What are Rhetorical Strategies?
 Tools that help writers and other communicators
craft language (textual) or images (visual) so as to
have an effect on the audience/reader.
 Strategies are means of persuasion, a way to get the
reader’s/audience’s attention.
Strategies
 Rhetorical Strategy: a particular way in which authors
craft language so as to have an effect on readers.
Strategies are means of persuasion, ways of gaining a
readers’ attention, interest, or agreement. Strategies can
be identified in the way an author organizes her text,
selects evidence, addresses the reader, frames an issue,
presents a definition, constructs a persona or establishes
credibility, appeals to authority, deals with opposing
views, uses “meta-discourse,” makes particular use of
style and tone, draws on particular tropes and images, as
well as many of the other textual choices that can be
identified.
 Common strategies: ethos, pathos, logos, framing,
definitions, categories, word choice, style as strategy,
rebuttals, metadiscourse, organization, tropes, etc.
Strategies are everywhere
 Photos of SDSU student election campaign signs -
student posters are mostly seeking to be memorable,
but also to persuade. What strategies can you
identify? Are they effective?
(https://sdsuwriting.pbworks.com/Strategies_student_election_signs)
How do we analyze strategies?
1.
2.
3.
4.

Identify the rhetorical strategy in the text/film and give an
example.
Describe how they work.
Describe why they are used – what purpose do they
accomplish?
Always include a discussion of how the strategy helps the
author/film maker develop and support the argument.
Let’s look at different types of strategies…
Authorities or “Big Names”
 Commonly referred to as “appeals to authority,”
using “Big Names” makes a statement/claim/
argument seem authoritative, well researched,
believable.
 In analysis, answer the following question:

How does this appeal to authority build trust in the author’s
argument?
Commonplaces
 Also known as “hidden assumptions,” “hidden beliefs,”
and “ideologies”
 They include assumptions, many of them unconscious,
that groups of people hold in common.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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Who is the intended audience of the piece?
What are some of the assumptions of this intended audience? What
hidden assumptions or beliefs does the speaker have about the topic?
How is the speaker or author appealing to the hidden assumptions of
the audience?
How does the use of commonplaces further the argument?
Comparison & Contrast
 Discussion of similarities and differences.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
 Which two or more related subjects are discussed?
 How are the subjects alike or different?
 How does the comparison further the argument of the piece?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2CqOj5WpMs
Definition
 When authors define certain words, these definitions are
specifically formulated for the specific purpose he/she has in
mind.
 These definitions are crafted uniquely for the intended
audience.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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Who is the intended audience?
Does the text focus on any abstract, specialized, or new terms that need
further explanation so that the readers/viewers understand the point?
How has the speaker or author chosen to define terms for the audience?
What effect does the definition have on the audience, or how does this
definition help further the argument?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSCssVutHA
Definitions and division invite particular
perspectives on the world
The politics of definitions
Gay psychologist wears a mask at the American Psychological Association
conference in 1972. He is on a panel arguing that APA definitions of
homosexuality as a mental illness should be abolished
The Politics of Definition
Consider how the following definitions and terms involve questions of
power, value and ideology
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Mr, Mrs, Miss (Ms.) defines women in terms of their marital status, but
not men (hence Ms.) The convention of women being identified by the
last name of their father or husband.
“Enhanced interrogation,” “enemy combatants,” “war on terror,” “axis
of evil”
“Far East, Middle East, Near East” (defining regions wrt proximity to
Britain)
MEDICINE: The re/definition and medicalization of illness: “male
pattern baldness” (going bald) “social anxiety disorder” (shyness) “ED,
or erectile dysfunction” (formerly impotence) “halitosis (bad breath)
PSYCHOLOGY: APA redefines homosexuality in 1972 (before 1972 it is
listed as a mental illness); the many shifting re/definitions of
conditions, from hysteria to depression to sexual identity (trans-gender,
transexual, bisexual, etc.)
The Politics of Definition
6.
7.
8.
9.
RACE: the one drop rule; Negro, Black, African American; miscegenation laws. In
South Africa the Japanese are defined as white, as Japan = key trading partner.
