Essay Outline

Topic Proposal
Laughing Matters
Reasons presidents need to make fun of themselves
4 Questions
• What is the purpose of the argument? What does it hope to achieve?
• What appeals or techniques does the argument use - emotional, logical, and ethical?
• What shape does the argument take? How is the argument presented or arranged? What media does the argument use?
• What are the contexts - social, political, historical, cultural - for this argument? Whose interest does it serve? Who gains or loses by it?


The purpose of this argument is to show that the presidential nominees are not above and beyond everyone else. They want to see that the politicians have some kind of humor to them and want to see that they are also human and not superior to everyone else. In sense they are superior but that does not cross the voters mind if the candidates are making jokes. It has been proven that candidates need to enjoy some kind of humor to get elected. The argument hopes to achieve that the voters see there is at least a little humor in the candidate and not all the time serious.

The techniques used in this argument are both emotional and ethical. Some jokes can be emotional because when you laugh it is emotional. But sometimes when jokes are emotional they can be ethical and unethical. The jokes usually aren’t unethical because the script is practiced many times before it goes on air, therefore it does not hurt anyone’s feelings and cause the candidate to lose votes because of that.

This argument shows that candidates need to be on a comedy show in order to get elected. Not all of the presidents who got elected were on a comedy show but many of them were. It is shown in the text read and through past history and documentaries about the presidential elections. Many of the nominees have appeared on SNL, The Late Night Show, and several other comedy shows. By doing this, it shows that the nominees have a sense of humor and can relate to the audience. If they presidential candidates never relate with the audience then it will be hard for the voters to vote for them because they don’t know anything about them.

The contexts used in this argument are political, cultural, and historical. They are political because we are dealing with presidential nominees and that is what the political world revolves around. This is also cultural because the culture has changed drastically since the beginning of the elections and it shows because the candidates need to pretty much be in some sort of comedy before they are elected. Also it is historical because history shows that the presidents who appear in comedy shows are more likely to get elected and have gotten elected in many of the cases. It interest the people who have to vote because it gives them something to laugh about and relate, like a said above, to the nominee. The presidential candidates somewhat have something to gain but almost everything to lose. They can gain votes if they connect with the audience well enough and if they are humorous. But also they can lose everything because if they are offensive or not funny at all then they are not likely to get elected.