Rethrical Anaysis

Dan Cheng
Professor Amy Salisbury
GEW 101
28 February 2013
Major Essay #1 I first read the Happy School Blog by Raghuram Sukumar after I had been in the US for a month. His blog is closely associated with college students, especially for international students. Sukumar wrote a blog for the international students who plan to study in USA. He claims to help international students with admission procedures and career planning. His blog has much useful information. This important information includes Test prep&exams, University selection, Admission, F1 visa, Life in the US, and Green Card. He relies on his own experience for credibility, and persuading the readers to hire him for career guidance if they need more personal advice. Obviously, his purposes are helping prepared international students for study in the US, also, to advertise his service. He argues that it 's not difficult achieve academic and career goals if who make specific plans during each period. Sukumar uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to support his claims. First, he used logos. According to “Everything’s an argument”, arguments based on facts and reason are logos (Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters 107). In one of his posts, he listed top 100 universities in USA. “Since many logical appeals rely heavily on data and information from sources, you’ll also need to examine the quality of the information presented in an argument, assessing how accurately such information presented, how conveniently it’s displayed , and how well the sources cited represent a range of respected opinion on a topic” (Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters 109). In the end of this post, he said “If you search in Google for the University as keyword, you will find above top 100 universities – schools listed. Google used its search algorithm to rank the best universities in USA.” It shows that this resource is reliable. Sukumar’s page is logically organized. There are categories of topics on the top of his home page, like Universities, Jobs and career, Lifestyle, Money matters, Study in USA, etc. The drop down lists link to relevant topics, for example, if you click universities, the following are Application process, US universities by states, ranking, etc. The writer also used emotional appeal. “In analyzing emotional appeals, judge whether the emotion raised –anger, sympathy, fear, envy, joy, or love- advance the claims offered” (Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters 105). These categories make readers, who plan to go abroad to study excited, because these specific categories can let readers find the answer to their confusion when click the link. His organization makes it is easy to use. I like it because I can find what I need quickly. Before I came to the US, I had the same problems about how to choose schools, knowing what expenses are, and how to apply a F1 visa. At that time, I acquired information from different websites, it was really troublesome. I had to open many websites at the same time, I always forgot which one I had looked through, especially when I find different reasons on one topic. I didn’t know which one is more reliable. Now, I only have to click his blog and then I can find everything useful to me. Sukumar used ethos. According to Everything’s An Argument, “When writers or speakers seem trustworthy, audiences are likely to listen to their argument and accept them. You can make an ethical appeal to an audience simply by proving that you know what you’re talking about. Or you can build credibility by emphasizing that you share values with your audience” (Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters 34). Sukumar earns his credibility and reader 's respect because of his knowledge, background and his own experience. First, when it comes to his background, he said he got Bachelor Degree in Computer Science in India, and Master Degree in Computer Science in USA. Now, he works as a software engineer. He has had the same experience that all international students have and shares what he learned. Besides, Sukumar used one page on his blog to describe himself. He is not afraid to tell readers about his background. In "25 Random Things You Probably Didn 't Know About Me" he wrote many things about his hobbies, travelling experiences and education experiences. For example, he mentioned he "completed a master in computer science and engineer in 2005 from university of Texas at Arlington." Also, he applied to five schools and received admissions from all of these schools in USA. Through his description about himself, I trust him, because he is real, open, honest about himself. His own experience has strong evidence of his credibility. Sukumar wants readers know more about him in order to earn credibility, but at the same time he said “I don’t share information about my family for a number of reasons. I need to have boundaries as a blogger in terms of what you do and don’t talk about. When you’re communicating in a public arena security and privacy need to be through. In general terms though – I am married and we have a little boy.” (Sukumar) That’s why he just wrote several random things about himself. “It is easy to see that living a life online requires us to balance carefully our need for privacy with our desire to connect with others” (Vie 1). Another good example of ethos is Sukumar’s post titled “Forget Getting a Job After College: Why Not Be An Entrepreneur Instead?” In this post, he said that it was not impossible for college students being entrepreneurs after graduation. He graduated eight months ago, and he has been working on his own ventures for months. His experience makes him qualified to write about entrepreneurs. He can understand how it was difficult at the beginning and how scared graduating students feel in becoming entrepreneurs. He was also too afraid to do anything about it and too afraid