Rhetorical Evaluation
Rhetorical Evaluation Group Assignment
Introduction:
Amy Sequenzia’s commentary, Why Autism Speaks Hurts Us, strives to give readers a hearty dose of reality by providing readers with first-hand experiences from her own life. Sequenzia brings to light the startlingly harsh attitudes toward autism and those with the disorder which are reinforced and even amplified by the Autism Speaks organization. Being a non-speaking autistic herself, Sequenzia provides a unique and effective perspective on the topic. Amy’s emotional appeal to parents and friends of Autistics for acceptance seems to be effective despite her apparent lack of credible resources for the accusatory tone of her commentary in regards to the Autism Speaks organization. Based on the emotional evidence, provided by Amy Sequenzia, her commentary firstly strives to inform readers of the negative message being spread by Autism Speaks. Secondly it is a plea for other autistics to accept themselves for who they are. Thirdly, Sequenzia’s commentary is calling Autism Speaks to change both their message and mission.
Context:
The context of Amy’s commentary is the conversation surrounding the view of autistic individuals as tragic members of society afflicted with a disease that needs to be cured. In an article by Dr. Ananya Mandal discusses the history of Autism. The term autism was first coined by psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler in 1908. He used this term to describe schizophrenic patients who displayed a morbid self interest, or a withdrawal within oneself.1 The coining of the term Autism began the conversation between two factions of people. The first group being the Doctors and experts who view Autism Spectrum Disorders as diseases to be cured and feared. Unfortunately this group has had the majority of power in the conversation. The second group consists of the youth and adults who live with autism affected individuals. They recognize that although Autism can be a very debilitating disorder, it does not make the individual any less of a human being. Despite many individuals living with ASD’s and contributing to society in a positive way, there is still an intense stigma tied to being an autistic person. Amy even makes a point to mention that, “Today things seem even worse.” This is due in part to the large following that the organization ‘Autism Speaks’ has. Sequenzia uses her own life experience to frame the context for her commentary. She begins by describing how, early in her life, her parents were told, by the “experts,” that as long as she “had” Autism she could never be happy. This points directly to the long standing notion that autism is a debilitating disease which needs to be cured, as well as something to be feared by new parents and society. Being an autistic herself, Amy makes it clear that she is not a tragedy, she is not suffering, nor is she a burden to her friends or family. She uses this information to amplify her own voice and try to take control of the conversation. Sequenzia points out that the focus of the autism conversation should be on how to provide services to make everyday living for autistics easier, not on finding a cure.
Audience:
The audience Amy Sequenzia is writing to in her commentary, “Why Autism Speaks Hurts Us, “ can be broken into three groups; a primary, secondary and tertiary audience. The primary audience is well meaning, but uninformed, adults who are advocates of Autism Speaks or Autism Speaks themselves. These people, says Sequenzia, are not necessarily aware of the damage they are causing and are acting simply out of ignorance and a desire to help. One knows she is speaking to these people because she directly “calls out” the messages of Autism Speaks by name and its advocates by association. She is somewhat accusatory, but admits that these people are at the very least well meaning.
The author’s secondary audience is that of autistics struggling trying to live with the messages of “despair” and hopelessness being spread by Autism Speaks and its advocates. She tries to relate to this audience by providing personal examples of her experience and issues with self esteem. These personal experiences she provides may be an appeal to Pathos, but only those in similar situations can truly understand her words so these experiences also reach out to this audience.
The tertiary audience is that of parents of autistic children. She directly addresses the situation of these parents in light of the bleak future presented to the parents of autistic children she presents an outlook on these messages which only causes the parents to begin, “wasting energy trying to fix what is not broken.” All three of these audiences are extremely relevant to the topic Sequenzia is covering. She addresses her opposition and two groups of people who can benefit from her words and ideas.
Purpose:
Sequenzia’s purpose in writing this commentary is directly related to her three audiences. The first being neurotypicals who are unaware of the effects of the messages presented by Autism Speaks. The second, being autistics living with the messages, and the third being the parents of autistic children. Her first purpose is to convince or sway people to her ideas regarding Autism Speaks and its messages. She wants to show that these messages are damaging to the autistic community. One knows how she feels about the messages of Autism Speaks by the language she uses to describe them. She uses words such as “fear,” “despair,” and “negative” when describing the kinds of messages that Autism Speaks spreads. These messages, according to Sequenzia, are damaging to Autistics as they are constantly telling them they are inadequate or “broken.” Her second purpose is to give hope and guidance to her secondary audience, autistics overwhelmed by the negative messages Autism Speaks spreads. She gives personal examples of what she had to deal with such as accepting her autism as an important part of who she is after years of being told that it was something that should be “fixed.” She also mentions the many autistics who have grown up to live happy and accomplished lives, and how she herself is a “proud autistic woman.” These are all used to encourage or give hope to her secondary audience as well as being used for your first purpose of swaying the primary audience. Sequenzia’s third purpose is very similar to her second in that she is trying to encourage the parents of autistic children. She talks about wasting energy seeing the child as a “burden” instead of accepting them and finding the help they need to succeed in their life. While this is primarily used for the third purpose it is also somewhat effective for her first purpose as an emotional appeal.
