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Ayana Antoinette Reid

Mr. Dudley
English 112
Feb 1, 2016
Implicit Bias
Women all across the globe, have been looking for equal opportunities as men, since they
knew there could be such a thing. Education, health, employment, political power and more are
just a few things that are affected by something known as implicit bias. Implicit bias is defined as
the stereotypes or attitudes that affect our actions and understanding of topics unconsciously. Dr.
Jenna Carpenter, the founding dean of Engineering at Campbell University, has a deep passion
for the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) program and wants us as a society to
get involved by getting more girls engaged with STEM.
Dr. Jenna Carpenter, gives a Tedx speech on the issue and tells the audience why she feels
that there is a lack of girls aspiring to do something with STEM in the future. Dr. Jenna uses a
combination of emotional appeal and logical reasoning to persuade her audience that implicit
bias is a problem that society is facing and that society as a whole, women and men, need to take
action to stop it before it stops us from getting the inventions that we may need made.
AtIn the beginning of her speech, Dr. Jenna gives a scenario to her audience., Aof a little
girl in the second grade who may or may not be the person that can find and have a cure for
cancer. She goes on by saying that if in fact it is the girl who has the cure for cancer, odds are
that we will not find it. She states that it is because of the fact that by the time the girl goes into
junior high she will not be told that math and science is meant for boys. This is an emotional
appeal. She uses this scenario because she knows that almost everyone in her audience knows

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someone who has cancer or someone who survived it. This draws her audience closer to her
speech and catches their attention because they know that cancer is a disease that everyone is
aware of. Another emotional appeal that she used when saying this first sentence was that there
maybey not be a cure for the disease if we dont reach out to the little girl and help her to pursue
a career in STEM. This catches the audience's attention because not being able to find a cure for
the disease scares most people and persuades them to take more action. She wants us to ask:
Why wouldnt they want to take action if someone they know is diagnosed with the disease? Or
why wouldnt they want to take action if they may need the cure for themselves or family one
day? This scares the audience into thinking that they may really need this little girl who may or
may not have the cure for cancer and help her so that she can help them in the future.
She goes on in her speech using logical reasoning to persuade her audience to take action
and to get girls involved in STEM. After her giving her scenario of the little girl she gives
reasoning to why the girl may not be able to achieve a dream in STEM, and why she may lose
interest. She gives out a lot of facts that make it seem as if there are not many girls being
supported in the STEM programs. She says the word research a lot and shares a lt of research
She shares a fact that 50% of advanced placement calculus students are women, but that only
17% of students go on to become engineering majors. Sshe also says that this number and the
data hasnt changed in 20 years. When she gives out this information it makes her look as if she
has done her research, and that she knows a lot about the subject, so the audience may think that
she is a credible source. But when she gave out the information she never cited orally where she
got her information from, it could have been a biased site, an unscholarly article, or another form
of a non-credible source. She may have had the information but if it is not credible she may not
want to share it. If it was credible it would be great to hear that in her speech instead of

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research throughout the speech. This shows that she used logical reasoning effectively enough
to persuade her audience to take action, but it may have been false information that she used to
do so.
The language and tone that Dr. Jenna Carpenter used also helped with her persuading her
audience that they should take action to engage young girls to take STEM programs and to
pursue a career in it. Her language was formal but was appropriate for her audience. Her
toneusing formal helped in showcasing a good education for women and showed her audience
that women can be successful. If she used informal language and was talking about women being
able to do great things with education and medicine, she would look less credible and people
wouldnt want to engage in her speech as much as they would have with the formal language.
The tone of the speech was very logical. She used a lot of data and research information that
supported her claim of implicit bias and how it can affect us to get what we need. She did not use
a lot of humor in her speech because she wanted her audience to know that what she was talking
about was very serious and that it wasnt a joking matter.
Dr. Jenna Carpenter uses a lot of emotional appeal and logical reasoning to persuade her
audience that implicit bias in America needs to be stopped and that we as a society we should
and can do better at engaging girls at a young age to enjoy STEM programs. Dr. Jenna
Carpenters use of emotional appeal and logical reasoning is effective in persuading her audience
to take action, even if all of the research data that she shared may or may not have been true.

Ayana,
This is a really clear and strong analysis. You do a great job of describing the video, so that we
can really picture it. You break down implicit bias and the rhetorical tools Dr. Carpenter uses to

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convince us. I would look up her stats instead of speculating, and also- does she use visuals, or is
it purely a speech? How is she dressed? Who would see this video, and who wouldnt normally?
All-in-all, this was a strong analysis. Good job,
~ Benjamin T.
96
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Dont forget a works cited page.