In “Why Our Memory Fails Us,” Christopher F. Chabris and Daniel J.
Simons inform readers about the dangers of overconfidence in our
memories. They explain that individuals can recall memories easily;
however, the content of our memories can change drastically over time.
Though these mistakes seem innocent, the authors argue that memory
failures have led to false convictions, death sentences, and confused
eyewitnesses.
In this opinionated article, the authors use logos and pathos from the
rhetorical triangle to reach their target audience in a meaningful way. For
logos, Chabris and Simons include several facts to establish a rhetorical
appeal. They first start off by introducing an incident where Neil DeGrasse
Tyson, an astrophysicist, confused two quotes from George W. Bush. In
fact, his confusion created a new context where Bush’s words were twisted
to mean something else entirely. The confusion only occurred because Dr.
Taylor was fooled by his confidence of his own memory.
Chabris and Simons also include other examples in which politicians