Genre:
Sequenzia brings some new insight and ideas to the topic of Autism Speaks and their messages in her commentary. Instead of raving about how terrible Autism Speaks and their supporters are, she first states that she believes they are well meaning but ignorant to the facts about autism. This is how she brings something new to the table as required by a commentary. She takes a very empathetic stance, but doesn’t hold back when criticizing the messages that Autism Speaks spreads as she uses very negative words such as “despair” to describe the messages of Autism Speaks. She makes her thesis clearly known: that Autism Speaks’ messages are harmful to autistics. From this she makes sure that her audience is not confused about her purpose and meaning.
She also gives supporting arguments for her claim though mostly in the form of emotional appeals such as describing the effect that the kind of messages Autism Speaks spreads had on her growing up. She talks about the destruction of her self esteem that the messages caused. She takes on the role of a passionate observer as required by the genre and succeeds. She does this by talking about the organizations that “once wanted to see [her] gone, today follow the lead of Autism Speaks.” This puts her as not only a participant in the events, but also a critical observer. She has experienced the messages as an autistic first hand and this translates strongly into her words. She obviously feels very strongly about the subject. Her first hand experience allows her to show familiarity to the topic as she uses mid to low level arguments in order to persuade her audience. These arguments revolve around the emotional effect of Autism Speaks on autistics like herself. Like a good commentary it is personal, however it is more emotional than the average commentary.
The author makes use of Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in the commentary as expected by her audience. Pathos is clearly her strongest appeal, with Logos her weakest, and Ethos somewhere in between. She uses these features of a commentary very well for the most part. She does, however neglect Logos, which one sees by her lack of any sources, which would have been effective in persuading her primary audience. The rest of the piece is a good example of a commentary in its emotion, persona, and style. How Autism Speaks Hurts Us also adheres to the commentary genre in its tone and structure based on her ethos and pathos. Sequenzia uses these aspects of the commentary genre effectively, however she neglects to provide any large amount of empirical evidence to support her claims and relies primarily on an emotional appeal.
Logos:
In her piece, Amy Sequenzia states many different times that there is a common belief that those who have autism must be cured. She believes that this is mainly the result of organizations that spend money to further research a cure for autism, as opposed to supporting those individuals by providing services that would help give more opportunities to them. The author believes that such an organization is Autism Speaks. Sequenzia mainly focuses on using emotion appeal to influence her audience, rather than using a more logical, statistical approach. An example of this is when Sequenzia by suggests that many of the celebrities that support Autism Speaks do not have the proper information concerning what types of challenges that those who have autism must face. This claim here is a strong addition to her message but lacks supporting sentences that would further prove her idea.
Referring to earlier in her commentary, Sequenzia describes how growing up with autism affected her, and how many negative assumptions about autism had added even more difficulties to her life. As a result, She states that Autism Speaks is sending out the underlying message that those who have autism are to be feared and segregated against. In order to back this statement up, she adds that many people are unaware of how Autism Speaks actually uses the money that it receives. This is another example of how Sequenzia does well appealing to her original message, yet again, fails to support her claim. By not going into more detail, such as including the ways Autism Speaks actually spends its money, Sequenzia’s message becomes weak in logos, therefore weakening its effectiveness.
Sequenzia reaches out to multiple audiences to try to influence them to accept her message. Her audiences would most likely understand her message because she is able to state her claims very clearly in a manner that is simple enough for them to comprehend the critical message. Throughout the commentary, Sequenzia often uses language to include her secondary audience, such as; “we autistics” and “us”. By including the secondary audience, Sequenzia is strengthening the emotional appeal (pathos) towards them when she uses her own experiences to support her claims.
