A Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Best In Class' By Margaret Talbot

Being named the highest academic achiever of anyone in your school is quite the achievement; however, in “Best in Class” by Margaret Talbot, she puts forth the message that the fight for valedictorian is causing much more harm than good. Talbot reinforces this argument through her uses of hard evidence to appeal to ethos and her anecdotal interviews to appeal to pathos.

Being one of the strongest parts of her article, Talbot’s use of great amounts of hard evidence strengthens her appeal to ethos. Being a reporter, and a female reporter at that, Talbot must be very careful to avoid using overly-emotional appeals to try and convey her argument. The reporting industry is one in which someone can lose their credibility to critics very quickly

This argument still needs emotion to get an audience behind it. This is where Talbot’s use of anecdotal interviews come in to help to appeal to her argument’s pathos. Without being able to put her own emotions into her argument, which would greatly risk her establishment of ethos, Talbot uses the emotions of others that this has affected to do this for her. Talbot interviewed many and placed their stories into this article. This is even seen in the very first line of the article where Talbot states that “Daniel Kennedy remembers when he still thought that valedictorians were a good thing” and when she talks about Kimberly Belcher, George Kennedy, Jim Corney, Denise Clark Pope, and many others who this has personally affected. These anecdotes are expertly used to help establish Talbot’s pathos throughout her article. After Talbot’s great, unbiased use of evidence to establish her ethos, the only thing her argument was lacking was some emotion for her audience to get behind. Talbot’s audience is easily able to see what the fight for the role of valedictorian has done to these people and this use of pathos gives her audience great reason to get behind her claim, all without putting her own ethos at