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Yuqian Wang
Prof. Landrus
ENGL 101X
09/11/2015

No Uniform Solution: Rhetorical Analysis

We hear from people talking about school uniform from time to time. However,
how many of us have ever thought about why some schools have school uniforms
while others do not. Eric Hayden has looked into this issue in No Uniform Solution.
His article mainly focuses on how uniforms impact the academic achievement of
students. He makes good use of rhetorical skills such as ethos, pathos, logos and
kairos to effectively persuade the audience that school uniforms cannot positively
affect students academic performance. Hayden appeals to ethos by showing his
cautiousness in selecting the research he used and by acknowledging the
counterargument. He uses adequate statistics which shows a good employ of logos.
By asking questions, he successfully arouse curiosity in his audience. Kairos is used
by the author to stress the urgency of the issue.
Before analyzing how Eric presents his argument, it is important to look at the
rhetorical situation of the article. The drive of his writing the piece is that the Los
Angeles Council passed a resolution recommending all public schools students in L.A
wear uniforms. The Council did this with the purpose of addressing the budget cuts
and underachievement problems. They expected more order and academic
achievement from students after executing the policy. Eric puts forward his doubts
claiming that school uniforms could hardly have effect on academic performance. He
points out that school boards are using it to solve deeply rooted problems, which is
unrealistic. The audience of the article is the public in general as he would like all
people to become aware of the issue. To be more specific, it targets mostly the

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administrators, such as the city council, who make decisions regarding school
uniforms.
It can easily be observed that the author has made good use of logos to logically
state his position through an abundance of cases, research and statistics. One thing
that should be noticed is that Hayden chooses the research after careful consideration
of its quality. In order to prove himself, Hayden uses the survey conducted in 2009 by
Ryan Yeung, who compared statistics between uniformed public schools and nonuniformed schools. The studied statistics of students from 1998 to 2004 were
collected from the National Center Database. The large sample size significantly
enhances the impact of the result. The author argues that according to the research,
there are some aspects which students in uniforms perform better, such as the
reading portion for eighth- and tenth- graders (Hayden) of tests. However, on
almost every other exam except reading, uniformed public school students got lower
scores than their uniform-free counterparts. The author uses these research and
statistics to show the audience that his argument is based on facts. By doing this,
Hayden has done a good job in logically persuading the audience.
The researcher, Ryan Yeung, acknowledged that there are indeed many other
factors other than uniforms, such as race and socioeconomic status, which could affect
students academic achievement, which enhances his credibility. All these things
above make the research much more difficult to evaluate and he does not want the
audience to draw an arbitrary conclusion. To make it convincing, Yeung concludes his
research by saying there is little evidence that school uniforms have an impact on
student outcomes (Yeung). His cautiousness makes the research more persuasive
which is seen as an employ of ethos. However, he could do better if he do some
research on the researcher Ryan Yeung and introduce him more. A high credibility of

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the research he uses will add his credibility as well.
In all, the author establishes great ethos as he introduces not only his opinion, but
also opinions from the opposite side. In the second paragraph, Hayden acknowledges
the success of Long Beach Unified School Districts mandatory uniform policy. The
introduction of it also provides the background information, explaining the history of
school uniforms. The author takes advantage of the case and turns it around to lead
into his argument. Is correlation, as the scientists say, causation? (Hayden) By
asking this question, Hayden puts the audience into thinking and arouses their
curiosity. This can also been seen as the use of pathos. The author succeeds in
showing that he admitted the fact but questioned the relations between uniforms and
those positive phenomenon. Are they cause and effect, or just coincidence? Hayden
earned himself credibility by not being biased and acknowledging opinions from the
opposite side.
At the beginning of the article, after Hayden introduces the LA City Council
regulation of recommending school uniforms. Through the use of pathos, he makes
fun of the regulation by saying Perhaps. The clothing company Classroom Uniforms
certainly cheered it announced a new line of uniforms the same week as the City
Council vote.(Hayden). When his readers are reading this, they can sense the humor
in Haydens tone of voice and at the same time feel the ridiculousness of such
regulation. Because only clothing companies seem to celebrate this policy, it does not
benefit anyone else. Hayden wins the audience emotionally through the use of pathos.
Through the use of Kairos, Hayden tries to inform his audience on how pressing
this issue is through his timely response. The article was written less than three weeks
after the Los Angeles City Councils passing of the regulation. Hayden pointed out
that currently, a notable portion of public schools, 14% to be accurate, are adopting a

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uniform policy (Hayden.) Now is the time to consider whether it is wise to have such
a policy in place. The author tries to tell his audience that this is a pressing issue
because there has never been a time when so many schools are taking actions. By
doing this, he also delivers the exigence to the audience. However, Hayden fails to
address the reason why schools are taking action.
Although Hayden does not use enough pathos to emotionally get the audience
involved, he uses strong rhetorical skills with an aim of persuading readers to support
him. Through the use of ethos, Hayden gained a lot of credibility in addressing the
views from the opposite side and then using them to his advantage. By using abundant
statistics and specific research, he does a good job in establishing logos to logically
convince the audience to seriously look into the question. Kairos was also used to
address the urgency of the issue. The combination of pathos, ethos, logos and Kairos
is effective and makes the reader trust the author and his views on school uniforms.

Worked Cited
Hayden, Eric. "No Uniform Solution. Pacific Standard. 23 Nov 2009. Web. 09
Nov 2015. <http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/no-uniform-solution5609>