A Rhetorical Analysis Of Stumbling On Happiness By Daniel Gilbert

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Stumbling on Happiness delivers an intuitive way of providing an explanation to a rather important and unsolved mystery. In the novel, Daniel Gilbert refers to using many techniques to create a well directed argument such as rhetorical questions, relaxed diction, parentheticals, pathos, logos, graphs and charts, and allusions. Developed throughout in which Gilbert uses to make the essay readable to everyone, that is those who have a slight understanding on psychology related to human emotions. Moreover, he never loses his ethos as a Harvard professor, which is important; if he were to l the book is the toneose ethos, then the whole argument would have been a waste. Nobody reading the essay would believe a word in it if the author didn’t seem knowledgeable in the field of study. At the same time, however, if the essay was way too scientific and full of jargon, then the argument would prove to be ineffective for the audience would be a very select few people …show more content…

In one paragraph, he cites a well known scientist whereas in another, he’ll provide a chart or a table illustrating what exactly he is talking about. This is effective because if an unconvinced person was to read it and see a famous scientist known for their achievements, it makes it much easier to accept his overall claim. It gives a sense of reassurance if someone well known agrees with the author. The tables and graphs are included to show various things throughout the essay, from showing data to illustrating a rather confusing topic. They are put there to visually make the reader understand the gist of the argument to some degree, but really are only helping to clarify claims that may seem contradictory to the ordinary reader. Another thing he adds to clarify information unknown by most is parentheticals which he obviously uses to put information inside of or sometimes