Monroy 1

Hector Monroy

English 113B

Professor Lawson

12 May 2017

Rhetorical Analysis

Guess Who Else IS Reading Those Facebook Entries? Rhetorical Analysis

1. The author of Guess Who Else IS Reading Those Facebook Entries? is Eddie R. Cole Jr.

His purpose is to make students aware that what they post on Facebook or social media in

general is not just on their friends and family eyes to see, but for the entire world which

includes future employers and authority figures. The Before Reading section in the

beginning of this piece states that, Cole examines the effects that Facebook and

MySpace are having on students employment opportunities(Cole 166).

2. This paper was written for the students of Tennessee State University because Cole is the

editor-in-chief at the Tennessee State University student newspaper, The Meter(pg. 166) He

wrote this to make students aware of what they post on their social media, in order to get a job

in the future. He responded and gave all of the students who thought what they post on their

Facebook or MySpace was private and that it would not be seen by people other than the ones

that follow them.

3. It is pretty obvious that Cole is against employers or unwanted authority figures looking at

students social media to get an idea of who they are outside of their resume. As Cole states in

his thesis, unbeknownst to most of them, employers are using Facebook entries as a view into

job applicants characters, a trend that increasingly worries college administration(pg 167).
 This statement proves that he is against it because he is apart of the college administration. He

then backs up this by providing a a understanding of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

which Coles says, employers are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color,

religion, sex or national origin(pg. 168)

I found this piece of Eddie R. Cole Jr. to be very persuasive since he has many people

who he quotes in his writing that sates why it is not a good thing that employers can judge a

student based on their post and background information on social media. Cole also provided

counterclaims to ensure that people who disagree with him have some sense of

acknowledgement in his writing. Such as the quote he quoted of Rodriquous Rhodes, that

basically says that employers have some sort of right to see it since what you post, since people

post with a sense that others will see what they post on the internet. He then provides examples

of others which state that students should continue to embrace new technology, but must be

careful(Cole 168). He then later adds that wha you post on Facebook doesn't only risk only

future employment but, even in school, however, Facebook entries can lead to trouble(Cole

169) This backs him up by showing if you aren't careful about what you post it can hurt you

because someone is always watching. This essay is very well structured and easy to follow and it

can help me out in my essay because it showed me that in order to be persuasive I must include

claims to support my ideas and counterclaims against it.

 Work Cited

Cole, Eddie R. Jr. Guess Who Else IS Reading Those Facebook Entries? Pop Perspectives:

Readings to Critique Contemporary Culture. Ed. Laura Gray-Rosedale. San Fransisco: McGraw-

Hill, 2008