Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Vanessa Camacho
Writing 2010
Professor Rogers
No Girls Allowed
There are many english devices which help people understand the different media
context. These Rhetorical devices help break down the purpose of the article, which leads to
understanding how the author incorporated such devices. The Greek philosopher Aristotle,
contributed in understanding different types of medias valid main idea with Logos, Ethos and
Pathos. Logos: the appeal to reason and logic; Ethos: the appeal to higher authority or credibility;
lastly Pathos: the appeal to emotions. In “No Girls Allowed” by Tracey Lien, She applies these
three rhetorical devices to make her point clear to the reader throughout her article. She relies on
these rhetorical
devices to convince the reader of her main idea. With this being said, Lien makes her article
about gendering video games throughout time following the stereotypes culture has made. Not
only this but how it impacted the video game world; for the better and for the worse. Throughout
this article Lien utilizes ethos to capture the reader's emotions through the stereotype, Pathos
while she gives credibility to people with higher positions, and logic when she uses statistical
Lein used pathos throughout the article by expressing the girls emotions and having the
reader feel the inequality of the stereotypes the young girl feels. For example : “ Would it be fair
for all the girls to buy princesses and the boys to by superheroes?” she say, smacking her right
Camacho 2
hand to her head in exasperation” (Lein). With this the quote shows that Lein attempted to appeal
to the readers emotion using the little girl's emotions. By using the girls emotion she can appeal
to the reader's emotion by understanding her point. Following this Lein continues to talk about
the video games and how they are mainly made for boys “ If Cultural stereotypes are anything to
go by, video games are for males.”(Lein). This follows the technique of pathos, Lein brings up a
stereotype which may cause the reader to have mixed feeling; the author is able to appeal to the
readers emotion.
The second appeal towards her point in this article is shown by ethos. The author uses an
organization that has higher authority “ Nintendo is largely credited with reviving the game
industry with the launch of its Nintendo entertainment System..” ( Lein). The author incorporated
Nintendo as a higher authority to give more credibility to her article. With this, she has also
mentioned “ Ian Bogost at the Georgia Institute of Technology as well as game designer and
author of Persuasive Games…”(Lein). Having someone who has credibility related to this article
helps the readers understand and see that her arguments/ points are valid. Having mentioned
these higher authorities will help her gain readers who understand and see the validity in her
article. With this being said near the end of this article the author mentions how gameboy started
becoming popular among the young boys and how nintendo targeted younger boys under 10. “
‘If you look at super NES five years later, it starts targeting boys ages 10-15,’says JesseDivinch,
vice president of insights and analysis for Electronic entertainment Design and Research
(EEDAR).”(Lein). This continues to demonstrate that Lein uses people with higher authority to
As mentioned previously logos is the appeal to logic and/or reasoning. Throughout the
article Lein then starts to mention the downfall of the video game world. With this she uses logic
to show numbers of this data “ the revenues for video games in the U.S sat at $3.2 billion in
1987.”(Lein). Lein is able to use appeal to the reader's’ knowledge of reasoning by using
statistical numbers in order to support her claim being made. Further into the article Lein applies
logic in by writing “In 2012, the three categories combined were responsible for 58.8 percent of
video game sales in North America.”(Lein). Here Lein appeals to the readers by showing the
percentage of that year dealing with the most popular games, this supports her statistical claim
being made.
Overall, Rhetorical devices used in english help convey the authors’ main point and
appeal to the readers in order for them to comprehend the article. With this being said logos ,
Ethos and Pathos were used by Lein in her article No Girls Allowed, by using them she manages