ipl-logo

Rhetorical Analysis Of Steve Jobs Commencement Speech

593 Words3 Pages

CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs, in his commencement address, You've got to find what you love, detailed his path to success in life, while overcoming many obstacles along the way. Jobs’ purpose was to convey to the graduating class that you don’t have to attend college in order be successful and you must live each day as if it is your last. He used a compelling tone in order to convey his message to the students through three significant life events he experienced.
Jobs began his commencement speech by illustrating the importance of “connecting the dots in life” Jobs, 2005, Pg.1). Jobs’ appealed emotionally to the audience by a lone diction addressing his childhood adoption. “My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption” (Jobs, 2005, Pg.1). This detached sense of emotion conveyed an ominous sense of tone between the speaker and the audience. Jobs generated a poetic diction through the phrase “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards” (Jobs, …show more content…

Jobs’ portrayed a concrete diction through the phrase “I was lucky, I found what I loved to do so early in life” (Jobs, 2005, Pg. 2). This phrase helped the language of the text reflect back to Jobs’ purpose of the commencement speech. Jobs’ later got fired from Apple Corporations,“I felt that I had let the previous generations of entrepreneurs down- that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me” (Jobs, 2005, Pg.2). Jobs’ enlightened tone slowly declined into a calm, gloomy mood which portrayed that not everything in life came easy to Jobs and success was earned through hard work and devotion. Jobs’ purpose in this second story was to illustrate the difficult times he had, however through determination and hard work he was able to overcome them and do what he

Show More
Related
716 Words | 3 Pages

Freedom is not free. Throughout America, we are stronger working citizens all over the world. People work for the government, local rescues, Congress, education, local rescues, and people even work our safety and protection for our nation. On September 11, 2001, George W. Bush made an astonishing speech about the evil that happened that day. Terrorists attacked the nation, and they killed thousands of people.

Read More
873 Words | 4 Pages

Introduction Hook: I never knew that one day, one idea could have such a big impact. That one thing could change the history, set up the rest of the country to follow suit with this specific topic, and things that need a change in general. Background: Over 50 years ago, on March 7, 1965, now known as bloody Sunday, segregation was still prevalent. At the time it was not allowed for blacks to vote at the time.

Read More
368 Words | 2 Pages

On June 16,2015 there was a major turning point in ther race fro the next president of the the United States. On this day one of the biggest real estate moguls, Donald Trump, in America announced that he will run for president. There was a huge crowd of people waithing anxioulsy at Trump Tower in New York City, New York for Trump to take the podium and give his presidental announcement speech. In his speech, Donald Trump uses the rhetoric appeals to try to try to convince the American people that he is the best canidated to elect for president.

Read More
1429 Words | 6 Pages

“You’ve Got to Find What You Love” was the well-known speech delivered by Steve Jobs, which was prepared for Stanford’s commencement address on July 12, 2015. Steve Jobs was a legendary figure in the technology area, whose stories cannot be copied. He was one of the great founders of Apple, which brought us so many revolutionary and amazing products, he also started other two outstanding companies: Pixar and NeXT, quite frankly, he is a genius person with unimaginable creativity and unique foresight. In this Speech, Steve Jobs used three his own stories to convey his determined beliefs to the listeners: “connecting the dots”, “love and loss” and “death”. According to the first story “connecting the dot”, Steve Jobs was raised by his stepparents and he made the choice of dropping out of Reed College.

Read More
1077 Words | 5 Pages

This speech was made for the class of 2014. By that year, Ed Helms was well known for his work on The Daily Show, The Office and The Hangover (trilogy) films. His major success it was The Hangover but in his speech he used a lot of examples of one of his character in The Office because it was someone related to Cornell University. He also was awareness that it was a graduation with a lot of young people and because he is a comedian he did a lot of jokes to try to engaged the audience with the ideas that he wanted to share with them. And finally, in his speech, he also applied pathos which is the emotional quality of the speech or text that makes it persuasive to the audience.

Read More
557 Words | 3 Pages

On June 4, 2003, world-wide known comedian, Will Ferrell delivered a very influential and amusing speech to the Harvard graduating Class of 2003. Ferrell expressed this graduating speech with something new and unique. He doesn’t present his speech like any other class day speaker; he is very inspirational and wants the students to see how different their life is going to be once they leave this graduation ceremony. Ferrell compellingly employs a very lighthearted tone, which includes humor, and pathos to effectively gain the audience’s attention and successfully tell students about the “real world”. Ferrell’s usage of a lighthearted tone throughout his speech creates a connection between him and his audience which lasts from start to finish.

