Article Post

The article focuses on the Mike Vick dog fighting trial, and tries to persuade the reader to forgive Vick for his past actions. The argument that the author, Dana Scarton, uses is that is in unhealthy to hold a grudge against a person and it is better to just forgive the person of the wrong he or she committed and move on. Scarton recognizes that what Vick did was awful and that it was right that he was punished for his actions, but she realizes that that was in the past and Vick seems to be a changed man and deserves a second chance.
Scarton supports her argument using many different strategies including: statistics, authority figures, and common sense. The major stat that she uses in the argument is the results of an experiment using 71 college students. The results of the experiments showed that the aspect of unforgiving lead to a higher hart rate, while forgiving responses lead to a calm hart rate. Scarton also uses many authority figures that support the idea of forgiveness and show that Mike Vick should indeed be forgiven. The people that she uses to back up her argument range from professors to coaches to psychologists to authors to even the president and CEO of the Humane Society of the USA. The last strategy that Scarton uses is the aspect of common sense. She explains to the reader that it is just healthier to forgive someone than to hold a grudge.
Scarton mentions an alternative way of action is to not forgive Mike Vick. She does not support this idea but tells the reader that many people are not going to forgive Vick.