According to Selzer, a good rhetorical analysis analyzes an author’s work by reflecting on the time period, audience, and of course, the author’s opinion or goal. When doing a rhetorical analysis, one must consider the connotations of the author’s words and the emotional charges that this author is trying to invoke in the reader. Selzer discusses three types of rhetoric in which the reader must look at when analyzing a work: forensic, deliberative, and epideictic. A forensic rhetoric concerns past actions and are usually affiliated with “characteristics of a courtroom” (Selzer 283). A deliberative rhetoric concerns issues of the present and discusses an opinion on something that society must do in the future. An epideictic rhetoric concerns the present moment and it is supposed to enforce community values.

Selzer includes “An Open Letter to Bill Bennett” by Milton Friedman in his discussion about rhetorical analyzes. Milton Friedman was an economist who also received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. As a result, Friedman was already considered a reliable source, to have ethos. Throughout “An Open Letter to Bill Bennett”, Friedman discusses his opinions on decriminalizing the use of drugs in the United States. This is a form of deliberative rhetoric because is discusses an opinion that Friedman has that he believed society should accept. Because of this, he uses strong language and facts to try to persuade the reader to take his side in the matter. He uses excerpts from his past work “Prohibition and Drugs” (1972) to back up his credibility and to reveal to the reader just how informed he is on the topic of drugs. Friedman’s argument is that drugs should be decriminalized. In order to back up this statement, he uses intellectual reasoning. In a analysis, one would call this reasoning logos. Friedman uses logos and suggests that drugs would be safer if they were decriminalized. Cocaine is a hard drug to obtain and is very expensive. Due to this, many people resort to using “crack”, a more dangerous yet cheaper form of cocaine. Friedman suggests that “crack” would not had been invented if drugs had been decriminalized years ago. Friedman invokes a particular pathos when he addresses the drug epidemic in America. Pathos triggers an emotional response in the reader. To do this, Friedman uses strong words to appeal to the particular audience. Because Friedman was an economist, he uses words like “monopolizes” to appeal to a business focused audience. Along with this emotional trigger, he uses strong language like “suffering”, “innocent victims”, “obscene”, and “tragedy” when describing the “drug war” to create an argument that triggers a response (Selzer 306-307). These words get the readers attention and create an environment for them in which they want to believe Friedman and agree with that he is saying. These words are purposely put in the work in order to gain the support of the reader. In addition to pathos, Friedman does a little forecasting, or narratio, in order to describe what he believes will happen in the future unless drugs are decriminalized. His last sentence says, “a country in which shooting down unidentified planes “on suspicion” can be seriously considered as a drug-war tactic is not the kind of the United States that either you and I want to hand on to future generations” (Selzer 307). This conclusion, or peroration, was written to finally reel the reader in and sell them on what Friedman believes. It is very persuasive because it uses problems in the world today and says that these problems will not stop unless something is done.

When analyzing a text, one has to look at the goal the author is trying to achieve. The reader must take into consideration words and emotional triggers the author writes in order understand the goal of the writing. In this case, Friedman is trying to get Americans to look at the issues of drugs in a new way. He uses persuasive words and factual evidence to back up what he believes and why. Friedman appeals to his audience by using words and ideas that they are used to in order to achieve support from them. His stance is very clear and well written in a way that persuades the reader to believe that drugs should be decriminalized.