Read More
548 Words | 3 Pages

In his speech Steve Jobs stated that when he went to college and after six months of drowning his parents’ savings, he did not enjoy the experience and said “…I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life…” (pg. 111). He dropped out and sat in on some classes he found interest in. Richard while being forced to read books he wondered “What was the connection between reading and

Read More
927 Words | 4 Pages

A rhetorical analysis is a way break down a text using reading skills and applying it into an essay. Students today may already have a plan to go to college or may need more time to think of what they are going to do. Underemployment is beginning to be more persistent in college graduates which shows that there might be something wrong in the pathway into a career. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the article, “Will You Sprint, Stroll or Stumble Into a Career?” by New York Times author Jeffrey J. Selingo, and to inform students that there are certain pathways that can benefit you successfully to have a career.

Read More
1458 Words | 6 Pages

Great Storytelling Lu Jia Delivered on a campus in California to an audience of a few thousands, yet it ended up inspiring tens of millions from both U.S. and worldwide; worshiped by Silicon Valley as the ultimate career talk, yet it embodied many aspects of life - chance, love, loss, and ultimately death. Short but smart, targeted yet universal, poignant and timeless – thus is Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford. Some attribute its success to Jobs’ personal influence and charisma – they do add significant weight to the speech, undeniably. But close inspections from the lenses of rhetorical analysis allow us to appreciate this speech from a different perspective – in particular, how the speech was crafted into a fitting response to its rhetorical situation and how Jobs managed to strike a chord with his audience through the masterful use of logos, pathos and ethos, whether planned or not.

Read More
756 Words | 4 Pages

The Steve Jobs commencement speech was a speech that was given by the former Apple Inc. CEO to Stanford University during the 114th commencement on 12th June 2005. The speech Steve Jobs gave Stanford University is a very effective speech, because of his use of rhetorical devices. Jobs especially use his background and childhood to play upon his rhetorical approach. In Steve Jobs, he tells several stories about love, detection, death, loss. The main part of the Speech is how Steve Jobs encourages the students to pursue their dreams, and do what makes them happy, even if it all doesn’t go after the plan.

Read More
637 Words | 3 Pages

The designated survivor for this speech was David Shulkin, the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Overall, throughout his speech, Trump was greeted with generous applause from the Republicans and minimal applause from the Democrats. There were however some issues to which both parties agreed and applauded too. The Democrats also booed Trumps at times, such as when he spoke on immigration.

Read More
368 Words | 2 Pages

CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs gives an amazing speech entitled" You've got to find what you love" explaining his whole life and how he became the man he is today. Job's purpose is to encourage the graduates to enjoy every single day of their life. He adopts a positive attitude in order to congratulate the graduates for their work and effort. Jobs opens up the speech with how he is given up for adoption. While doing this, Steve's biological mom searches hard to find parents who went to college.

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

Jobs outlines exactly what his speech is about by explaining in the first paragraph that he would be telling three stories that pertain to his life. By choosing to share three different stories about connecting the dots, love and loss, and death, it made him speak in a conversational style, making the audience more comfortable. When an audience is engaged, it is much easier to connect with the speaker. Jobs’ also decided to use humor within his words and phrases to engage the audience. He states “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces...and since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”(Jobs)

Read More
1221 Words | 5 Pages

Purv Chauhan Jack Geist English 108 February 16, 2018 Barack Obama victory speech Rhetorical Analysis “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible - tonight is your answer.” (Obama, 2008). Barack Obama was elected president on Nov 5, 2008. He argues in his speech that whatever was going on in the country, it is going to change, it was a dawn of a new beginning.

Read More
718 Words | 3 Pages

In the speech “Steve Jobs Commencement Address to Stanford University, Class of 2005” , Apple CEO Steve Jobs provides his audience with personal experiences and the rough periods he went through in his early years before founding apple that helped him succeed. With the use of his stories Jobs creates a character that prevails through obstacles and manages to achieve his goals, which inspires his audience to look up to him and show that failure is sometimes necessary to succeed. At the beginning of his speech, Steve Jobs begins describing his life with a series of stories that helped him reach his success, this helps Jobs create ethos because his audience will understand the hardships he went through to be where he is today, instead of just thinking of Jobs as the founder of Apple and not really knowing about the struggles he had to go through.

Read More

More about Rhetorical Analysis Of Steve Jobs Commencement Speech

Related Topics

Open Document