Got A Meeting Take A Walk Rhetorical Analysis

Throughout this speech, the audience is experiencing fear and drive to change their lifestyles. In the speech “Got a Meeting? Take a Walk” presented by Nilofer Merchant in 2013 on a TED Talk, she discusses the harmful effects of sitting excessively. Her audience is sitting while hearing this speech and she takes advantage of this information throughout her speech. Merchant strategizes to be able to connect with the audience throughout the entirety of her speech. She capitalizes on the pathos, ethos, logos and other strategies to instill the dangers within the audience and engage them as much as she possibly can. Merchant uses many rhetorical strategies in order to encourage the audience to reduce their sitting habits in order to insure themselves

Since Merchant is speaking in a TED Talk, ethos is automatic. TED Talks are a reliable source of information and advice on many different topics that people turn to often. Educators and researchers from all over the world are brought in to do these TED Talks, including Merchant and people automatically trust the speaker because they are qualified enough to speak on these topics. Like ethos, tone is also automatic in a TED Talk because the audience knows previously that the speech is going to be informational and serious. Without even speaking, Merchant displays tone and ethos to the audience effectively. She displays ethos throughout the speech as well in order to strengthen her credibility. In the middle of the speech she says, “So instead of going to coffee meetings or fluorescent-lit conference room meetings, I ask people to go on a walking meeting, to the tune of 20 to 30 miles a week. It’s changed my life.” This line not only strengthens her credibility as a speaker but also sets an inspirational tone for the audience. It changed her life and it can also change theirs and Merchant does a great job of allowing the audience to acknowledge it. This will leave the audience wanting to make the change and be more like the