Video Games and Children
by Bernard Cesarone
http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/video.games.html

This article uses Logos very well because they use statistics to encourage the reader to draw conclusions. There’s no better way to present a logical argument than with pure, hard facts, and there’s no purer, harder facts than those with numbers involved. Numbers can’t be changed through words.

For example, in the section titled Video Game Use by Children, it says, “In 1967, the average sixth-grader watched 2.8 hours of television per day. Data from 1983 indicated that sixth-graders watched 4.7 hours of television per day, and spent some additional time playing video games” (Video Game Use By Children, Cesarone). In this way, the article uses numbers to show an increase in the problem and create a sense of urgency.

The article also uses ratios to create a sense of alarm. In the section titled, Effects of Other Characteristics of Video Games, it states that the covers of the 47 most popular Nintendo games showed 115 male characters and 9 female characters. In this way, the article shows that video games subliminally depict females as the lesser gender.

Logos is definitely the most dominant form of rhetoric used in this article. It is very effective, as numbers can’t be exaggerated without lying.