Others are black or colored (Asian). In Brazil, definitions of race are particularly
varied. In the U.S., “Caucasian” has been redefined many times – sometimes
includes people from India, Afghanistan, Turkey, and the Mediterranean countries,
and at other times (esp. wrt immigration) not. Consider Germany – citizenship is
largely defined in terms of racial/ethnic and national “descent” rather than place
(unlike in the U.S., the children of foreigners assume their parents' nationality.) In
most countries, racial definitions shift frequently, shaped by ideology, power,
economics and history. Consider - the terms Maori and Pakeha in NZ.
SOCIAL ISSUES: drugs and alcoholism as moral failings vs. addictions.
LEGAL DEFINITIONS: the recent supreme court case ruling on the free speech
rights of corporations; defining rape within marriage as a crime (for a long time it
wasn’t in many countries)
How should we re/define marriage (debates about gay marriage). Is marriage
primarily to be defined as religious, as about procreation, stability and other social
goods, a love relationship, etc.
Definition of Caucasian: 1932. A messy mix of region and some general features.
(note: Aryan refers to subset of Caucasians, Indo-European language)
The Races of Men, Smallwood et al. 1952, p. 264 (cited by Morning, 2008)
 In the United States, the term ‘Caucasian’ has been mainly
used to describe a group commonly called White
Americans, as defined by the government and Census
Bureau.[22] Between 1917 and 1965, immigration to the US
was restricted by a national origins quota. The Supreme
Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923)
decided that Asian Indians – unlike Europeans and Middle
Easterners – were Caucasian, but were not white, because
most laypeople did not consider them to be white people.
This was important for determining whether they could
become naturalized citizens, then limited to free whites.
The court and government changed its opinion in 1946. In
1965 major changes were made to immigration law, lifting
earlier restrictions on immigrants from Asia.[23]
(Wikipedia)
Five Major Human Races” (Oram et al. 1976, p. 614)
The social construction of race
 “There is no more biological reason to speak of the
Indians, Whites, and Blacks as distinct races than
there is to speak of red-haired, brown-haired, and
gray-haired people as distinct races. This is not to
say that races are not “real.” They are all too real,
but understanding how races are formed and
perpetuated in societies is a matter of looking into
social history, not biology.”
“Two Anthropologists Reflect on Race & Racism: What is Race?
An Anthropological View.” By Thomas Bilosi and Marc
Feldesman, DIVERSITY Vol.2 1992.
Marriage
Marriage
History
 From the 5th to the 14th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church
conducted special ceremonies to bless same-sex unions which were
almost identical for those to bless heterosexual unions. At the very
least, these were spiritual, if not sexual, unions.
 In 1076, Pope Alexander II issued a decree prohibiting marriages
between couples who were more closely related than 6th cousins.
 In the 16th century, servants and day laborers were not allowed to
marry in Bavaria and Austria unless they had the permission of local
political authorities. This law was not finally abolished in Austria until
1921.
 From the 1690s to the 1870s, "wife sale" was common in rural and
small-town England. To divorce his wife, a husband could present her
with a rope around her neck in a public sale to another man.
Description
 Details sensory perceptions of a person, place or thing.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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Does a person, place or thing play a prominent role in the text or
film?
Does the tone, pacing or overall purpose of the essay benefit from the
sensory details?
What emotions might these details evoke in the audience (see
Pathos)?
How does the description help the author further the argument?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn50mTEGnrU
Division & Classification
 Divides a whole into parts or sorts related items into
categories.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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
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If the author/film maker trying to explain a broad or
complicated subject?
Does it benefit the text/film to reduce the subject to more
manageable parts to focus the discussion?
How does the division and classification help further the
overall argument?
 How does the division and classification of injuries
to various body systems/organs in the Quit Smoking
ad shown before help its argument?
Exemplification
 Provides examples or cases in point.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
 What examples, facts, statistics, cases in point, personal
experiences, or interview questions does the author/film
maker add to illustrate claims or illuminate the argument?
 What effect do these have on the reader/audience?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9WB_PXjTBo
Ethos
 Aristotle’s term ethos refers to the credibility, character
or personality of the speaker or author or someone else
connected to the argument.
 Ethos brings up questions of ethics and trust between the
speaker or author and the audience.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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How and why is the speaker / author trying to get the audience to
trust her or him?
What specifically does the author do to obtain the audience’s trust?
How does the author/speaker show fairness? Understanding of the
topic? Trusworthy-ness? Consideration of the audience’s needs?
How does the author/speaker construct credibility for his/her
argument?
Evidence of an author’s ethos:
 References to the author’s background, profession,
previous work, guiding philosophy, etc.
