

third element is; what kind of research was done in this paper. Well the research that was taken

in this paper was a rhetorical analysis by using a monograph scholarly book, in search for the

claim of the author. Some of the findings were how pathos was used to connect to the readers by

using pictures that really have an emotional appeal to get the readers interest in the book. Also, is

fascinating the history of the LGBT community, all the bad stuff they have to through every day

and have their rights denied in some states. Overall in general, the idea that there has been some

"progress" towards the formation and agitation of the community for equal treatment among the

people of the LGBT community is a fairytale, which simply means there has been no

simplistically progress in the LGBT community.

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Rhetorical Analysis

Queer America

Most of our decisions need to be based on our values and our beliefs, there is when the

three overall categories of appeals come to place. These appeals are; logos which is to logic,

pathos is emotion and lastly ethos which is a rhetor’s credibility. Using these appeals will

prevent us from deciding unconscious. According to Doug Downs (2014), the daily human

interaction is based on how we treat people and how we apply our values to the daily life.

(p. 469)”. Saying that we depend on our values to make the correct choices and we use the

appeals to interact with people. Rhetoric and the three appeals connect to our “everyday” lives.

This book enhances the understanding of the LGBT community because Vicky L. Eaklor uses

the rhetorical appeals in an effectively way.

This research paper was done by using a monograph scholarly book. According to Mr.

Vierra, a monograph advances knowledge, has only one edited author, at the beginning it has a

preface and an introduction. There will be information about the author, but that can be found

either in the beginning or the end if the book. This book can be classified as a monograph book

because, this is what John Frow (2015) claims it should have, and the book fulfills the

expectations of it. John Frow claims that genres can also be classified as expectations.

Genres are a type of thing and are classified as expectations. For example, when you go

see a romantic movie you expect to see a happy love ending or a horror movie you expect you

expect the intro to be scary with a pop-up scene. According to John Frow (2015), genres

incorporate and invoke structures of knowledge, about how something is produced and the kinds

of classification they perform (p. 4). There are two groups of genres, in classification of books.

The groups are monographs and anthologies. The monographs advance knowledge for example
RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 4

the thesis or synthesis. It is only edited by one author and it has a preface and an introduction.

The anthologies are written by chapters and each chapter has a different author.

Discussion

Audience

Audience refers to the listeners at a speech, or the intended readers of a piece of writing.

There are two central perspectives of audience in rhetoric; the invoke audience and the addressed

audience. Invoke audience is to who the book is really intended for or the audience the author

called. On the other hand, the addressed audience refers to those who read the book or listen to

the speech (Ede and Lunsford, 1984, p. 156). Ed and Lunsford (1984) claimed that people who

invoke the stress to a discourse community can lead to a “created friction” (pg. 160). Also, when

directing to an intended audience the author must have the credentials to talk to that specific

group of people. They need evidence that they are capable enough to talk to them, that way the

audience will feel connected to them because the author knows what they are talking about. In

the book “Queer America” (2008), it does show the credentials the author has so that proves they

can talk to their audience. The intended audience of the audience was the LGBT community. The

author, Vicki L. Eaklor, has the credentials to talk to the LGBT community. Eaklor teaches

history and sexuality at the Alfred University. This book is still a reliable book that many

scholars still use it to do a research, in this case the actual or addresses audience can be the

scholars.

Ethos

Ethos is generally defined as the good character and the consequent credibility of the

rhetor (Covino and Joliffe, 2004). Strong writers use voice and tone, as well as credentialed

pieces of evidence so that readers can trust, see them as educated people, honest, fair, reliable,
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and credible. According to Covino and Joliffe (2004), they are clearly instances where the ethos

of a rhetor or writer is demonstrated by actions and examples in life, to provide more evidence

(pg. 336). Texts today are very frequently distributed, and it is very easy to examine the texts

themselves inscribe a rhetor’s ethos. For example, Vicki L. Eaklor (2008) includes a

bibliography, a page about the author, which includes the name, the profession, the degree and

which university they attend, lastly it includes what press published it. All this information can

be found either in the first page or last page. It is more credible if a university press published it.

All these examples make up the appeal ethos and make the author credible. Covino and Joliffe

(2004) claimed that some readers used the citations of the book to check the accuracy and

validity of the writer’s credibility and intellectual (pg. 337). This would be the case with Vicky

L. Eaklor, the author of Queer America.

Pathos

Pathos is sometimes called the pathetic or the emotional appeal (Covino and Joliffe,

2014). Because this appeal will connect the audience to connect to the picture or to the book.

This appeal will somehow draw upon the sympathies and emotions of the audience and it will

cause them to accept the idea or proposition for action. The reader could activate emotions

towards the actions, such as anger, calmness, fear, shame, envy and many more. It can affect all

types of people such as, the young, the elderly, people in their prime, the wealthy and the

powerful. According to Covino and Joliffe (2004), current rhetorical theorist, as well as rhetors,

need to differentiate between texts that indiscriminately titillate and pander to an audience’s

emotions and texts in which pathos is tied to a virtuous ethos (pg. 338). For example, the book

“Queer America (2008)” shows pathos through pictures, they show pictures of church’s burning

down, police men hitting gay couples, injustice. This provokes anger and sadness towards the
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action taken in the picture. Some pictures may include descriptions or a powerful description to

make it even more emotional so that is has greater effect on the audience.

Logos

Logos refers to a way of persuading people with reason through graphs or pictures. This

appeal is connected to patterns, convections and modes that the audience can find convincing

and persuasive. The author or rhetor uses graphs, pictures, timeline as evidence to support their

claim and convince the author that they can be trustworthy, and their information is credible.

According to Covino and Joliffe (2004), logos means something more than just logical, it means

“thought plus action” (pg. 338). Meaning that they put all their thoughts and opinion but also

added the action, the proof that it is credible. Vicki L. Eaklor (2008)”, for example, the author

used a timeline to highlight the key events of the history in LGBT rights (pg. 10). The author

also uses pictures with descriptions to support his claims throughout the chapters.

Conclusion

Overall, the idea that there has been some "progress" towards the formation and agitation

of the community for equal treatment among the people of the LGBT community is a fairytale,

which simply means there has been no simplistically progress in the LGBT community. There

will be always some kind of injustice against them, that is the nature in this country. The LGBT

people hid from the light of visibility because the oppressive society is always in a constant

refusal to accept the community.

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References

Covino, W., & Jolliffe, D. (2014). What is Rhetoric? Writing about Writing: A College Reader,

325-343.

Downs, Douglas. (2014). Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning- Making.

In Writing about Writing (3rd ed.). (pp. 457-48). New York

Ede, L., & Lunsford, A. (1984). Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience

in Composition Theory and Pedagogy. College Composition and Communication, 35(2),

155-171.

Eaklor, V. L. (2008). Queer America: A GLBT History of the 20th century. London: Greenwood

Press.

Frow, J. (2015). Genre. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge