In this article by Keegan Hamilton, she appeals to logos and pathos while using an informational, formal tone, while addressing the topic of a lawsuit in West Virginia over drug distributors flooding the state with prescription painkillers that is contributing to opioid addiction and OD's.
She appeals to logos through her use of statistics and numbers supporting her claim of how opioid use is growing in the state of Virginia. She used facts such as that drug distributors sold 40 million doses of prescription opioids. This fact helps her to make her claim that opioids are becoming an epidemic in the Virginian community. The audience would see the number 40 million and think that that is a lot of prescriptions and it would make them more easily influenced by what she had to say next. Throughout the article, Hamilton uses an informational and formal tone which makes the topic be taken by the audience more seriously. She tries to stick to facts throughout the article in order to stay away from person bias and to keep a professional, informational tone. Some of the statistics added though have a feeling that can make the audience feel a certain way against a company or drug distributor talked about in the article. This is how she appeals to pathos. She adds facts such as "More than 33000 people died in 2015 from overdoses caused by prescription pills" These facts make the audience have a feeling of sorrow and makes them think that these drug distributors are damaging the community of West Virginia. |