As Violent crimes in the United States increasingly attract the attention of the public, discussions concerning the management of crimes committed by juveniles have become a center of controversial debate, An unknown author writing for the New York Times argues in the editorial, “Little Adult Criminals,” that the American public should refrain from prosecuting young minors that have committed violent crimes in adult courts because adolescents have not reached complete emotional maturity and therefore cannot understand the significance of their actions While the author of “Little Adult Criminals” succeeds in utilizing pathos as a rhetorical appeal, the logos and ethos are largely ineffective in firmly persuading the audience, thereby rendering the rhetorical appeals unbalanced and ultimately weakening the fundamental argument of the article, Primarily, the author of “Little Adult Criminals” can be identified utilizing pathos as a rhetorical appeal throughout the editorial.
Given that the topic of the editorial is focused on the management of sentencing violent, adolescent criminals, the author’s use of pathos is a central factor in persuading the audience to agree with the argument that minors should not be tried as adults in the court of law. From the seemingly simple title to the final words of the piece that describe sentencing juveniles as adults as giving up on them, the author uses the emotional tension that shrouds discussions concerning children as a tool of persuasion. Nearly every reader is going to hold a significant amount of emotional opinion when discussing children in the criminal system, allowing the author to prey on this weakness by consistently maintaining the focus of the editorial on the wellbeing of young criminals.
For instance, when the author argues that, “A civilized society must not easily give up hope of rehabilitating a child who commits a crime,“ they are purposefully instilling guilt in the minds of readers in an attempt to gain sympathy. In essence, the author of this editorial relies on pathos throughout the writing in order gain an edge over any contrasting logical arguments that would weaken the core argument of the article. Additionally, the author of the New York Times editorial, “Little Adult Criminals,” attempts to use logos as a rhetorical appeal with the purpose of solidifying the argument that young, adolescent criminals should not be sentenced as adults in the United States. The main evidence that the author utilizes logos as a rhetorical appeal can be identified in the allusion to medical research concerning the continued development of a juvenile‘s brain throughout adolescence.
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Another instance of the use of logos can be found in the allusion to statistics showing criminals leaving juvenile prisons are arrested later in life less that those exiting adult prisons. While the author certainly provides clear logos examples, the basis of these being used to advance the core argument of the editorial is weak in that no specific citations are made. Without any clear citation of credible research, readers cannot thoroughly trust the allusions to be accurate or trustworthy Due to the lack of credible sources or the author’s own research, the editorial’s inclusion of logos as a rhetorical appeal does not contribute to strengthening the author’s central purpose of advocating for adolescent criminals. Furthermore, the author’s editorial, “Little Adult Criminals,” is severely lacking in terms of successfully utilizing ethos as a rhetorical appeal.
At first glance, readers believe that the editorial will be concretely established due to the piece being published by a renowned source of current information and events, the New York Times, but when examining the article closely any shred of identifiable ethos in “Little Adult Criminals” is discarded. Most blatantly, the editorial‘s author is unidentified, significantly impacting the credibility of the arguments presented in the article. Given that the editorial could have been written by anyone, it is impossible to identify any potential biases that the writer holds when attempting to persuade readers to agree with the presented argument. One of the few factors that contribute to the editorial’s ethos in a positive way is the author’s awareness of current events. For instance, the author cites Jeb Bush’s opposition to trying children as adults, lending some credibility to the author.
While the author’s allusion to current events is certainly important in establishing a clear foundation of ethos for the editorial, the inability to identify the author devastates the incorporation of ethos on the most fundamental level of rhetorical appeal. The author of the New York Times editorial, “Little Adult Criminals,” utilizes an unbalanced set of rhetorical appeal in that the use of pathos is significantly more influential that both logos and ethos, ultimately leading to the development of a flawed argument for readers to follow. In order to develop a strong thesis that readers can easily accept, the author must maintain a relative balance between pathos, logos, and ethos, yet the author of “Little Adult Criminals” struggles to obtain even a shred of balanced rhetorical appeal. The author’s use of pathos is fairly effective in that they adopt the persona of a caring adult that wishes only to provide a quality life for adolescents, ensuring that readers are drawn into a frame of sympathy for juvenile criminals and thereby priming readers to agree with the author’s point of view.
While the author’s use of pathos is significantly effective in appealing to readers, the editorial lacks the correct utilization of both logos and ethos. Due to the author remaining unidentified by the New York Times, the potential for personal biases on the author’s part and the lack of accurate citations for alluded statistics and research, both logos and ethos as rhetorical appeals are all but absent from the editorial. This extreme unbalance between the three rhetorical appeals provides the core message of the editorial with a fragile foundation upon which to persuade readers to agree with the author’s thesisr In short, the author’s use of rhetorical appeal, and the lack there of, are detrimental to the editorial’s effectiveness in conveying the argument that juveniles should not be tried as adults in the United States.
In order to improve the editorial, the author would have to correct the unbalanced use of rhetorical appeals and thereby solidify the foundation upon which the arguments are presented. The use of pathos in “Little Adult Criminals” may remain the same, but both logos and ethos need to be improved. In order to improve the use of logos as a rhetorical appeal, the author should identify the source of the statistics and research that was being alluded to or conduct their own research in order to ensure that the results are accurate. Likewise, improving the use of ethos would require the New York Times to give credit to and identify the author of the editorial to provide the article with an increased amount of credibility and to ensure that the author does not hold any biases that could impede their credibility.
These simple corrections would provide the editorial with a much firmer foundation to construct a credible argument on and would undoubtedly be more effective in persuading readers to adopt the perspective of the writer. In the editorial published by the New York Times, “Little Adult Criminals,” the author attempts to use the rhetorical appeals pathos, logos, and ethos in order to convey the argument that young, adolescents that commit violent crimes should not be tried or sentenced as adults in the United States. While the use of pathos as a rhetorical appeal is strong in the article, the author fails to establish a strong foundation of either logos or ethos. Due to this unbalance, the author‘s central message becomes less effective altogether in persuading readers to agree.
