This was a hard choice for me. I think Liodice’s opinion on
freedom of speech in advertising makes much more sense than Wootan’s
proposition of those strict guidelines. However, I favor Wootan’s way of
arguing more than Liodice.
One thing that makes Liodice’s way of arguing less
persuasive is his excessive use of rhetoric. Liodice used the word “free” five times in the first few sentences of
this article. He also uses the first person point of view throughout some parts
of the article. Instead of focusing on the facts and evidence, he involves his
emotions and opinions on the topic. For instance, he states “I am rather stunned…”
and “We won’t be intimidated!” (He even uses an exclamation point, twice
actually). He also uses adverbs like “extraordinarily
overreaching regulations” and “ridiculously
restrictive.” His choice of words is quite exaggerated and unnecessary. He also
doesn’t provide hard evidence for some of his claims. For example, he states
that “other countries have attempted to ban…children’s advertising” and they
were not effective, but he doesn’t provide a specific statistic or example of a
country. He also states that companies are now “reformulating products to be
lower in cholesterol, fat, and calories” but again, he doesn’t provide specific
evidence.
Although I think that the guidelines Wootan talked about are
unrealistic, I think the way she argued by not using a lot of emotive words and
rhetoric is more effective. I totally agree with Liodice that it’s just not
that easy to provide guidelines and reduce obesity, but his way of arguing did
not convince me.
No comments:
Post a Comment