Rhetorical Analysis Of Sarah Freeman's Article 'The Ethicalist'

Sarah Freeman’s article in The Ethicalist explains the negative effects humans have on the ocean. These negative effects include plastic pollution, global warming, and worst of all, overfishing. Overfishing occurs when a fish species is wild caught faster than it can reproduce. This leads to fewer fish in the ocean, meaning less marine biodiversity (Freeman). After Freeman spends most of her article explaining how the oceans are suffering, she then starts talking about what can be done to prevent a baren sea. She makes her audience care using rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos. In “Fishless Oceans: Will We Pay the Ultimate Price in the Future for Overfishing”, published recently in July of 2022, Sarah Freeman quotes ecological professionals,

She published her article on a website titled The Ethicalist. This is a website read by everyday people who want to invoke change and live ethically. This infers that the type of people who read Freeman’s article are looking to better themselves and the planet they live on. Sarah Freeman’s article is relatively fresh, being published less than a year ago on July 13th of the year 2022. The modernness of the article helps readers feel the issues stated within are going to affect them personally if things don’t change. This along with Freeman’s use of emotional phrases makes the audience feel guilty, angry, and sympathetic toward dying oceanic creatures. For example, within the sixth paragraph there is a sentence that states, “look to the tragic tale of Pacific bluefin tuna, that’s been whittled down to a woeful 2.6 percent of its historic population” (Freemen). The words “tragic”, “whittled”, and “woeful” are all words that appeal to the emotion of sadness. These strong words make people feel concerned, compelling them to take action toward saving marine life. This is an example of pathos, using people’s emotions to persuade them into action. Sarah Freeman’s article is successful in using people’s emotions to convince them that the ocean needs to be

To begin, the article rushed through points without explaining them in depth to those who might not understand certain scientific terms. In particular, Freeman inserts a quote from Boris Worm within her article that talks about the fact that marine biodiversity is fading, and if nothing is done to replenish it, there is going to be nothing left (Freeman). However, Freeman doesn’t go on to explain how marine diversity is important in keeping the oceans healthy. It would have been more effective if she had included more information on the subject or defined the term like how Sylvia Earle and Bill McKibben did in their book, The World is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One. The quote, “Biodiversity loss was shown to impair the ocean’s capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations” (Earle and McKibben) from this book could have helped Freeman’s readers understand the importance of biodiversity. Therefore, doing a better job of convincing them to care about how reestablishing the ocean’s biodiversity is the key to saving marine life. In order to increase the effectiveness of her article, Sarah Freeman could have spent more time explaining the points she was making against