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Vanessa Camacho

Writing 2010

Professor Rogers

February 6th, 2018

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

numbers to support her claim she makes in the paragraph.

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
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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

bring credibility into her article.

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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

to appeal to reader by emotion, statistical numbers, and higher authority; credibility.