Rhetorical Analysis Of Jennie Finch's Claim '

Rhetorical Analysis of Jennie Finch’s Claim In the article “Jennie Finch makes case for Olympic softball” by Jennie Finch in the USA TODAY Sports she is stating her case on why the International Olympic Committee needs to bring back softball to the Olympics. Jennie Finch is a past Olympic softball player, and she got 2 medals pitching in the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee dropped softball from the Olympics after the 2008 Olympic Games happened. She is stating reasons why softball should be voted back into the Olympics again starting in the 2020 Olympic Games and what it can mean to others. Her audience is the International Olympic Committee and women and girls of all ages. Her purpose is to persuade them to vote to re-add softball

She starts to create power by bringing in historical events that were very powerful themselves. She does this by addressing MLK’s speech and how the “dreams of a personal nature as well as dreams of a better world” (Finch) are powerful and worth fighting for. She is comparing the dreams of women being able to participate in the Olympics and the dreams of a better world. As in, women having the right to participate in the Olympics by vetoing for softball would be creating a better world for women. She is effective here because she is using power and history in her writing to persuade her audience. She wants her audience to see how much this means to women in society and how it is a dream for women. She wants them to see it is bigger than many things and not something to ignore. She is effective also in the sense that she is referring to MLK’s speech and thus showing the importance of her words she is stating. She also uses power in her tone to almost attack the values of the members on the International Olympic Committee. She does this by saying that the “IOC’s vote will be a fundamental test of its commitment to women and its own core Olympic values, particularly equality” (Finch). She is combining her passion for the sport and for women with the power of her words. She is attacking the IOC’s ethical stand point and how it would be wrong not to vote to

She says that “Like King’s dream, my dream is also shared by millions of people from all backgrounds” (Finch). She is emphasizing how she is just one of millions wanting softball to be re-added to the Olympics. How softball is her dream and the dream of millions of girls around the world of all backgrounds. She also says adding to this that “A world which, for me, would enable more women to participate in the greatest celebration of sports and humanity on our planet, the Olympic Games” (Finch). She is saying her dream of a better world allows women to be celebrated. How softball being re-added to the Olympics would create a better world for women. These two combined are effective in the sense that she is creating passion and using her bias in an effective way. She is using her love for softball to tell them she isn’t the only one who cares this much, but that there are millions of others like her. She wants the audience to know how much this affects her and many others like her who are passionate about the sport. She also uses bias to convey the audience when she wraps up her ideas at the end. In a way to have a final effect hopefully, and she does this by saying, “I ask the members of the IOC, on behalf of the women of the world, to please find a way to give girls their dreams back and put softball in the Olympic Games”