Rhetorical Analysis The Ambassador Bridge

Introduction
This article features “The Ambassador Bridge” the busiest international crossing in commercial traffic in North America handling a vast number of vehicles annually. The author talks of its expansion due to the increased traffic in the United States resulted from the failure of the engineers of that time not considering the capacity of the bridge to handle an increasing population rate and its demand and supply of commodities, from people living in its environs to the improved means of transport as compared to the day of its making and how the government’s General Services Administration planned new customs facility to enhance adequate parking and storing of the large commercial trucks, the provision of offices for the customs clearing agents. Due to the site demolitions.
The author writes about the strategy of rhetorical writing are used by the writer to persuade and convince his audience that veteran writers use rhetorical strategies such as narration, process, description, definition, and division classification, compare and contrast, cause and effect, and explication. These help writers to become more flexible, creative, and effective. Writers use rhetorical appeals such as Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Audiences can change their perspective through them. Logos that use through facts, cases, studies, and statistics express rational or appeal. Pathos expresses emotion such as fear, envy, patriotism, empathy, or inspiration, etc. Ethos expresses ethical appeals such as character, personality, and position of the speaker.

Rhetorical situations
The author Jay B. Shah discusses in his article, “Innovative Design/Build Approach: Ambassador Bridge Project” about learning traffic problem, solution, and function of the bridge. Shah said that the Ambassador Bridge was built on regarding the volume of traffic in modern society by the Journal of Management in Engineering in July/August 1996. Besides, engineers and businessmen can find this article beneficial. The authors want to show and explain between two private firms about their goal that is about expanding and upgrading the Ambassador Bridge. To reduce the Ambassador Bridge’s traffic problem, a corporation, the Detroit International Bridge Co. (DIBC), which privately owns the bridge, a civil and transportation firm, signed a contract with Spalding, DeDecker & Associates, Inc. (SDA), to construct a truck-exit ramp. DIBC first proposed many clauses in the contract, and some of them were impractical. Finally, SDA received the deal and constructing the ramp on time. However, it had despite the requirements and risks. It was expanded the second and third phases. After reading this article, the audiences will learn and understand the process in which the design professional and the bridge owner work on the provision in the contract. This article has three categories that are the rhetorical strategy of definitions, the rhetorical strategy of appeals, and the rhetorical strategy of description.

Analysis
Rhetorical Strategy of Definitions
The author appears to audiences through using the rhetorical strategy of definitions because it includes formatting, heading, visuals, and font style, etc. the author has improved the author’s clarification by the rhetorical strategy of definitions of the article properly. Furthermore, readers will feel to be interesting through reasonable and a clear article. Shah composes eight sections into his article that has owned heading in each section. These sections are written by Introduction, Project Description, Owner’s Requirements, Design/Build Contract Negotiation, Final Contract, Result, Conclusion, and Acknowledgements. So, readers can read and understand well because each section has its heading. Also, readers can grasp the flow of the ideas through each own headings that suggest the sections’ purposes. The readers gain some advantage by the article of the function of summary which shows an abstract writing. The readers want to find the advantage through the article to determine. When audiences read an article without a summary or an abstract, they cannot find interesting titles easily because most audiences want to read their interesting part. The article is written to continue from top to bottom and is arranged by a newspaper. The article is written into two columns from the top to bottom and is arranged as a newspaper. Readers can read the article easily by the format. Also, the author uses the technical language and accessible language because this language helps to understand for readers. Non-native English speakers do not have any problem understanding and read the article when they read the article. Two diagrams of truck exits ramps, which show planning and design, were attached by the author. The truck exit ramp was built for avoiding overload, so an extra lane was built on the bridge. The bridge was expanded one more line on 21st Street. Therefore, it can be made imagine for design through the article, so engineers can challenge and overcome their work. Even though Shah’s article does not very professional bridge’s construction, it shows why the bridge is the important solution to the traffic problem.

