ADHD Websites

748 Words2 Pages

Rhetorical Analysis of the CDC Webpages for ADHD The CDC website is a government sponsored website that provides the public with details about various diseases and disorders. Specifically, it has a section on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which details everything from symptoms and diagnostics to managing ADHD in the educational environment. This section of the website is meant to give a sufficient amount of information for the general public looking into ADHD for the first time. The information is nowhere near a complete analysis of ADHD, but it sufficiently informs the reader. It also directs the reader to various other websites if they are in need of more information. The webpages contain many of the elements of pathos, logos, and ethos, which will be analyzed in the following paragraphs. The first thing that I will be addressing is the elements of pathos on the CDC website on ADHD. Pathos is the appeal to the readers emotional side. The website does this in many ways. One way that it appeals to the readers’ pathos is through the pictures that are presented on the website. One of these pictures is on the treatment page about ADHD. It depicts smiling parents with a child that is holding up a paper labeled with an “A+”. With many children dealing with ADHD, trouble in school is a major factor. This picture provides hope to the parents, caretakers, and teachers of a child with ADHD that educational success is indeed possible. Another picture offers something quite different, though. On the facts page of the website, there is a picture of a child messing around in class, clearly distracting the other children and not getting work done. This picture shows what untreated ADHD can be like in the educational setting. In on... ... middle of paper ... ...the reader realizes that he’s making these connections or not. ADHD is an all-consuming disease that dominates the lives of parents and children. Authoritative information is crucial to the diagnosis and treatment of this condition. There is no better example of the need for careful, hopeful presentation of facts and the underlying pathos, logos and ethos to convince browsers that they have encountered a site containing invaluable, inciteful information in a safe, diagnostic setting. The pathos uses imaging of both frustration and success to pull the browser into the logos element, factual information that pose solutions, all of which are tied neatly into an informational bow through the credibility of the site’s author. The raw emotions of the family’s search are taken through the author’s pathos, logos and ethos, leading to those transformative answers and hope.

More about ADHD Websites

Open Document