Pathos:
In order for the message to be effective, the author must be able to appeal to the audience on an emotional level. Throughout the commentry, Sequenzia uses her past experiences, telling how she grew up with autism, to try to influence the audience. These experiences range from how her parents had the belief that she could never be truly be happy, along other examples of how she struggled to accept herself. Since many of her claims are from her perspective, as an individual who grew up with autism, Sequenzia is able to appeal well to other’s who have autism. As mentioned earlier, the primary audience is the adults that advocate for Autism Speaks who are not very informed. Due to this, the primary audience may find the emotional appeal of the message to not be quite as effective. This is largely due to the fact that this audience has little information about autism, so they turn to Autism Speaks for answers. The message finds the greatest emotional appeal towards the secondary audience; those who have autism and are living with the challenges from it. The secondary audience are able to relate better to Sequenzia’s message because the may have had similar situations in their lives. By sharing these similarities, the audience will be more likely to listen to Sequenzia’ claims and they may begin to persuaded others to be more accepting towards autism as well.
Ethos:
The ethos in a text evaluates an author’s credibility. In her commentary, Sequenzia states that she is on the Autism Spectrum. The simple fact that she is on the Autism Spectrum hurts her credibility with her primary audience. Her primary audience of uninformed well-meaning adults may not take what she is saying seriously due to the fact that she is on the Autism Spectrum and instead may see her as someone who does not recognize the supposed benefits of the Autism Speaks organization. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who are uninformed about Autism will consequently fail to understand the message in Sequenzia’s commentary. Her credibility with her secondary audience however is very strong. She uses examples from her own life that are very relatable to others who are on the Autism Spectrum as well. She talks about learning to accept herself despite the negative image that is associated with Autism and others with Autism can connect with this. Her credibility with her tertiary audience is also very strong. Because parents of Autistic children are very aware of what Autism is, they can better understand Sequenzia’s message. Overall, Sequenzia’s commentary proves to be credible, however, because she lacks a strong credibility with her primary audience, it may not be as effective as she had originally hoped.
Conclusion:
Sequenzia presents her readers with very strong points backed up with vast amounts of personal experience and knowledge about Autism. Her emotional appeals are very strong and are very effective in supporting her claim that the organization Autism Speaks is negatively affecting people with autism and hurting the image of Autism by implying that it is a disease that needs to be cured. However, because she does not include information about how Autism Speaks spends its money or what efforts they are making to cure Autism, her logical appeals are not as strong as her emotional ones. Although her credibility with her primary audience is lacking, her credibility with both her secondary and tertiary audiences is very strong but because the majority of her readers fall into her primary audience, her credibility is weaker overall. While Sequenzia may not have the most credible argument and her logic may have some fallacies in it, she is still able to get her message across with her emotional appeal.
Introduction:
Amy Sequenzia’s commentary, Why Autism Speaks Hurts Us, strives to give readers a hearty dose of reality by providing readers with first-hand experiences from her own life. Sequenzia brings to light the startlingly harsh attitudes toward autism and those with the disorder which are reinforced and even amplified by the Autism Speaks organization. Being a non-speaking autistic herself, Sequenzia provides a unique and effective perspective on the topic. Amy’s emotional appeal to parents and friends of Autistics for acceptance seems to be effective despite her apparent lack of credible resources for the accusatory tone of her commentary in regards to the Autism Speaks organization. Based on the emotional evidence, provided by Amy Sequenzia, her commentary firstly strives to inform readers of the negative message being spread by Autism Speaks. Secondly it is a plea for other autistics to accept themselves for who they are. Thirdly, Sequenzia’s commentary is calling Autism Speaks to change both their message and mission.
Context:
The context of Amy’s commentary is the conversation surrounding the view of autistic individuals as tragic members of society afflicted with a disease that needs to be cured. In an article by Dr. Ananya Mandal discusses the history of Autism. The term autism was first coined by psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler in 1908. He used this term to describe schizophrenic patients who displayed a morbid self interest, or a withdrawal within oneself.1 The coining of the term Autism began the conversation between two factions of people. The first group being the Doctors and experts who view Autism Spectrum Disorders as diseases to be cured and feared. Unfortunately this group has had the majority of power in the conversation. The second group consists of the youth and adults who live with autism affected individuals. They recognize that although Autism can be a very debilitating disorder, it does not make the individual any less of a human being. Despite many individuals living with ASD’s and contributing to society in a positive way, there is still an intense stigma tied to being an autistic person. Amy even makes a point to mention that, “Today things seem even worse.” This is due in part to the large following that the organization ‘Autism Speaks’ has. Sequenzia uses her own life experience to frame the context for her commentary. She begins by describing how, early in her life, her parents were told, by the “experts,” that as long as she “had” Autism she could never be happy. This points directly to the long standing notion that autism is a debilitating disease which needs to be cured, as well as something to be feared by new parents and society. Being an autistic herself, Amy makes it clear that she is not a tragedy, she is not suffering, nor is she a burden to her friends or family. She uses this information to amplify her own voice and try to take control of the conversation. Sequenzia points out that the focus of the autism conversation should be on how to provide services to make everyday living for autistics easier, not on finding a cure.