Rhetorical Strategy of Appeals
The author uses the rhetorical strategy of appeals because he wants to be active for the purpose of helping audiences understand. A reader in LLD 100A Course defines three elements for creating many kinds of arguments. These rhetorical strategies are Logos (Message), Ethos (Author), and Pathos (Audience). The author depended on Logos and Ethos since “Innovative Design/Build Approach” is an article. The author uses Logos that appeals to readers about recognizing intuition. The author uses logical reason, explanations, statistics, and details because audiences are persuaded by these. For example, the busiest international bridge in North America was The Ambassador Bridge because it had 8,800,000 vehicles per year. Commercial traffic in North America built a truck-exit ramp because the commercial traffic though that would be a solution. The author tells audiences through this article why the bridge was required to be built. The readers can look for more information about the bridge through the internet and library if they want it. The author’s Logos: the government’s General Service Administration (GSA) built the truck-exit ramp because GSA wanted to resolve traffic jam. It has to need the reference for why the truck-exit ramp has to be built before a contract with DIBC. The contract was announced owner’s requirement by the article because of SDA. Some of the owner’s requirements are inappropriate and impractical:
1. The project will be designed to have a 100-year useful life span and a minimum of 25 years maintenance free.
2. The ramp to be constructed as part of the project should have support spans ranging from 40 to 60 ft (12.2m to 18.3 m), comparable to the existing bridge. The new footings are to be placed at a distance that will not disturb the structural integrity of the existing bridge.
3. No new loads is to be placed or transferred to the existing bridge (59).

When DIBC bids for the design firm, DIBC suggested these few requirements on the project. Eventually, DIBC and SDA had big changes when they took the final contract. By using Logos, the article delivers great idea about the truck-exit ramp building process. Next, rhetorical appeals are Pathos, which appeals to emotion, trust, and faith decides dependability of the author and article. Thus, audiences can find dependability to the article by two ways. First, it is to finding author’s fame. According to Shah’s profile, he is still working at Oakland Country Building Authority citation as a chairman and is at Lake Shore in Week as a treasurer. He does not give misinformation to audiences because he has been at high positions in many companies. He needed much information even though he was the SDA’s president because he had to appeal audience concretely for the project. The article is changed trust by the two companies, SDA and DIBC. SDA is a specialized consulting engineering and surveying firm, and DIBC conducts an international border crossing bridge for travelers and commuters in North America By each companies’ office websites. The author showed a way about bridges site that is between the Ambassador Bridge and the exclusive truck lane from 21st street. It does not have doubt about the diagrams with the topographic map because the truck exit lane project was proved by the author. But the author does not show the truck exit lane design because he did not give a working site. So, the author used pathos because he wanted to take faith from audiences.

Rhetorical Strategy of Description
The author defines how to use the rhetorical strategy description because he wants to support his idea through the Ambassador Bridge Project. The rhetorical strategy of description uses explanation and the author’s ideas. The author shows his ideas by using Logos that is “The bridge company sought to build the truck exit ramp consisting of two traffic lanes with the steel span connecting to the existing Ambassador Bridge (see Fig. 1). The owner provided this preliminary site plan and cost estimate of approximately $3,000,000” (58). The audiences can understand in sensory detail, using action verb, sharp adjectives and adverbs, and precise nouns. The “truck –exit ramp” here is on precise noun so audiences can learn the technical language. By using the grammar, audiences can write powerful sentences and paragraphs, and they can understand well when they read engineering magazine. Another example showed that is Pathos: “The design professional should evaluate the advantages and potential problems involved with the design-build process” (61). The audiences can find the author’s feeling and emotion. He gives advice for audiences. The article explains how to use the rhetorical strategy description.

Conclusion
The significance of the analysis explains how to use examine and evaluate by rhetorical analysis. The author, Jay B. Shah’s article, improves by using the rhetorical strategies and rhetorical appeal. The article “Innovative Design/Build Approach: Ambassador Bridge Project” uses Logos, Pathos, Ethos, definition, and description. I would recommend that the author should use Pathos because audiences want to know his opinions and ideas about the article. The audiences can learn through his ideas. Besides, this article shows a lot of information, picture, and tables, which help audiences to help understand. These rhetorical strategies and appeals include many kinds of information, so the author can show his intention effective to the audiences to help understand.

Work cited
Shah, J. (1996). Innovative design build approach: Ambassador bridge project.Journal of Management in Engineering, 12(4), 58-61.