Informal Writing #5 - Daniel Wallace

            The two articles I am going to be comparing and contrasting are “The Real Humanities Crisis is happening at Public Universities” and “I wasted Four years of my life—don’t make the same mistake.” Both arguments are effective in their own ways even though they are both very different from one another. First, “The Real Humanities Crisis is happening at Public Universities” is much more of an analytical and logic based article while “I wasted Four years of my life—don’t make the same mistake” is much more personal and logical, but derived from personal experiences.

            Both of these articles cater to their audiences in some similar ways and many different ways. They are both similar in the sense that these use logic, facts, and figures in their argument. But the article “The Real Humanities Crisis is happening at Public Universities” caters to a much more broad spectrum of people, almost as if they were writing the article for a school assignment. Although the authors make their point clear on which side they are on, it is not as personalized, and the tone is much more dull as if it is a school assignment. The second article, “I wasted Four years of my life—don’t make the same mistake” caters its article to the audience on a much more personal level, using her own personal experiences, her emotions, her thought processing, along with facts and figures to back up what she is saying.

            I believe the article “The Real Humanities Crisis is happening at Public Universities” does not fall short due to not taking into account the rhetorical appeals, but I do believe it is not as strong as an argument as “I wasted Four years of my life—don’t make the same mistake.” The reason being is because the article “The Real Humanities Crisis is happening at Public Universities” appeals only to logos. Although the authors state their viewpoints, they only use facts and figures to back it up. This does not necessarily make for a bad article, but on the other hand, the article “I wasted Four years of my life—don’t make the same mistake” uses both logos and ethos in her argument, providing facts, figures, statistics, and even personal experiences to back up what she was saying.

            The article “I wasted Four years of my life—don’t make the same mistake” resonates with me more strongly then “The Real Humanities Crisis is happening at Public Universities” not because I was I already agreed with the subject, but because the author of “I wasted Four years of my life—don’t make the same mistake” made a much more compelling argument. The author’s argument was much more interesting and I felt like the author was reaching out on an emotional level straining the importance of what she was saying. I though originally just by the title that I wasn’t going to like the article but the author changed my mind, and had a much more persuasive argument than that of the authors of “The Real Humanities Crisis is happening at Public Universities.”