fix the paper

Thompson9

Keenan Thompson

Dr. Wu

ENG 102

February 20, 2016

“The Start Up of You”

Of all the interesting themes in the book, the one that seems the most asked question is “all this really worth it?” Students go to high school and are expected to go to college nowadays. High school students are deemed as irresponsible, an example of this, is how high school students have to ask to go to the bathroom. Students who had to ask to use the bathroom graduate then a few months later are expected to make huge financial decisions. To go to college is a huge important decision that high school seniors must make and many of them are lost and scared of going into the idea of college. An important thing that students must know, is that it all starts with the person themselves whether or not they can make it. As the title reads, “The Start-Up of You” could mean a lot, but in this case the author Thomas L. Friedman discusses how students in college just expect to get a job because they have a degree. That is looking at college in the wrong perspective. The author builds his ethos, logos, and in a way his pathos to convey the importance of not only the college education, but also the value that people should bring to the work environment.

Friedman appeals to the readers’ perception that he is credible by showing his research and thinking. According to Lunford, Ruszkiewicz and Walters in Everything’s an Argument, an author’s ethos strengthens when “arguments based on character (ethos) depend on trust. We tend to accept arguments from those we trust… in good part because of their reputations” (45). What this means is that, if an author is trustworthy or credible to the readers, the audience would be more likely to hear out and or accept the argument presented. The reader would think that because this author has done some research, put up some statistics, and provided his own ideas. Freidman says, “Facebook is now valued near $100 billion, Twitter at $8 billion… and LinkedIn at $8billion” (Friedman 864). What this shows is that he has obviously done his research and is showing this to make the readers believe that he is credible. Friedman also gives his opinion that makes an appeal to the readers as well. His opinion is, “I think something else, something new-something that will require our kids not so much to find their next job-is also influencing today’s job market more than people realize” (Friedman 864). This appeals to the readers of their perception of credibleness about the author because he makes an argument based off the research he has done. He uses his credibility to introduce the next topic he is going to discuss, Reid Garrett Hoffman.

The co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, is coming out with a book titled The Start Up of You. This is the main focus point that Friedman is trying to point out, and uses a very important source to cite to build trustworthiness. The readers believe that Friedman is trustworthy because even an important character in social media has said something similar to what the author has opinionated earlier in the article. Friedman also quotes Hoffman. Friedman quotes, “‘Therefore, you should approach career strategy the same way an entrepreneur approaches starting a business’” (Friedman 865). Not only has the author, Friedman, said that people need to be more innovative and be able to add value to a company, but Hoffman, who holds high prestige in a huge company, also says the same thing. This then allows the reader to believe that they can trust this information because it may have worked for the both of them.

Thomas L. Friedman has established his sense of ethos by allowing himself to be credible and trustworthy by the readers. He gives an opinion that has also been backed by a co-founder of a very successful social media business. Not only does his writing seem credible and trustworthy, but in a pretext before the article, it notes that Friedman went to a very prestigious university in England, Oxford University, and has a lot of best sellers. Being an ‘Oxford man’ may also give him some sense of an authoritative stature. All of these things put together make the author seem more credible, trustworthy, authoritative, and most importantly, he gets his point across because after all that is the most important aspect to writing.

Thomas L. Friedman also rebuttals the typical college student common sense of thinking that going to college leads directly to a job, but explains why some college students tend to fail. Not saying college students are dumb, they have went to college and earned a degree in something, that deserves credit, but not towards a job. The point of Friedman’s argument was that students should in fact get jobs after they graduate, but not just because they have that degree. His argument was that students should look at it from a professional entrepreneur view point. He states, “They[employers] are all looking for the same kind of people-people who not only have the critical thinking skills to do the value-adding jobs that technology cant, but also people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever” (Friedman 864). Logically speaking, computers can replace human jobs, but human ingenuity cannot be replaced. We see that computers have taken over a lot of factory jobs, especially here in the United States, but those jobs are not for the average college graduate. The average college graduate should be the one running those factories, the ones who build those machines, and the ones who are involved in the manufacturing business side of factories. That would be true maybe a few decades ago, but with more and more college graduates each year, there has to be more competition. Nowadays employers are looking not only at a person’s degree, but many look at a degree and then ask ‘and what else?’ Logically it would be common sense to either go further in education, for example going to grad school or law school, or build up your resume by involving yourself in activities or events that the ‘common’ college student wouldn’t do. A student should make themselves marketable for the job they want; a job should want them, not the other way around. Friedman would rebuttal the readers’ common sense of a college degree leading directly to a job, by comparing how a student should look at it as an entrepreneurial stand point and make students agree that more education or more experience will help them get the job they want. It is a truth that will remain true, more experience or knowledge will never make a job position defer to someone else.