Audience:
The audience Amy Sequenzia is writing to in her commentary, “Why Autism Speaks Hurts Us, “ can be broken into three groups; a primary, secondary and tertiary audience. The primary audience is well meaning, but uninformed, adults who are advocates of Autism Speaks or Autism Speaks themselves. These people, says Sequenzia, are not necessarily aware of the damage they are causing and are acting simply out of ignorance and a desire to help. One knows she is speaking to these people because she directly “calls out” the messages of Autism Speaks by name and its advocates by association. She is somewhat accusatory, but admits that these people are at the very least well meaning.
The author’s secondary audience is that of autistics struggling trying to live with the messages of “despair” and hopelessness being spread by Autism Speaks and its advocates. She tries to relate to this audience by providing personal examples of her experience and issues with self esteem. These personal experiences she provides may be an appeal to Pathos, but only those in similar situations can truly understand her words so these experiences also reach out to this audience.
The tertiary audience is that of parents of autistic children. She directly addresses the situation of these parents in light of the bleak future presented to the parents of autistic children she presents an outlook on these messages which only causes the parents to begin, “wasting energy trying to fix what is not broken.” All three of these audiences are extremely relevant to the topic Sequenzia is covering. She addresses her opposition and two groups of people who can benefit from her words and ideas.
Purpose:
Sequenzia’s purpose in writing this commentary is directly related to her three audiences. The first being neurotypicals who are unaware of the effects of the messages presented by Autism Speaks. The second, being autistics living with the messages, and the third being the parents of autistic children. Her first purpose is to convince or sway people to her ideas regarding Autism Speaks and its messages. She wants to show that these messages are damaging to the autistic community. One knows how she feels about the messages of Autism Speaks by the language she uses to describe them. She uses words such as “fear,” “despair,” and “negative” when describing the kinds of messages that Autism Speaks spreads. These messages, according to Sequenzia, are damaging to Autistics as they are constantly telling them they are inadequate or “broken.” Her second purpose is to give hope and guidance to her secondary audience, autistics overwhelmed by the negative messages Autism Speaks spreads. She gives personal examples of what she had to deal with such as accepting her autism as an important part of who she is after years of being told that it was something that should be “fixed.” She also mentions the many autistics who have grown up to live happy and accomplished lives, and how she herself is a “proud autistic woman.” These are all used to encourage or give hope to her secondary audience as well as being used for your first purpose of swaying the primary audience. Sequenzia’s third purpose is very similar to her second in that she is trying to encourage the parents of autistic children. She talks about wasting energy seeing the child as a “burden” instead of accepting them and finding the help they need to succeed in their life. While this is primarily used for the third purpose it is also somewhat effective for her first purpose as an emotional appeal.
Genre:
Sequenzia brings some new insight and ideas to the topic of Autism Speaks and their messages in her commentary. Instead of raving about how terrible Autism Speaks and their supporters are, she first states that she believes they are well meaning but ignorant to the facts about autism. This is how she brings something new to the table as required by a commentary. She takes a very empathetic stance, but doesn’t hold back when criticizing the messages that Autism Speaks spreads as she uses very negative words such as “despair” to describe the messages of Autism Speaks. She makes her thesis clearly known: that Autism Speaks’ messages are harmful to autistics. From this she makes sure that her audience is not confused about her purpose and meaning.
She also gives supporting arguments for her claim though mostly in the form of emotional appeals such as describing the effect that the kind of messages Autism Speaks spreads had on her growing up. She talks about the destruction of her self esteem that the messages caused. She takes on the role of a passionate observer as required by the genre and succeeds. She does this by talking about the organizations that “once wanted to see [her] gone, today follow the lead of Autism Speaks.” This puts her as not only a participant in the events, but also a critical observer. She has experienced the messages as an autistic first hand and this translates strongly into her words. She obviously feels very strongly about the subject. Her first hand experience allows her to show familiarity to the topic as she uses mid to low level arguments in order to persuade her audience. These arguments revolve around the emotional effect of Autism Speaks on autistics like herself. Like a good commentary it is personal, however it is more emotional than the average commentary.
The author makes use of Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in the commentary as expected by her audience. Pathos is clearly her strongest appeal, with Logos her weakest, and Ethos somewhere in between. She uses these features of a commentary very well for the most part. She does, however neglect Logos, which one sees by her lack of any sources, which would have been effective in persuading her primary audience. The rest of the piece is a good example of a commentary in its emotion, persona, and style. How Autism Speaks Hurts Us also adheres to the commentary genre in its tone and structure based on her ethos and pathos. Sequenzia uses these aspects of the commentary genre effectively, however she neglects to provide any large amount of empirical evidence to support her claims and relies primarily on an emotional appeal.
