Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in "Remembering a Golden Age of Cheap Cars"

In this post I will analyse the rhetorical strategies in the opinion piece entitled Remembering a Golden Age of Cheap Cars posted on Esquire and Road & Track with the help of the Student's Guide.

This time, I included a picture of an Audi Quattro rally car at the Olympus Rally in Washington in 1985.

Raymond Culp "1985 Olympus Rally" July 5, 1985 via Flickr
non-commercial reuse with attribution no-derivs

Appeals to Credibility or Character

• The entire article is essentially a long personal story about when the author first got his new car. He also subtly indicates his car enthusiast "cred" by mentioning things like "no more attainable than a Sonderwunsch steel flatnose." referring to the famous and rare Porsche option. 
• The personal story is the vehicle for the entire story so it is necessary. It is an opinion column that the the author is writing in so he has the liberty to reflect on his past if he desires to. More important is the need to be a credible and knowledgeable enthusiast as he is writing an Road and Track, a magazine probably read by very few non-enthusiasts.
• The entire tone of the article and in particular the author's "car enthusiast cred" make the author fairly credible to the audience of Road & Track.
• These strategies and indeed the message of the text itself positively effects the effectiveness of the text.
• The author certainly has biases toward supporting the proliferation of cheap and accessible cars. I see no reason why this bias should have an impact on the author's credibility.

Appeals to Emotion

• The author often uses wry humor in this article. An example of this is the sentences "If you were lucky enough to have something outrageous like a Civic Si, you barely existed in our world. You were a rich kid, and you could go to hell." This makes the article interesting an enjoyable to read. The tone and style of writing is simple and not too conversational and not too formal so that it is easy to read. As mentioned before, the text revolves around a personal story.
• The author is trying to create a nostalgic emotional response in the hackneyed "they don't make them like they used to" manner.
• The author is very successful in this endeavor (for me at least) which is in large part because I agree with his argument that the manner of cheap cars has changed and not only for the better.
• These emotions are very effective for the audience and the topic as they contribute positively to the argument.
• I don't think the emotions that are part of this piece negatively contribute to my perceived credibility for the author though I'm not sure of they contribute specifically to the author's credibility either.

Appeals to Logic

• The most noticeable aspect from the list of logos components from the Student's Guide is the logical organization. The column builds from narration of the author's own experiences to reflection on those experiences to expanding them to a greater audience.
• This organization is very effective as it is clear and leads the readers to the same conclusions as the author comes to and it is not a difficult thing for the readers to follow. This is effective for the audience.

------

I read Issak and Hallye's posts. Both were very interesting topics. I think that I spent a good amount of time and effort on my article (Issak obviously spent a very long time and put significant effort into his post) and I think I probably spent about as much time as Hallye did. Though I had to change my original article from one of the original rhetorical topics I found in the last deadline to something more suitable, I find I am constantly concerned about the quality of my article and if it is good enough for this assignment. Interestingly, we all had the most trouble finding definite logical appeals in the pieces.