Draft: Cinnamon Rolls 101

For her readers, seeing is believing, and so "The Pioneer Woman" shows in order to tell. The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, has a website where she shares stories about her life, ideas about homeschooling, home and garden tips and tricks, and many recipes. Drummond uses photos as the basis of her instructions to anyone following her recipes. The most popular recipe is her Cinnamon Rolls 101, a post that has 700 comments from pleased readers. The self-proclaimed Pioneer Woman, uses a unique combination of vivid photographs accompanied by humorous text to persuade her readers to have confidence in themselves and try and succeed at and enjoy making her cinnamon rolls.

Drummond is successful, based on the high volume of positive feedback from her readers, in making people try her cinnamon roll recipe and enjoy them. With her wit, imagery, and other tools, she is effective in her pursuit.

One tool that is used is a rhetorical question. Drummond asks: “Why not start a holiday tradition of delivering these delicious cinnamon rolls to your friends and cohorts?” With this, she appeals to ethos, and the reader thinks that if these are good enough to share, this lady knows what she is talking about. A rhetorical question works because it really makes the readers think and consider what she proposes.

allusion “I’ve carried on the tradition through the years and have won friends and influenced people just by delivering these rolls”. Ethos, it reminds the reader of the credibility of that famous self-help book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” The audience appreciates the wittiness of the author as she takes something as insignificant as cinnamon rolls and makes them into this powerful device by which lives can potentially be changed.

denotation “scald the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point)” ethos, her audience can feel more confident when they make the cinnamon rolls after reading this definition and putting their trust in the Pioneer woman who knows what she is talking about as demonstrated by her ability to use and define cooking terms.

tone “go fold laundry or sculpt or play twister with your mailman or something” pathos the reader is drawn to this lady and what she is saying because she makes her recipe fun to read not only with the tone of her descriptions but also with the vivid photography. The Pioneer woman is creating a playful and fun and inviting environment in which you can bake and cook with her.

imagery all of the photos! 30 counted ethos the nice looking food, cookware, and name brand ingredients build the author’s credibility as a chef.

diction “heaping” “scant” “scald” ethos, when she defines these terms, the audience becomes more informed than they previously were about certain words and they are able to clearly understand what the author is trying to communicate to them.

overstatement the entire introduction to the recipe, the author just goes on and on about the reactions one can expect in response to these delicious treats pathos, the audience would find this overstatement funny and make them think that making and sharing these treats is worth a try, to see what kind of a reaction they will get themselves.

figurative language "And take a walk on the wild side. Don’t be afraid to drown them puppies." logos, the reader is encouraged to get out of his or her comfort zone and put more frosting on the cinnamon rolls than they might normally be inclined to. The pioneer woman makes this ok and logical by her figurative language.

As a published cookbook author, Drummond has an extra appeal to ethos.