Presidential Election
Essay Preview: Presidential Election
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Today, most adults vote in the Presidential election and enjoy the election season. I interviewed my father on my topic, the Presidential election, and his own thoughts on the election. This source, the interview with my father had a lot to say about the election and my topic. When I asked him about some of the techniques he has seen used by past Presidents to persuade people to vote, he said he has seen many different techniques. These include television ads, newspaper endorsements, posters, billboards, radio announcements, campaign promises, newspaper editorials, and local speeches. The television ads that he has seen state the candidates positions and portray their personality. He noticed that they are designed to project a specific image of the candidate, such as strong leadership or concern for the common man. Another common technique that he has seen used is displaying posters, billboards, and bumper stickers. He said that this was a good persuasive technique because they remind you of the candidates name every time you see them. Although they do not state much information about the candidate, their name will stick with you because you see it so often. When I asked about any negative techniques used or anything about the elections that were bad, he answered that a lot of the campaign promises bothered him. During their campaigns, the candidates will make a lot of promises to get more votes that they know they will not be able to keep. My father said that he knows they will not be able to keep the promises and that they should not overstate what they can do just to get more votes.
After interviewing my father and also my neighbor, I realized that a lot about our culture was revealed. It showed that everyone has a different point of view and opinion on the Presidential election each year. Interviews reveal these feeling and their reasons for the opinions. Even though everyone has a different point of view on each candidate, they can also like the same candidate. In my two different interviews, both my father and neighbor had different views on our past Presidents. And although they did have different views, they can still like the same candidate but for different reasons.
In general, the genre of interviews can be very persuasive. When the interview is in person, this is an advantage. Because of this, you can make eye contact with one another, use different gestures, your tone of voice, ethos, and use other devices such as images or sound. When you are talking to someone in person, this is an advantage because you can use the technique of ethos. It is a lot easier to believe and trust someone when talking in person opposed to reading an article or listening to a message because you can see who you are speaking with and make eye contact. Another important factor is your tone of voice. When you sound confident and strong, this is more effective in persuasion because your audience knows that you are in control and know what you are doing. Today, images and sound can be used with different technology. Images and sound can be used to persuade by using different colors, sounds, and bold words and images to arouse emotions, pathos.
Specifically, in this interview, my father used many techniques of persuasion. These include the tone of voice, strong eye contact, his confident attitude, ethos, and logos. When he spoke, he sounded very confident and spoke very clearly. Also, throughout the interview, he kept a strong eye contact. His eyes did not wander much at all, telling me that he