 Comments that indicate sincerity, fair-mindedness,
expertise, likeability, moral vision, etc.
 Concessions to the opposing arguments. (Or, for signs of
lacking ethos, places the author fails to acknowledge
such arguments or evidence.)
 Use of appropriate evidence, language and style in light
of the targeted audience.
Logos
 Refers to the use of logic , reason, facts, statistics,
data and numbers.
 Logos often seems tangible and touchable, so much
more real than other rhetorical strategies.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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How and why does the other chose logos?
How does the author show there are good reasons to support
his or her argument?
What kind of evidence does the author use to construct logos,
and how does this further the argument?
Pathos
 Refers to feelings.
 The author/speaker wants the audience to feel the same
emotion that he/she is feeling, whether or not they
actually agree with the topic.
 In this way, the audience is more likely to eventually
agree with the author/speaker later on.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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What specific emotion does the author invoke? How?
How does he/she use emotion as a tool to persuade the audience?
How does the use of emotion help further the argument?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpTb2RjbMn4
Pathos: Appealing to Emotions
 Words or passages that activate emotions,
usually because they relate to readers’ or
hearers' deeply held values or beliefs.
 Pathos is not necessarily a strategy of
writing about emotional subjects or of
describing strong emotions. It is a strategy
of using language in ways that evoke
emotions in audiences.
The rhetorical effect of the appeals results
from RHETORICAL STRATEGIES.
 For example: When an author chooses to support
a claim with a touching personal story, the strategy
of choosing that type of evidence results in a
pathos appeal to the reader’s emotions, an ethos
appeal by showing the writer to be a caring person,
and a logos appeal by showing the reasonable
conclusion arrived at when connecting the story to
the claim.
Identification
 This is rhetorician Kenneth Burke’s term for the act of
“identifying” with another person who shares your values
or beliefs.
 Many speakers or authors try to identify with an
audience or convince an audience to identify with them
and their argument.
 In analysis, answer the following question:
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
How does the author build a connection between him/herself and the
audience?
How does this connection further the argument?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9xCCaseop4
Metadiscourse
 Language about language.
 Announces to the reader what the writer is doing, helping
the reader to recognize the author’s plan.
 Can be used to both announce the overall project or
purpose of the paper and to announce its argument.
 Can provide “Signposts” along the way, guiding the
reader to what will come next and showing how it is
connected to what has come before.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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What is the author’s voice in this text/film? How does it enter and
guide the audience through the text/film?
How does the author’s use of metadiscourse further the argument?
 Below are some examples of metadiscourse in
writing, denoting:
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the writer's intentions: "to sum up," "candidly," "I believe"
the writer's confidence: "may," "perhaps," "certainly," "must"
directions to the reader: "note that," "finally," "therefore,"
"however"
the structure of the text: "first," "second," "finally,"
"therefore," "however"
 Most writing needs metadiscourse, but too much
buries ideas. Technical, academic, and other nonfiction writers should use metadiscourse sparingly.[
Metaphors, Similes, Analogies
 Commonly referred to as “figurative language”
 Comparison of two parallel terms or situations in which the
traits of one are similar to another – often one relatively firm
and concrete, and the other less familiar and concrete.
 Simile is an analogy that use “like” or “as”
 These allow the author / film maker to use concrete, easily
understood ideas to clarify a less obvious point.
 In analysis, answer the following question:
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What two things are being compared?
How does the author’s / film maker’s use of figurative language help
further the argument? Help the audience view the argument in a new
way?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
Shakespeare
from the play As You Like It
Examples of antimetabole
 "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's
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faithful, one hundred percent!" Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches
an Egg.
“Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you
can do for your country.” JFK’s
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence."
Carl Sagan
"Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to
our enemies, justice will be done."-- George W. Bush, 9-2001.
"Who sheds the blood of a man, by a man shall his blood be
shed" (Genesis 9:6)
Recent speeches: top trope =
antimetabole, top theme = change
 "In politics, there are
some candidates who use
change to promote their
careers. And then there
are those, like John
McCain, who use their
careers to promote
change."
 "We were
elected to
change
Washington,
and we let
Washington
change us."
 "People the world over
have always been more
impressed by the power
of our example than by
the example of our
power."
 "In the end the true
test is not the
speeches a
president delivers,
it's whether the
president delivers
on the speeches."