to come up with business ideas. He worried about if bad his idea was and what if he failed. He was afraid to take risks. These are the same concerns a variety of college students have. Indeed, I am worried about them. I am an international college student now. Like American students, I’m worried about my job after I graduate. I thought about working for company or working for myself to becoming an entrepreneur. But if I work for myself, I am so scared about coming challenges and problems. I have no idea what I should do next if I fail. However Sukumar is successful now and his ventures are going on well today. Since he already established his credibility, readers will easily believe his claim that it is not impossible for college students to be an entrepreneur after graduation and everyone can be an entrepreneur. Also he gives several examples about how college students start business successfully. For example, college students started a bus company that took other college students to concerts. They didn’t buy anything. They just worked as the middlemen. Then they used these revenues to fund other business ventures. (Sukumar) It is a good example to encourage college students to do business, because it’s not difficult for us college students to work as middlemen, we just need to connect both drivers and other college students, and then arrange a proper time. In this way, we can get the revenue to invest in other projects we are interested in. It is a good start of becoming an entrepreneur. It is not really difficult. The key is to come out with a good idea. After that, he gives many tips for college students to become entrepreneurs. These tips include making use of campus entrepreneurship resources, attending a startup weekends, and setting long time goals. Also, I think he did a good job. As for me, although I want to do business after I graduate, I don’t know where to start or what resources I can use. After reading this post, I think I can start with going to visit relative departments on campus, and getting advice from them. Then attending a startup weekends, where I can get mentorship, meet fantastic entrepreneurs and potential business partners. Last but not least is that setting a goal by figuring out what I don’t know and how to learn more about it. I really benefit from this post. However, sometimes Sukumar’s posts lack evidence to support his claim. Let 's take Test Prep as an example. He listed various test the people should take when apply to graduation school in the US. International students must pass either The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Sukumar wrote a post about the how to choose these two tests by telling readers what difference is between them. Then he said he preferred IELTS, because he felt awkward speaking to the computer. Unlike the TOFEL where you must speak into a computer, the IELTS can be taken entirely on paper. However, this post is lack evidence, because he didn 't take the IELTS, he cannot speak authoritatively about both tests. Even though this post is lack evidence. I still believe him, because there is only one post is not credible. For most of them, he can prove his evidence to support his claim. Compared with his another post, Sukumar wrote about his TOEFL IBT Test Experience. In this post, he first uses logical appeals like data to support his claim. He listed his score 100/120. It is a really high score in TOFEL that meets the requirement of most American Universities. He first listed his scores of each section: "Reading 25, Listening 28, Speaking 27, Writing 20". Then he also uses emotion appeal, because the scores he listed arouse the reader 's curiosity, and the readers want to know-- how he got such high scores. I took TOFEL before, and my score was low. Sukumar said it was unnecessary to spend much time for this exam. It was better to spend last ten days preparing the exams. Also we should write at least four practice tests before the exam, and practice English speaking four hours per day (Sukumar). These are good advices. Before I took TOFEL, I prepared for a long time, but not every day, I studied it when I finished homework, and then took few hours to do reading and listening. I never prepare speaking because I thought speaking was unnecessary. If I had followed his advice before I took the exam, maybe I would have gotten good grades. Besides, he referred several links about this issue from his another blogs or shared from others. He did well because he used logos, like data, his own experience, other information from his link and ethos to support his argument. Throughout, Sukumar’s purpose is implied but not stated directly. He used a lot of his personal experience, most of which is successful. For example, he received offers from all the school he applied, he got good grades in TOEFL, and he is successful in his ventures. All of these claims make him qualified to write this blog and advise his service by persuading people hire him as a personal adviser. “As we live more and more of our lives in online spaces, we also carry with us an ‘(e) dentity’, an electronic identity composed of the digital traces left behind as we participate in virtual worlds”(Vie 1). Sukumar forms his electronic identity through his blog. “Blogs assist in the formation of online identities rather than share interests and discussion topics.” “Online identity is defined as the configuration of the defining characteristics of a person in online space (Ruyter & Conroy, 2002) which makes the person feels he or she has his or her own character and is different from other people” ( Kim, Zhengb, and Gupta). Sukumar’s identity was shown by the content of his blog and language within his text. He knows how to present his opinions more reliable. In his text, he always uses the sentence like “when I go to…” and “when I take…exam” These sentences show he is a seasoned person. And he often uses technical terms that make him knowledgeable.