Logos:
In her piece, Amy Sequenzia states many different times that there is a common belief that those who have autism must be cured. She believes that this is mainly the result of organizations that spend money to further research a cure for autism, as opposed to supporting those individuals by providing services that would help give more opportunities to them. The author believes that such an organization is Autism Speaks. Sequenzia mainly focuses on using emotion appeal to influence her audience, rather than using a more logical, statistical approach. An example of this is when Sequenzia by suggests that many of the celebrities that support Autism Speaks do not have the proper information concerning what types of challenges that those who have autism must face. This claim here is a strong addition to her message but lacks supporting sentences that would further prove her idea.
Referring to earlier in her commentary, Sequenzia describes how growing up with autism affected her, and how many negative assumptions about autism had added even more difficulties to her life. As a result, She states that Autism Speaks is sending out the underlying message that those who have autism are to be feared and segregated against. In order to back this statement up, she adds that many people are unaware of how Autism Speaks actually uses the money that it receives. This is another example of how Sequenzia does well appealing to her original message, yet again, fails to support her claim. By not going into more detail, such as including the ways Autism Speaks actually spends its money, Sequenzia’s message becomes weak in logos, therefore weakening its effectiveness.
Sequenzia reaches out to multiple audiences to try to influence them to accept her message. Her audiences would most likely understand her message because she is able to state her claims very clearly in a manner that is simple enough for them to comprehend the critical message. Throughout the commentary, Sequenzia often uses language to include her secondary audience, such as; “we autistics” and “us”. By including the secondary audience, Sequenzia is strengthening the emotional appeal (pathos) towards them when she uses her own experiences to support her claims.
Pathos:
In order for the message to be effective, the author must be able to appeal to the audience on an emotional level. Throughout the commentry, Sequenzia uses her past experiences, telling how she grew up with autism, to try to influence the audience. These experiences range from how her parents had the belief that she could never be truly be happy, along other examples of how she struggled to accept herself. Since many of her claims are from her perspective, as an individual who grew up with autism, Sequenzia is able to appeal well to other’s who have autism. As mentioned earlier, the primary audience is the adults that advocate for Autism Speaks who are not very informed. Due to this, the primary audience may find the emotional appeal of the message to not be quite as effective. This is largely due to the fact that this audience has little information about autism, so they turn to Autism Speaks for answers. The message finds the greatest emotional appeal towards the secondary audience; those who have autism and are living with the challenges from it. The secondary audience are able to relate better to Sequenzia’s message because the may have had similar situations in their lives. By sharing these similarities, the audience will be more likely to listen to Sequenzia’ claims and they may begin to persuaded others to be more accepting towards autism as well.
Ethos:
The ethos in a text evaluates an author’s credibility. In her commentary, Sequenzia states that she is on the Autism Spectrum. The simple fact that she is on the Autism Spectrum hurts her credibility with her primary audience. Her primary audience of uninformed well-meaning adults may not take what she is saying seriously due to the fact that she is on the Autism Spectrum and instead may see her as someone who does not recognize the supposed benefits of the Autism Speaks organization. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who are uninformed about Autism will consequently fail to understand the message in Sequenzia’s commentary. Her credibility with her secondary audience however is very strong. She uses examples from her own life that are very relatable to others who are on the Autism Spectrum as well. She talks about learning to accept herself despite the negative image that is associated with Autism and others with Autism can connect with this. Her credibility with her tertiary audience is also very strong. Because parents of Autistic children are very aware of what Autism is, they can better understand Sequenzia’s message. Overall, Sequenzia’s commentary proves to be credible, however, because she lacks a strong credibility with her primary audience, it may not be as effective as she had originally hoped.
Conclusion:
Sequenzia presents her readers with very strong points backed up with vast amounts of personal experience and knowledge about Autism. Her emotional appeals are very strong and are very effective in supporting her claim that the organization Autism Speaks is negatively affecting people with autism and hurting the image of Autism by implying that it is a disease that needs to be cured. However, because she does not include information about how Autism Speaks spends its money or what efforts they are making to cure Autism, her logical appeals are not as strong as her emotional ones. Although her credibility with her primary audience is lacking, her credibility with both her secondary and tertiary audiences is very strong but because the majority of her readers fall into her primary audience, her credibility is weaker overall. While Sequenzia may not have the most credible argument and her logic may have some fallacies in it, she is still able to get her message across with her emotional appeal.