Rhetorical Prcis For The Way We Lie Critical Thinking Example

Ericsson, Stephanie. "The Ways We Lie." Trans. ArrayBack to the Lake: A Reader for Writers (Second Edition). 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. 336-343. Print.
In her essay, “The Way We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson states a well-known fact that everyone lies, while she also argues that every lie is not essentially bad, but accepting lies turn them into a “cultural cancer” and lead to severe consequences. With structure and style of writing, Ericsson supports her claim by appealing to logos, pathos and ethos, namely: she appeals to the logos by describing historical events and facts to provide logical reasoning to lend credibility to her argument and make her audience understand her views; she again uses real world examples and asks block structure rhetorical questions to establish pathos to evoke the readers' emotions and make them relate to the stories; and finally, she starts her appeal to the ethos in the beginning of the introductory paragraph by describing different types of lies she encounters in her everyday life. In order to persuade her audience to think about lying, the consequences of this “cancer” and to accept truth, she concludes by summing up the points from her essay by dramatically stating how this “cancer” of lying is gradually degrading our culture and society. Ericsson seems to be address practically everyone as her audience, since according to her everyone lies, and since her goal is to convince her audience that lying is dangerous and they need to stop tolerating lies, so she uses an argumentative and persuasive tone throughout her essay.