Commentary #2: Lindsey

            Your essay says that Hitchens has successfully used the three rhetorical appeals to persuade the audience that waterboarding is indeed torture.  First of all, the title is self-explanatory, but maybe make it a little more creative since I’m pretty sure we all know it is a rhetorical critique.  Also, something that caught me off guard was the way you started the essay.  The first paragraph of your essay is the summary of Hitchens’ article.  I feel like that should be after a short little introduction about torture and/or waterboarding to draw the readers’ attention to what the essay will be talking about.  Your thesis is rather straightforward.  You may want to add a little bit more detail to the sentence but not too much detail.  In the first body paragraph, you chose to tackle ethos first.  I like how you defined the appeal, but I don’t think the quoted definition from the book is necessary.  Instead of that quote, you could use those extra words to add more analysis to other quotes you used.  However, the end to this paragraph was rather confusing.  You say that Hitchens is knowledgeable on the subject then you give an opposing argument without evidence to support the first claim you make.  I actually think that this part does not need an opposing argument.  If you take that part out, then the paragraph will flow more smoothly.  As for the “showing fairness to other views” part, the second sentence is confusing to follow but I think I understand what you mean.  You also quoted Hitchens for that part, too.  I feel like the inclusion of that quote made the paragraph much stronger.  Moving on to the logos paragraph, it was rather cluttered and confusing.  For the first quote, it didn’t really make sense; if you include the quote from Lincoln and then quote Hitchens’s play on that quote, it will make more sense to the reader.  I feel like the strongest part of your logos argument was when you talk about the contract Hitchens had to sign before undergoing the process.  Next up was the pathos paragraph.  I feel like the pathos analysis could have been taken farther.  I really liked the last sentence of that paragraph though.  The last body paragraph talk about kairos.  I actually don’t believe you need to squeeze this in, unless of course you have a sufficient amount of analysis about this appeal.  It actually seemed like you were getting somewhere with the analysis but the paragraph suddenly ended.  Maybe you could take out this paragraph and add more analysis to the other paragraphs, or if you can think of more analysis for kairos, add it to the paragraph.  One of the things I think you should consider is whether or not the appeals were successful.  Yes, you talk about the appeals and analyze them, but you don’t seem to state whether it was successful or what the example did to the audience.  If you incorporate that, it should be enough to make the minimum word count and possibly more.

If you need anything else, just e-mail me.  I may be forgetting something, but this is the bulk of it.  Good luck! ^^