A Rhetorical Analysis Of Richard Crawford's 'United States Of America'

Music in America is known for being incredibly diverse; even within the many genres of music, there are thousands of playing styles embedded in its culture. In his article, “United States of America”, Richard Crawford goes through the roots of America’s music by tracing the styles and genres all the way back to the eighteenth century. He argues that all American music is made through the combination of two different cultures or genres. Another author, Laura Keith, builds on his argument in her work, “Cultural Diversity”, which specifically uses African American music to argue the same point as Crawford, except she focuses on convincing the reader that students need to be taught about these diverse songs. Crawford’s article is not very effective in convincing the reader of his point because he essentially only spouts off facts, briefly using logos and diction to strengthen the backbone of his argument, but is not successful in making any strong points. Keith, however, makes an incredibly strong argument because she essentially immerses herself in the culture through her connotation, she spouts off facts just like the first author, but she utilizes logos much better than Crawford. In his work, Richard Crawford does an inadequate job of convincing the audience of his …show more content…
Article one was aimed to convince the reader that America’s music has always been a mixture of different cultures. Through the weak use of logos and the misplaced use of diction, Crawford fails to make a good argument and seems at some points to even forget what he is arguing. Article two wanted to prove the same point, except Keith proved her point by specifically using African American music as the basis of her argument. She did an incredible job of using clear and sound logos, and even immersed the reader in the culture of the music she is discussing through her use of connotation and pathos in