"Commentary #2"

Jeanna has clearly organized her thoughts in to a well written critique about Christopher Hitchens “Believe Me, It’s Torture.” Her main success was evaluating the strength of Hitchens persuasive techniques. She uses specific examples from the article to demonstrate how he persuaded us to see that “waterboarding” is indeed a form of torture. Jeanna states, “…Christopher Hitchens successfully utilizes the appeals of pathos, logos and ethos to paint a complete picture of his persuasive stance against the policy of waterboarding.” In this first paragraph she sets up the rest of the critique perfectly. We know what to expect from Hitchens’ writing and from Jeanna’s perspective on his rhetoric.

I particularly liked how she sets the stage for us by giving a brief history on Vanity Fair and the audience that it publishes to. She gave us detailed background of the magazine to allow the reader to further understand when and where this incident took place. It’s a visualization technique that I appreciated. One thing that she could add would be the year that the article was published. This would complete the elaborate scene she is setting up for us.

In addition she gives a short synopsis on Hitchens himself which allows us to feel connected with the author. Knowing a bit about him gives us a better understanding of who is

writing about this controversial topic. The only criticism I have about illustrating his character is that she needs to condense two portions of this together at the beginning of the critique. Jeanna states that; “He describes himself as a ‘wheezing, paunchy scribbler’ and notes his smoking of ’15,000 cigarettes I had inhaled every year for the last several decades.’” This was a fantastic use of imagery, but I felt that it could have been better utilized at the beginning of the critique when discussing Hitchens character initially.

The main thing that I would recommend Jeanna to work on would be to let the reader know which specific example is affiliated with ethos, pathos and logos derived rhetoric. For example, in the middle of the critique, she goes on to explain how Hitchens talks about the actual signing of the documents which allows him to undergo the “waterboarding.” This is a terrific example, but what form of persuasion was he using? If she sets up every paragraph this way she has a superb critique in my opinion.

All in all, Jeanna thesis evaluating Hitchens article is structured and well written. Her body of the paper is evaluates all three of the strategies ethos, pathos and logos. With her adding specific points that I discussed this will be a successful critique. I felt as if she fully understood what he was trying to persuade us to feel. Overall, her thoughts about the success of Hitchens argument are concise and they support her thesis in regards to the rhetorical effectiveness of the text.