The Hook: The hook is immediately noticeable as the speaker, Kolbert, talks about a subject that is highly controversial and peaks people’s attention. It’s an issue that’s contradictory to the country it’s being discussed in and will definitely spark interest. Kolbert’s first sentence being “What’s the Supreme Court going to do about abortion?” Kolbert introduces it in 3 different questions, and she ask those questions in the perspective of most people in the United States in a first-person view.
Research: The research conducted by Kolbert incudes another court case in which itnertwins with her original topic, that being, “Planned Parenthood vs Casey.” Which is credited to assistance with Roe Vs Wade. She not only uses history but she uses this history and shows her knowledge to provide the cherry on top when she says that she spent 20 years in her career arguing for women’s rights. She went further into detail later in the discussion regarding Casey’s case and describing what happened with the people that were involved and the after affects. She demonstrates that she is talking about history, right after she talks about the short-term after affects, she goes straight into the present with “What about now?”
Narrative: Kolbert includes a variety of ways to include narrative, she first talks about lightly on how people would question her as she has studied about women’s rights for the better part of 20 years. Then she dives into the rebuttal, to describe the counter argument and why people mention it. It’s a narrative because she is mixing their ideas in a narrative lightly. Then she heavily goes into narrative on the potential and likely aftermath of the turning over of Roe Vs Wade, talking about how women have to travel the country to receive abortion or women going to black markets obtaining one.
Structure: She structures by putting 3 questions as her hook, especially on a highly debated topic. She then describes the situation, so everyone is on the same level of thinking. Then for the rest of her essay she brings in history, short-term ramifications due to what happened in throughout history regarding abortion, then she pulls it in to modern day, she does this repeatedly and even bringing in the other people’s perspective that counteracts hers and brings history and modern day to that. After the modern-day context in which she describes how history has affected us, but she is describing what is going on modern day and how we can change the outcome. She brings up court cases in the past to find out why decisions are being made today and how the outcome to those decisions can change, calling for action.
Length: This Ted-Talk is ~17 minutes long
Audience: The intended audience is very clear and is in the audience in a large population. The audience is women, they are getting affected the most as the turnover will prevent a choice they can make in regard to their own body.
Emulate: To emulate this will prove to be easy, she mixes history, cause and effect, modern day together. Since my research question is also political it will be easy enough.
OK — lots of good analysis. You chose an excellent TED talk to analyze.
I would add a few things:
Kolbert hooks her audience in by asking a question that gets a “gasp” from the audience; it sort of shocks the audience. The question is posed as something that people cannot believe will happen — The Supreme Court won’t really do it (turn over Roe v. Wade) and of course she says this will happen and we now know it DID happen!
Excellent that you noticed her strong use of counterargument and breaking down the opposite perspective point by point (how people argue that abortion is wrong). She ends the counterargument by framing the way she sees her opponents. The real aim is the “control of women” which again is a shocking statement.
SO Kolbert uses very strong language and she presents herself in the talk as a very forceful confident speaker. Indeed she identifies herself in the beginning as a person who has a lot of experience as a lawyer fighting for reproductive rights. And here you can see she is using rhetorical mode of ETHOS. You can believe her because she is experienced and has expertise on this topic.
After showing how bad the situation with abortion rights is, she then pivots to present a hopeful message at the end and gives strategies to fight back.
Can you be more clear on her message? I think she is urging her audience to get political, to take action, to fight for social justice, to make coalitions with other groups. Her audience, is NOT just women, but it is anyone who is progressive and who wants to fight for abortion rights.