Rodriguez 1

Melanie Rodriguez

Professor Kylee Pastore

Marshak 417N

13 December 2022

 Rhetorical Analysis Essay

       The author of this piece is David Papineau. I’d say he is credible as he is featured in many big article outlets, like the new york times, and has many published books that are well performing. David Papineau is known to be a philosopher. The author’s audience seems to be mainly targeted towards the general public as well as sport fans as the topic seems to be targeted towards them. An example can be, “Sports in particular provide ample demonstration that actions that are acceptable in one context can be seen objectionable in another.” The quote itself doesn’t tell us specifically who it’s targeted to but it remains to be one one of the biggest clues given to us on what the paper will mention throughout.

      The tone presented to us is a sarcastic yet compelling tone. I say this because throughout the article he’s using those tones in which I listed to convince and inform us on the actions the players did and why. In the article the author writes, “A player throws himself to the ground and writhes around in mock agony, grabbing a body part(an ankle, a knee) that has been offended by an instance of pretend contact. All the while he is sneakily peeking at the referee to see if he has duped him into awarding a penalty, or even better into ejecting an opponent from the game.” The quote itself shows the author makes sarcastic comments while using a compelling tone to tell us what’s happening.

    Rodriguez 2

       The purpose of this piece was to inform us readers about the realities of actions being made  by sport players and the downsides to it. The author does this by explaining their fake tactics. 

The genre of this piece can be educational as Papineau is educating us on what is happening and why actions like that are being made. Moving on, overall the medium being used is online publishing onto an online article, I suppose there’s no other medium being used.

         The author’s stance can be neutral but leaning more to negative as he downplays athletes and talks down on their actions while informing us. The author writes, “Athletes who use tricks that they know their opponents will shun are simply trading on trust to take advantage.” Papineai basically summed up what he believed in by telling us his point of view while judging athletes actions. 

Works cited