TA - Hmmm, what to apply in a technical manner?

(Even though this experience might better fall under Rhetorical Analysis, I did not know what else to use as a purely technical element.)

This week we discussed a lot about enthymemes and Reader Rights, and we covered STAR on Friday. In discussing STAR (Sufficient, Typical, Accurate, and Relevant) as a response to the "Why?" question, Sis. Esplin/Nicole read us a story of her own creation detailing the account of Gold's Gym's attempt to recruit her into their ranks. I started thinking a bit about how Boy Band's persuasion and reasons for joining Gold's Gym aligned with STAR - granted, Boy Band was speaking and not writing, but the application of STAR was still interesting.

Boy Band didn't have enough Stuff in his argument to persuade the protagonist of the story to enlist into the gym's membership. He had a number of different reasons that might have been supportive of his argument if applied to a different audience, but Nicole was not one to be moved by the high quality of the weight machines or the incredible ab workout that she could receive on a daily basis. Basically, the reasons that were supporting Boy Band's argument were shallow and few.

The reasoning was certainly Typical (as we know, exercise will help you to look and feel better), but his sources were certainly not the most Accurate sources one could hope for. Gym salespeople are usually given information about the gym by the gym itself (perhaps an instance of a source citing itself), and all the information about the gym that Boy Band used was certainly of a biased nature. As to primary or secondary sources, my guess would be that Boy Band used primary sources - after all, he was working for Gold's Gym, and Gold's Gym supplied him with the information he was using to pitch their gym. His information was also Relevant to the argument at hand (Join Gold's Gym!), at least as far as I know about the discussion. There was a passage of time, however, in which Nicole zoned out during some of his explanations; at that point Boy Band certainly could have been blowing a lot of hot air and exploring different tangents.

As a whole, Boy Band hit around half of the points in STAR. We'll never know how he would have done if he put his argument down on paper, but chances are he would have fared poorer in that attempt. We can only hope.