Rhetorical Analysis Of Buy Experiences Not Things

Happiness is something every human being would want to have in their life, but how do you achieve happiness. In the article “Buy Experiences, Not Things” James Hamblin writes about his research that he gathered regarding the difference between experiences vs materials and how they affect a person’s happiness. Hamblin relies pretty heavily on the use of ethos in his article as he continuously refers to the research of experts and his discussions with them when explaining the main points of how buying experiences rather than materialistic things makes a person happier. Hamblin’s biggest point is the actual experience is not what necessarily makes the person happy but the anticipation of the experience. This consists of what the experience can or will be, or it can be the nostalgia and longing of an experience that makes it a positive and happy experience. James Hamblin brings to light how humans really achieve true happiness with the use of his research, experts and the tools of logos, ethos and pathos. …show more content…
Hamblin did the research and consulted the experts and he definitely wants the reader to know it when they read the article. His sources include Matt Killingsworth, Ph.D., who is a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar, Cornell psychology professor Thomas Gilovich and Cornell doctoral candidate Amit Kumar. Most paragraphs in the articles contain words spoken by these experts which is a very effective use of ethos. Hamblin’s consistency of direct quotes reminds the reader that he is not pulling the research from nowhere. Hamblin also makes sure to use incorporate each of his sources in a fairly even way so to not seem to be relying on any one source of information. This makes the reader feel as if a large part of the scientific community related to this field may have the same opinion as the sources used within the