Should Cell Phones Be Allowed in School Research Paper

The article this paper is about is called “Campus Safety Must Be Considered if Cell Phones Are Allowed in Schools” written by Roman Espejo. His intended audience for this article is the educational system and people who are attending school. All through the article, his main argument is that cell phones should be banned during school to make it a safer place. Roman Espejo uses persuading techniques repeatedly to convince readers that schools are no place for cell phones. 

The author uses logos right away to argue how cell phones used from “a day-to-day" basis “are disruptive to the educational environment” (Espejo). Espejo makes a logical point by pointing out how cell phones can cause distractions and can lead to cheating. Later in the article, he goes back to the logical appeal. He argues that “Ringing cell phones” can disrupt classes and “distract students who should be paying attention to their lesson at hand” (Espejo). This is another exhibit of logos appeal because he talks about the basic distractions cell phones cause. He also points out how text messaging and cameras have been used for “cheating” (Espejo). He expounds on why text messages are a problem in schools saying they can “create more anxiety and panic” from rumors (Espejo). He also explains how cameras are “used to take photos of exams” (Espejo). The examples of a cell phone camera and text messaging are more logical pieces of evidence for the audience to side with his opinion because these can be witnessed at all levels of education. Due to his intended audience being in the educational system, they have firsthand experiences with these issues. These examples remind the readers of how often they occur and why phones should be banned to prevent these situations from happening. 

After appealing to the audience through logos, he uses pathos. He attempts to connect with the readers feelings by writing about how cell phones can decrease safety in a tragedy. This connects with the audience’s emotions because everyone feels sad and afraid when tragedies happen. He continues talking about tragedies on how the “use of cell phones by students during a bomb threat” increases the “risk for potentially detonating the device” (Espejo). This attaches to the readers memory because it causes a feeling of being unsafe. Espejo then goes into deeper detail saying “it is highly probable that hundreds (if not thousands)” of students will rush to use their phones in a “crisis” causing the system to crash. This emphasizes the negative feeling in this situation. The authors also tries to incorporate another emotion by writing “Cell phone use also accelerates the unintentional (and potentially intentional) spread of misinformation, rumors, and fear” (Espejo). This final example appeals to the readers emotion because the author makes the audience feel a sense of fear. The use of pathos in these quotes persuade the reader because it describes situations where they feel heavy emotion. 

He uses ethos as another persuasion technique in his article. His first example of ethos is late in his article. He mentions Ken Trump, President of National School Safety and Security Services, list of advice for schools. One of the pieces of advice from Ken Trump is to “Anticipate” issues and have plans to “counter it” (Espejo). A second piece of advice from Ken Trump’s advice list is to have multiple forms of communication: “Web site, direct communications to students and staff, mass parent notifications, letters to go home, etc” (Espejo). A third piece of advice from Ken Trump is to “Discuss some potential scenarios” with the faculty to have plans when situations may arise (Espejo). The mention of Ken Trump and his pieces of advice appeal to the reader through ethos because he included a specialist in school safety, which shows his credibility to the audience. 

In his final attempt to persuade his audience, he uses kairos. Roman Espejo use kairos by taking advantage of how current this issue is in today’s world. When this was published, in 2014, Apple and Samsung phones were on the rise of popularity. With phone usage on the rise, every school had to develop extensive policies for cell phones in classrooms. This use of kairos helped him reach more of the educational system because he posted his article when this issue was an upcoming problem. 

The author used multiple persuasion techniques to convey his opinion about cell phones in schools to his audience. The appeals of logos and pathos were effective, but could have been more persuasive by using specific incidents of the problems. For example, he could have wrote more thorough illustrations about how they cause distractions. The third technique, ethos, was used really effectively because he used a credible source who was the president of school safety. His last technique, kairos, was also highly effective because he wrote his article during the upcoming of cell phones. The way he used logos, pathos, ethos, and kairos made it persuasive and easy to understand his viewpoints.