Draft Thesis Statement

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In this blog post, I will be experimenting with different thesis statements for my rhetorical analysis with the help of The Student's Guide to First- Year Writing.

Thesis statement options:

         1) President Obama, in his speech relating to stem cell research, used his personal story, good organization arrangement of the text, and extreme word selection to help increase his credibility as a speaker and convince his audience that it was the right choice to approve of government funded stem cell research. He was very good in making the speech work for a wider audience and gave the impression that he is doing everything he can to help make America in general a better place to live an keep it ahead of its competitors involving medical practices.

This is a good thesis statement I feel since it tells the arguments I will be making in relationship to the topic, but it does get a bit long and can end up being more restrictive on the rhetorical analysis than I want it to be. It is a bit long but it also covers my assumption on how well President Obama was in his persuading of the American people.

         2) In President Obama's speech announcing the acceptance of government funded stem cell research, he used emotional word choice, his personal religious beliefs, and persuasive organization to help convince the audience that the government system made the right choice.

This thesis statement is a bit shorter than the first one and doesn't do as much explaining into how successful Obama was in persuading his audience into feeling that he and the government are making the right call on this controversy. His job is to fulfill the needs and wants of the majority of the people, and that is what he is feeling he is doing.

     3) President Obama used strong ethics, and logic to help persuade the American citizens that stem cell research is a good thing and that it is even better that the government is now funding it. He makes himself relatable to the people and tries not only to use the future benefits of the research but the need for America to be leading the field in medicine.

This topic gives more general points that I will cover in my rhetorical analysis rather than mentioning  specific rhetoric strategies. This can be good and bad. If I don't get to a more specific point, the point can become more lost than if I started out with a more specific idea.

Reflection:

After reading through Chelsea's and Alex's blog posts on their thesis statements, I feel confident about how mine is progressing. I feel that I have addressed what is mentioned in the student's guide and that I have included enough information to successfully guide the reader through the analysis. After reading through Chelsea's, it makes me feel like I should include some information about my counterargument in the thesis statement instead of just in the text. It will make me seem more of a credible source to my readers. This counterargument can be about how logic is very important to put in a scientific based rhetorical analysis, but in this case, ethics seems to be more related to the issue and therefore more important to argue.