Besides affecting the readers’ common sense, Friedman had also challenged using hard evidence by using statistics. As Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters reminded in Everything’s an Argument, statistics is counted as one kind of the hard evidence, and using hard evidence, “writers need more than ever to be aware of the ethics of evidence, whether that evidence draws on facts, statistics…” (59). Authors need to use hard evidence to show proof or to help make their arguments valid. Friedman had put up statistics that the social media corporations are worth a lot of money. He says, “Facebook is now valued near $100 billion, Twitter at $8 billion, Groupon at $30 billion…” (Friedman 864). He further then mentions that “… and here’s what’s scary: You could easily fit all their employees together into the 20,000 seats in Madison Square Garden, and still have room for grandma. They just don’t employ a lot of people, relative to their valuations, and while they’re all firing today, they are largely looking for talented engineers” (Friedman 864). What all this means is that the greater the value of the company, the greater expectations of its employees, meaning the greater value that on looking job searchers in the Silicon Valley should be able to present to the company. Friedman also appeals to the readers’ emotions by using pathos with the grandma reference to make it somewhat humorous. In short Friedman uses deductive reasoning to convey his message: the more value a person can add to the company, the better chances a person has of getting hired to the company of their choice. A principle made into a solid conclusion.

Although slight and almost not exactly obvious, Friedman does provide an idea that can be taken as a counterargument. Friedman says, “But you would never know that from listening to the debate in Washington, where some Democrats still tend to talk about job creation as if it’s the 1960’s and some Republicans as if it’s the 1980’s. But this is not your parents’ job market” (Friedman 865). The counterargument being that the government, parties, think that the job market needs to increase rather than the value of potential employees. Friedman also says that ‘this isn’t your parents job market’ to create the point that the current economy is the new economy, the present society is the new society that we live in. He also brings in Reid Garrett Hoffman, who is a very important businessman in social media company’s including LinkedIn, Zynga, and Facebook. In fact, his whole counterargument to the government’s idea of an increase in job availability, is based off of Hoffman’s book. Hoffman and Friedman agree that though increasing the job availability should be important, increasing one’s self value to a company should be more important.

Not only did Friedman appeal to the readers’ ethos and logos, but he also used pathos to appeal to the readers’ emotion. In the opening sentence of his article he states, “The rise in unemployment rate last month to 9.2 percent has Democrats and Republicans reliably falling back on their respective cure-alls” (Friedman 864). Using the statistical number 9.2 percent is somewhat a scare tactic to the readers’ comprehension of what is going on around them at the time. Although this percentage has changed drastically today, during the time of the article, it was relevant and indeed the truth. Friedman had used the truth to scare and attract the reader to read further into the article.

After a combination of appealing to the readers’ ethos, logos, and pathos, he conveys the general idea that a person should try to make themselves more valuable to a company they want to work for in order to get hired. He appeals the readers’ ethos by applying his Oxford education and success to make himself seem credible. For logos, Friedman challenges both common sense and uses deductive reasoning to make the reader see the logic of his reasoning. And for Pathos, Friedman uses the terror of the unemployment rate to make readers’ interested and continue to read. Friedman makes valid arguments using all three argument types and conveys his point effectively and concisely. Being a college student, this piece of writing answered many concerns about what a college student should do to get a job post-graduation.

. Works Cited

Friedman, Thomas L. “‘The Start-Up of You’ and Readers’ Responses.” Everything’s an Argument with Readings. Ed. Andrea A. Lunsford, John J. Rszkiewicz, and Keith Walters. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2013. 864-865. Print. Rpt. of “The Start-Up of you’ and Readers’ Responses.” New York Times July 2011.

Lunsford, Andrea A. John J. Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters. Everything’s an Argument with

Readings. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2013. Print.