Lindsay Apedaile
Ms. Brown
English 1020
2 November 2015
4.1
Ravisankar begins his essay by describing consumers and their want for low prices then describes sweatshops and their conditions. The problem he identifies is consumers demand lower prices to do this, corporations cut the cost on their employees either decreasing their wages or worsening their working conditions. Ravisankar assumes his readers are poor college students looking for lower prices and have a basic understanding of what a sweatshop is but does not fully know the appalling conditions of sweatshops. His purpose in this essay is to raise awareness of the degrading environment of sweatshops. In order to accomplish this purpose, he appeals mainly to pathos an appeal to emotions by mentioning how bad sweatshop working conditions are and its consumer’s. He also appeals to logos when he writes that people should have equal rights as others like pay. In this essay, Ravisankar addresses the main argument against his thesis the idea that the big companies like Nike, Reebox, and Gap are to blame for decreasing conditions in sweatshops. He refutes this argument by saying these companies are taking apart of “the race to the bottom” the pressure for low costs. Finally, he concludes by making the point that universities purchase around $3 billion in clothing with the universities name on it. This puts pressure on the companies to provide living wages and reasonable working. Overall, the argument Ravisankar makes is ineffective although he does an excellent job bringing up the topic and shine a light on it he does not have enough facts or evidence about working conditions. He also only shows one way that improve working conditions and this is not even a way an individual can help.