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Kyle Drum Professor Duffus Composition 101 25 October 2013

The article I chose to explain argues a very popular topic in our country today as many people worry about this daily and its also where many families struggle . The argument is if a college degree cost is worth the salary made the next 5 to 10 years. The components of this argument consist of saying that the amount of debt is much greater than the amount that will be earned by a person straight out of school. Frank Bruni, the author of the article, takes the side of the students and parents that are paying for the education. Also the writer portrays only one side of the argument as he does not give any advantages to the opposing side. Throughout the article, Bruni uses many types of personal appeals to allow for the audience to try to relate to the writing. Examples of these include logos, ethos, and pathos. The most used appeal was pathos because the article aims for those students and the parents of students emotions. It appeals to their emotions because they must pay, through debt or payments, for this extremely expensive schooling. The article, I believe, defends the American people as the debt for some families, whose son or daughter go to a private school, is unbearable for them to overcome. I would

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understand this because I attend a private university whose tuition costs are thirty seven thousand each year. When one is in a large sum of debt it also appeals to their emotions because they will always be stressed and worrying about making the payments. It can be very hard on ones family when they are in debt because if they are trying to have ends meet it is and emotional downer on everyone in the family. It also uses logos because it appeals to the logic of people if it is worth the actual debt and trouble to make thirty thousand dollars starting off. When it deals with logos and comes to the logical decision most people will chose to attend a community college because of the lesser costs. The article was very well organized and logical but there was many points left out for the opposing argument. The opposition was not treated fairly as they had no say for their side. The article was constantly beating on the prices of college and how the debt is too much for an individual to pay back only making 35,000 dollars a year and although it may be true, the article needs evidence from opposition to make the article balanced. One good thing about the article is the fact that the logos and pathos are used correctly and work well together.