Rachel McDermaid

ENG 101: Paul Anderson

Assignment #1: Rhetorical Analysis Rough Draft
September 18, 2014
Rhetorical Analysis
Steven Johnsons article Watching TV Makes You Smarter, is effective for his
intended audience of (most likely) parents or adults because of his strong use of logos, pathos,
and assertion. Throughout his rhetorical article, Johnson attempts to persuade his audience that
watching TV actually makes you smarter due to many reality and mystery shows, (and some
video games), that are complex to understand. Johnson gives many examples of older and newer
TV shows throughout his article that have deeper meanings, or puzzles, to which viewers need to
pay close attention to and solve on their own. He explains to us something called The Sleeper
Curve, and tells us Even Bad TV is Better (Johnson 169-177). Johnson gives an effective
argument to his audience of parents and/or adults by his strong uses of logos, pathos, and
assertion.
Johnson uses logos a lot throughout his argument that help persuade us, even more, that
he is correct. As he goes on to tell us how even bad TV is better, (177) while talking about
some reality shows, he explains that each show reveals different things about characters to keep
its viewers mind working and intrigued to figure out what the character should or is going to do
in the situation that they are in. When we watch these shows, the part of our brain that monitors
the emotional lives of the people around us-the part that tracks subtle shifts in intonation and

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gesture and facial expression-scrutinizes the action on the screen, looking for clues (178). This
would be an example of logos as he gives us a statistic to persuade us further in his argument.
Johnson also explains how todays reality television is somewhat structured like a video game by
it being a series of competitive tests, growing more challenging over time. These statements that
he made help his argument because many of his readers, surely, watch or have watched reality
TV and know exactly what he is talking about when giving the examples that he gives. Johnson
gave examples like Survivor or The Apprentice which also gives his readers another chance
to catch on to what he is talking about, if they have seen these shows. Even though most of his
article gives us facts and statistics to prove his argument, Johnson also gives emotional
standpoints.
Throughout his argument, we are shown many examples of pathos, emotional appeals.
After talking about how The Sleeper Curve (169) is a good thing, by enhancing our minds
rather than dumbing them down, Johnson states a very good point. And yet you almost never
hear this story in popular accounts of today's media. Instead, you hear dire tales of addiction,
violence, mindless escapism. It's assumed that shows that promote smoking or gratuitous
violence are bad for us, while those that thunder against teen pregnancy or intolerance have a
positive role in society (171). This quote is an example of pathos because; it has an emotional
effect on the audience. He also describes a very emotional scene from a popular TV show called
E. R. This scene was emotional for the doctors of the TV show and the patients parents because
the patient liver was failing. After describing this scene, he then explained that to understand
what was going on in this particular scene of the show, you would need to recall an earlier
remark that didnt regard a character of the thread they were in. Earlier in this show there was a
scene where one of the doctors mentioned that one of the patients was an unlikely donor because

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of his/her AB blood type, and the current patient that needs a new liver, also has AB blood type.
He used an emotional scene of a popular television show to prove to his audience that TV shows
can be subtle and discrete and, to understand, we need to pay close attention. Also, he gives us
many other personal statements to persuade us even further.
Johnson gives many personal assertions to further persuade us. One of which being that
many TV shows have become increasingly complex. While giving examples, he talks about plot
threads and flashing arrows that viewers need to catch on to, to be able to understand what they
are watching. When a sci-fi script inserts into some advanced lab a nonscientist who keeps
asking the science geeks to explain what they're doing with that particle accelerator, that's a
flashing arrow that gives the audience precisely the information it needs in order to make sense
of the ensuing plot (174). He explains here how a flashing arrow helps the viewers understand
what is going on in the show. This was an assertion because he gives us his own example and his
own statements on why he is correct. Another example would be that earlier in his article,
Johnson told us that he looks at media as a kind of cognitive workout, not as a series of life
lessons (171). It is very important to understand that its the kind of thinking we do to make
sense of what is happening that really gets our mind working. Every statement that he made in
his article was effective.
Steven Johnson made a very effective argument in his article, when persuading his
audience that watching TV makes you smarter. He gave us many uses of logos, pathos, and
assertion. Johnson gave us examples such as; complex television shows that keep our mind
working and giving us complex situations to figure out whats going on, reality TV shows where
there is a series of competitive tests that get more challenging over time, and The Sleeper
Curve, (169) which enhances our minds.

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Works Cited
Johnson, Steven. Watching TV Makes You Smarter. Riverhead. Web. 1, Oct. 2014.
<http://wendtenglish201f09.wikispaces.com/file/view/Watching+TV+Makes+You+Smar
ter.pdf>.