Andrew Martin On Teenagers And Tattoos Analysis

Understanding body modifications
Tattoos and piercings in today’s age are commonly seen on teens. They are gradually becoming more popular as more of the youth are struggling to stand out and find themselves today. Although this is becoming the new common trend in today’s mainstream of fashion on teens and young adults, there are still many people who argue both for and against tattoos and piercings. Author Andrew Martin published an article titled “On teenagers and tattoos”. Martin guides his article in the positive direction regarding the tattoos and piercings on teenagers. The style and format in which Dr. Martin wrote his article helps to give the reader a clearer understanding of the text. Martin combines the use of logos, pathos and ethos …show more content…
The word tattoo itself means 'to mark something'. Unfortunately, Martin does not explain the history of tattoos in his article. Instead, Martin takes the approach as to explain his thought-out reasoning’s on why adolescents get body decorations in today's day and age. Martin stays unbiased in his argument he states understandable facts supporting the teenager’s decisions, but also states how he believes that they are cries for attention. He also relies on the help of pathos and ethos, he also attempts to use logos but his logical references are not based on statistics, instead, they are based on observed evidence. His attempt at logos comes from his research which concluded that the rise in tattoos and piercings come from those usually over the age of eighteen. His results also showed that many teenagers are failing to see the negative impact that tattoos may show when it comes to finding a place in the workforce. Pathos is used through the appeal of the reader’s emotions to convince the audiences of his argument through an emotional response. He accurately conveys this by explaining the teenager’s emotions and reasoning behind their body modifications. By doing so, he allows the audience a chance to empathize with the teenagers who use their body modifications as a cry for individuality. The persuasive appeal of ethos is used by quoting several case studies to make his claims solid. He also uses ethical references as the teenagers reasoning for using body modifications to express them. He does this to prove to the audience the character of teenagers and prove that they have ethical reasons behind their modifications. He also uses his credibility to draw in his audience. Due to Martin, also being a specialist in child psychiatry he uses this to show the audience