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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Patrick Moore's Argument For Nuclear Energy

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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Patrick Moore's Argument For Nuclear Energy
AJ McKay
English 101
Sarah Nolan
11/14/10
Rhetorical Analysis As a society grows and develops, there are many issues the people must face during the process. One of the most important problems modern civilizations must solve is where and how they get their energy. In our day and age, we rely heavily on fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil. Patrick Moore, a writer for the Washington Post, composes an argument for nuclear power and recommends that it should be the future for all things energy. Moore’s argument is a convincing article that would most likely pull many neutral readers to see his side very clearly. The article gives all the pros to the uses of nuclear energy, and does an excellent job of addressing all possible counter-arguments.
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After extensively researching the negative effects of nuclear energy, I noticed that Moore addresses every single major argument against the new method. Before he begins to focus on the negative arguments he states, “That's not to say that there aren't real problems -- as well as various myths -- associated with nuclear energy. Each concern deserves careful consideration:” indicating that he has done research on each and every argument. As the reader continues through the article, he or she will notice that each argument is suppressed by straight up facts and out of the box ideas that make absolute sense. Moore’s strength in using ethos and logos continues to be an extremely persuasive tactic as each argument is picked apart and analyzed. After individually attacking each dispute, he finishes his counter-argument segment by summarizing all the arguments and using it as one last punch. He states that many things have been used to kill many people. Minor things like machetes and diesel fuel can be responsible for death of millions (Moore 2). Moore then finishes his summary with what could possibly be the most influential sentence in the entire article, “If we banned everything that can be used to kill people, we would never have harnessed fire” (Moore

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