Integration/Admission

After reading Martin Luther King Jr.'s "A Letter from Birgmingham Jail", one can't help but notice the elements of ethos, logos, and pathos that pervade the persuasive document. King establishes ethos fairly early on in describing the similaritities of his profession to those of his audience. His work as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference coincides with the clergymen to whom the letter is addressed, in sharing the gospel. His personal experiences in explaining segregation and the way of the world during those times to his children creates a sense of ethos as well as the vivid descriptions of brutalities committed against "Negroes" in the South, using phrases like "bombings of Negro homes". His logos shines through when he is persuading clergymen to sympathize with his act of breaking the law, when he juxtaposes just laws with moral fortitude that uphold "sameness" and those laws that unjustly "differentiate" citizens. After seeing these three constructs of persuasiveness exemplified in King's letter, I went on the hunt to find the use of such tools in my field of Health Science.
My quest ended at the PT graduate school webpage for the Medical University of South Carolina. With students essentially paying for 3 more years of schooling, MUSC must sell itself in order to win the best students from not only South Carolina, but surrounding states as well. MUSC also uses elements of pathos, logos, and ethos to entice students to enroll there and bring them more money. Ethos is established in the school's statement of accredibility from nationally recognized Association of Accredidation in Physical Therapy Education. Also, it posts the prestigious careers of its very own educators to give off the sense that students will be receiving the highest education. Ethos is implemented by having alumni give detailed accounts of how nice the staff/facutly was and how their goal is to take care of you and guide to on to your profession. Logos was a little tough to find, but I saw it in the statistics given for the field of physical therapy in how much they make per year and how with the increasing number of older folks, the field physical therapy is a logical choice that will experience no job shortage in the near future.