Introduction
Today we are constantly surrounded by information through the media, the radio, billboards, and advertisements, and the need for critical thinking skills could not be stressed enough. Through these resources, persuasive techniques are used to convince us to share others beliefs and values, and to adopt their way of thinking. We need to develop and apply critical thinking skills in order to know what to believe when it comes to analyzing information and how to determine the relevance and importance of arguments and ideas. The need for these skills will be demonstrated through two examples, a television advertisement “Nutrisystem Fast 5 Nationwide Launch” featuring Marie Osmond and the following website www.WebMD.com
Part one Advertisement
When it comes to advertisements, most people don’t …show more content…
In the television advertisement “Nutrisystem Fast 5 TV commercial Nationwide Launch” featuring Marie Osmond, Osmond discusses the struggles she faced with her weight and how nutrisystem fast 5 helped her lose weight using their diet plan. What a majority of people take from this advertisement is that nutrisystem fast 5 will make you lose weight guaranteed. This is a result of a persuasive technique called weasel phrase, an informal phrase aimed at creating an impression that a specific and/or meaningful statement has been made, when only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. The weasel phrases applied in this advertisement are “Nutrisystem helped me get my life back and lose weight” and “you could lose weight fast”. They are used to suggest a positive meaning without guaranteeing any results. After hearing these phrases we infer that using their diet plan we will lose weight just the way Osmond lost her weight and that it’s guaranteed we will lose weight fast, ignoring the words “helped” and “could”. It’s important we pay attention to the words and phrases being used to persuade us in determining whether are not we will be