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  • Essay / Analysis of Rhetorical Techniques in Steve Jobs' Stanford Graduation Speech

    Steve Jobs, one of the most well-known business leaders and the mastermind behind the majority of technologies we use today, was invited to the university's graduation ceremony. from Stanford. For many who don't recognize him, he was CEO and co-founder of Pixar, NeXT and Apple. Steve Jobs not only invented the best phones in the world, but he also thinks differently from everyone else. Sadly, he died of pancreatic cancer. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay On June 12, 2005, Steve Jobs gave the speech “How to Live Before You Die” to inspire and encourage students to pursue their dream without anyone passing by. Using three different stories, he goes back in time, showing how difficult life can be and how to turn setbacks into motivation. Unlike any other speaker, Steve Jobs masterfully applies many rhetorical devices, including visual simplicity, lawyering, and tons of rhetorical techniques. Throughout his speech, he successfully uses logos, ethos, and pathos to inspire students to follow their hearts and continue to fight for what they love to do. Steve Jobs knows that the audience he is addressing is a group of talented and exploring students, and most of them are always eager to discover what suits them best. As a result, Jobs mentioned several stories about his ups and downs and how he manages to outperform others by believing in himself. At this stage, everyone thinks about the failures and disappointments in their life, hoping not to mess up in the future. Yet Steve Jobs doesn't just support his audience with strong words, he actually brings the whole unit together and shows them that they always look up and have faith no matter how hard life can be . At the beginning of the speech, Steve Jobs begins with the phrase “I am honored to be with you today as you enter one of the best universities in the world” (Jobs). Then he says, “I never got a college degree. Truth be told, it’s the closest I’ve ever come to a college degree” (Jobs). From these two sentences, it can be seen that Steve Jobs is trying to use pathos to show his modesty. Therefore, this allows him and the audience to feel connected for the rest of the speech. In fact, Jobs also tries to persuade his audience to follow their passion even if things don't go as planned. After the introduction, Steve Jobs began to tell the three stories of his life. Each of them consists of simple and concise statements. The goal is to make it easier for its audience to understand and grasp the gist of the story. In these circumstances, Jobs uses triads effectively in many of his sentences. In fact, the idea was characterized when he said, "My biological mother was a young, unmarried college student, and she decided to put me up for adoption." We can see that Jobs is already talking about his devastating childhood. The first story Steve Jobs calls "Connecting the Dots" explains the adoption process he went through when he was younger. Steve Jobs explains how his biological mother wants him to be adopted by college-educated parents. He continually convinced his mother that he would indeed go to college and graduate. However, he decided to drop out and take a calligraphy course which helped him incorporate the first Mac he ever created. After explaining his.