Jimmy Carter can definitely paint a picture with his words. He creates a mosaic of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that seemingly makes the park comparable to a wildlife paradise. The problem is that he relies too much on this picturesque scene. Instead of presenting facts as to why oil drilling in the refuge would be a bad idea, he spends the majority of his essay describing his visit to the refuge, which had occurred years before he wrote this forward. Carter relies too much on pathos and fails to present reliable logos arguments, thus making his forward on the refuge ineffective. Carter writes this forward to address proposals to open the refuge to oil drilling. Part of the problem is that he doesn’t confront the proposals until paragraph six. He spends the first four paragraphs discussing a trip that he and his wife took at least 10 years prior to the creation of the …show more content…
He states, “the Arctic Refuge might provide 1 to 2 percent of the oil our country consumes each day.” Carter’s use of “might” is a red flag because it signals that he isn’t entirely sure of that fact. Since he did not state where he got his statistic, the reader can’t completely trust it. He has no way of knowing exactly how much oil the refuge could provide; therefore, his statistic cannot be accepted. Carter then begins to lead the reader to start thinking about driving more fuel efficient cars. He guides the reader away from the original topic to make up for a lack of true evidence of harm that oil drilling could cause in the refuge. Carter has no reason to bring up more fuel efficient cars because it doesn’t respond to why we shouldn’t drill in the refuge. This weakens his argument because he strays away from his original topic. Carter tries to redeem himself from a lack of logos, but misleading the reader is not the way to take