Steve Jobs Commencement Speech Analysis

Looking for Steve Jobs commencement speech analysis? Want to understand how Jobs uses ethos, logos, pathos, and figurative language? Take a look at Steve Jobs Stanford speech analysis below.

Introduction

Is it necessary to follow passions or reasons while choosing a career? What effects can losses and failures have on a person’s life? In spite of the complex character and deep ethical, philosophical, and psychological meanings hidden in these questions, they are answered completely in Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005.

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, Inc., is known as one of the world-famous and successful entrepreneurs whose unique approaches to business and marketing provoked the great public’s interest. That is why Jobs’ speech on the importance of finding an interesting and loved job drew the attention and gained the recognition of the graduates during the Commencement Day at Stanford University in 2005.

Steve Jobs Stanford Speech Analysis

The goal of Steve Jobs’ speech is to persuade the graduates to find jobs that they can truly love because of their passion for definite activities. Thus, Jobs is successful in achieving his goal because of his exclusive approach to structuring the speech and to blending the rhetoric appeals in order to discuss well-known concepts and ideas of love, loss, and death in a unique form; that is why it is appropriate to examine Jobs’ manipulation of methods of persuasion in detail.

In his speech, Jobs demonstrates the virtuous use of rhetoric appeals in the development and presentation of one of the most persuasive commencement speeches in order to draw the student’s attention to the significant questions which can contribute to changing a person’s life.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech: Rhetorical Appeals

The strategies used in developing the structure of the speech and the rhetorical strategies are closely connected. Jobs’ speech can be divided into five parts which are the introductory part to evoke the graduates’ interest regarding the topic discussed, the three life anecdotes, and the concluding part, which restates and supports the author’s arguments presented in the main part of the speech.

It is important to note that each of the three stories told by Jobs is also developed according to the definite structure pattern where the first sentences of the stories can be referred to the pathos, the personal experience can be discussed with references to the ethos, and the final parts of the stories are organized as the logical conclusions, using the logos.

The first reference to ethos is observed in the introductory part when Jobs states, “I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation” (Jobs).

The uniqueness of Jobs’ approach is in the use of the reverse variant of the ethos as the rhetorical appeal because Jobs has no credibility to discuss the importance of university education, but he has the credibility to discuss the points necessary for professional success because of stating his position as the co-founder of Apple, Inc., NeXT, and Pixar.

The next three stories presented in the speech are used to develop Jobs’ argument about the necessity of doing what a person loves and the importance of finding these things and activities. This argument is developed with references to the concluding or logical parts of the author’s stories which are also highly emotional in their character. Steve Jobs uses pathos in the first sentences while telling his stories.

Thus, the discussion of the details of the child adoption in the first story, the reflection on the happiness of building the first company, and the mentioning of the main question in life, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”, contribute to the audience’s emotional reaction because of describing the author’s own feelings and emotions (Jobs).

The credibility of Jobs’ considerations depends on the presentation of his own personal and life background and experiences to support his ideas. The use of pathos in the speech is observed when the author concludes with the results of his experience: “If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do” (Jobs).

Discussing the near death experience, the author uses the sentence “About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer,” which combines the ethos and pathos strategies (Jobs). Thus, Jobs can use more than one rhetorical appeal in a sentence.

Nevertheless, Jobs’ goal is to persuade the graduates to act and find the things that they love to do, and the focus on logos is observed in the stories’ concluding sentences when Jobs provides the logical argument: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work” (Jobs). These concluding remarks are based on the logical rethinking of the evidence and facts presented as examples from the author’s experience.

The repetition of such phrases as “Don’t settle” and the final phrase, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish,” contributes to drawing the audience’s interest in the presented facts and ideas (Jobs). The effectiveness of using rhetorical appeals depends on the author’s style and his use of repetitive structures and imperative sentences, which sound persuasive.

Conclusion

In his speech, Steve Jobs achieves the main goals of the speech by focusing on ethos, logos, and pathos and by using the author’s unique style. Jobs presents his developed vision of his career and passions in life with references to the ideas of love and death and supports considerations with autobiographical facts.

Works Cited

Jobs, Steve.‘You’ve Got to Find What You Love,’ Jobs Says: Text of the Address. 2005. Web.