Moreover, “blogs are an ideal medium for providing an insight into the most fundamental characteristics of the blog authors, namely their personalities” (Gill, Nowson, and Oberlander). According to the table: Five traits of personality and their associated characteristics in “What Are They Blogging About? Personality, Topic and Motivation in Blogs” (Gill, Nowson, and Oberlander). Sukumar belongs to a high extravert, “in blogs high Extraverts use more present tense verbs and talk of communication” (Nowson). In his blog, he likes uses present tense verbs and he looks warm-hearted, he said he had been helping students, friends for last 10 years. He created blog in order to help more students. Also he is assertive, because he often uses the word “I believe…”or “I’m very sure…” He was not only very confident of his words, but he was trying to interact with readers. “Most argument are composed with specific audience in mind, and their successful depends, in part, on how well their strategies, content, tone, and language meet the expectation of readers or view” (Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters 101). I think his blog is successful. As for Sukumar, his specific audiences are international students who plan to study in USA. And he used logs, pathos and ethos to support his argument. The content of his blog includes useful information about achieving academic and career goals by providing personal and professional experience. For majority of his posts, he used his experience and belief to let readers believe him. Only if we list specific plans of each period, and followed these plans, will we find it is not hard to achieve the academic and career goals. I agree with his argument. Because I am an international student, we have many things are in common, such as having trouble in taking TOFEL, GRE, having difficulty in getting visa, confused about majors and future careers. His blog includes almost problems about studying in the US. And his blog is popular among international students. When I looked the comments of his blog, there were lots of international students, from all over the world, were benefit from his blog. Many comments with thankful words, such as “I just wanted to express my gratitude to you for the information provided daily” (Reasha). “I wanted to thank you so so much that I can never express my respect and gratitude in words” (Garg). When it comes to Sukumar’s tone, he always use like “as an international student…” “When I was in college…” These tones make him looks friendlier, and make readers feel more comfortable when read his blog or write comments. As for me, when I wrote comments, I feel like to talk to a friend. I feel relax, and comfortable. And I still believe his argument that it 's not difficult to achieve academic and career goals if I make specific plans during each period.

Work Cited
Lunsford, Andrea A., Ruszkiewicz, John J., and Walters, Keith. Everything’s an argument. BEDFORD/ST.MARTIN’S. Print
Vie, Stephanie, ed. (E)dentity. Fountainhead Press, 2011. Print
Nowson, S. The Language of weblogs: a study of genre and individual differences. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, The University of Edinburgh 2006

Gill, Alastair J., Nowson, Scott and Oberlander, Jon. What Are They Blogging About? Personality, Topic and Motivation in Blogs. Proceedings of the Third International ICWSM Conference (2009).Web.
http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.csusm.edu/science/article/pii/S0747563211000616

Cited: Lunsford, Andrea A., Ruszkiewicz, John J., and Walters, Keith. Everything’s an argument. BEDFORD/ST.MARTIN’S. Print Vie, Stephanie, ed. (E)dentity. Fountainhead Press, 2011. Print Nowson, S. The Language of weblogs: a study of genre and individual differences. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, The University of Edinburgh 2006 Gill, Alastair J., Nowson, Scott and Oberlander, Jon. What Are They Blogging About? Personality, Topic and Motivation in Blogs. Proceedings of the Third International ICWSM Conference (2009).Web. http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.csusm.edu/science/article/pii/S0747563211000616