Should Smoking be Banned?

Have you ever thought about what our nation has to say about smoking? Some people may think that smoking should be banned in public places; others would think that is pointless and would be violating their rights. Everyone may have a different opinion, here are a few articles with just that…

Source#1:http://www.buzzle.com/articles/should-smoking-be-banned-in-public-places.html

 Paragraph#1

            In Aastha Dogra’s article, “Should Smoking be Banned in Public Places,” she informs people such as smokers, non-smokers, and young adults about the pros and cons that can come about from smoking. Writing about the pros and cons about smoking Aastha used a ‘compare and contrast’ text structure because she wants to inform people what they are doing to their bodies whenever they smoke. She may have also used this text structure to support her viewpoint about how harmful smoking is and how it would be better if smoking was banned in public places immediately to take effect. She stated this herself and seemed to have had more facts against smoking in public places. Although, she does have conflicting evidence about her viewpoint; explaining how banning smoking in public places would be somewhat dreadful for the community’s/government’s funds. Aastha uses connotation words such as ‘encroaching’ instead of ‘taking away their rights’ and ‘irritability’ instead of ‘easily annoyed.’ She states that those may be symptoms from smokers or people around them. This source is fairly reliable, the author has information about herself and the article was written about a year ago. On the other hand, the website that the article is posted on may not be well known.

Source#2:http://www.helium.com/items/1345291-smoking-should-be-banned-in-all-public-places

Paragraph#2

           

            In the article, “Why smoking should be banned in all public places,” the author, Ted Sherman persuades people in our country that smoking should be banned in public places. Ted uses a text structure called ‘description’ because he describes his past experiences (background knowledge) and how bad smoking was to him. He also describes how smoking could harm other people just by second-hand smoking. Ted thinks of smoking as an addiction that could harm the smokers and or/people around them and should be banned in public places. He describes why smoking should be banned and what it could do to people such as diseases like emphysema and other lung problems caused by smoking. There is no conflicting evidence; he is for banning smoking in public places 100%. There is certainly a slant/bias, but instead of using words like disgusting or ‘too bad,’ he using words such as unpleasant or unfortunate, presenting his opinion in a mature polite way. I’d say that he used ethos to persuade readers because instead of a good outcome from smoking, he persuades his audience that only bad outcomes will occur. This is an acceptable source for the reason that the author has enough information about himself regarding his background information. This source was also recently updated; however, many people may not know that this website exists.

Source#3:http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMO0040-0-6671&artno=0000315394&types=ART

Paragraph#3

            In his article, “A Smoking Ban Too Far,” Michael B. Siegel persuades people such as opponents of smoking and probably the government, that outdoor smoking in New York should not be banned and that “antismoking organizations should focus more on extending workplace protections.” Michael thinks that banning outdoor smoking is pointless because people could get away from the smoker easily when they’re outside. He must have used a ‘cause and effect’ text structure to show what would happen when smokers smoke; people are more likely to stay away from them. By using cause and effect he describes what would happen if smoking was and wasn’t banned. Michael does use conflicting evidence in his article. He states, “Researchers at Stanford found that levels of tobacco smoke within three feet of a smoker outside are comparable to inside levels.” He talks about how opponents of smoking keep citing new research fighting with science on their side to ban smoking outdoors. In the article Michael has a neutral connotation with words like ‘pointless,’ ‘disease,’ and ‘significant.’ Instead he could have used words like stupid, infection, and small to show a stronger bias/slant. However, he does show a bias against banning smoking outdoors because he believes that banning smoking indoors is a much stronger/more important case than banning smoking outdoors (which is pointless to him). Out of the two other persuasive teqniques, Michael generally used logos because he uses other people’s statements for conflicting evidence and he would usually have something to say against their statements, sustaining his opinion on why smoking shouldn’t be banned outdoors. Overall this may be a moderately reliable source because the article was written recently (2011) and was reprinted by New York Times. The article is also on a reliable website that people may use to find research.