Tricolon
 One ring to rule them all….
 Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….
 Sex, drugs, and rock and roll…
 Red, white and blue,
 I came, I saw, I conquered
 VS – it was the best of times, it was the worst of times
Drink “provokes the desire but takes away the performance.” William Shakespeare
Analogy
Prolepsis
 Anticipating the opposition’s best argument and addressing it
in advance.
 Also known as “Counterargument and Rebuttal.”
 Uses the reality that readers often interact with the text and
ask questions of it – disagreeing and pointing out where there
are differing opinions or weaknesses in argument – as a tool
to help the reader believe the argument.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:


How does the author present any counterarguments or rebuttals?
What effect do the counterarguments or rebuttals have on the power of
the author’s argument?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4r7JH17IC4
Questioning
 Rhetorical Questions: a question designed to have
one correct answer. The author leads the reader into
a position rather than stating it explicitly.
 In analysis, answer the following questions:
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
Why does the author ask a question with an obvious answer?
How does the use of the rhetorical question strengthen the
author’s argument?
 Transitional Questions: Leads the reader into a new
subject area or area of the argument.


How does the transitional question help guide the reader?
How does the use of the transitional question help the author
organize his argument?
 The Daily Show & the rhetorical question.
 Explores leading question, the issue of framing,
agency, responsibility, etc.
 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-
september-13-2006/the-question-mark
Organization & Structure
 Problem-Solution: argument presents a problem
and a potential solution.
Description of the need to make coffee at home to save money.
 Cause and Effect: argument describes the
relationship between the cause or catalyst of an event
and the effect.
Description of identifying the over-consumption of candy as
the cause of tooth decay.
Organization and Complexity: Language of health
insurance policies – and politics of “plain language”
movement.
 “The plan covering the patient as a dependent child of a person
whose date of birth occurs earlier in the calendar year shall be
primary over the plan covering the patient as a dependent of a
person whose date of birth occurs later in the calendar year provided.
However, in the case of a dependent child of legally separated or
divorced parents, the plan covering the patient as a dependent of the
parent with legal custody, or as a dependent of the custodial parents
spouse shall be primary over the plan covering the patient as a
dependent of the parent without legal custody.”
 According to the Flesch-Kincaid measure of readability, this passage
is written at graduate-school level. It’s also highly hypotactic,
consisting of 2 long, deeply subordinated sentences.
Revised for 8th grade readability (paratactic not
hypotactic – written more like spoken conversation)
 What happens if my spouse and I both have health
coverage for our child? The parent whose birthday is earlier in
the year pays the claim first. For example: Your birthday is in March;
your spouse’s birthday is in May. March comes earlier in the year
than May, so your policy will pay for your child’s claim first.
 What happens if I am separated or divorced? If your child is
covered by your policy and also by the policy of your separated or
divorced spouse, the policy of the parent with legal custody pays first
– i.e. if you have legal custody, your plan pays first. The same rule
applies even if your child is covered by a health insurance policy of a
stepparent. For example: Your former spouse has legal custody, and
his/her new spouse’s policy covers your child. The new spouse’s
policy will pay your child’s claim first.
 What can be inferred from the design of the
following spaces/objects?
shape/constrain behavior, & whose behavior is
targeted?
The rise of the “bum-proof” bench in Los
Angeles

"One of the most common, but mindnumbing, of these deterrents is the [L.A.]
Rapid Transit District’s new barrelshaped
bus bench that offers a minimal surface for
uncomfortable sitting, while making sleeping
utterly impossible. Such ‘bumproof’ benches
are being widely introduced on the periphery
of Skid Row. Another invention...is the
aggressive deployment of outdoor sprinklers.
Several years ago the city opened a ‘Skid Row
Park’ along lower Fifth Street, on a corner of
Hell. To ensure that the park was not used for
sleeping--that is, to guarantee that it was
mainly utilized for drug dealing and
prostitution--the city installed an elaborate
overhead sprinkler system programmed to
drench unsuspecting sleepers at random
times during the night. The system was
immediately copied by some local
businessmen in order to drive the homeless
away from adjacent public sidewalks.“Mike
Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future
in Los Angeles, p. 233.
Why design walls & curbs this way?
Architects explain how they design spaces to
discourage skateboarders (& other undesirables):
 “Because I was curious about how the designers of some of these
details felt about them, I took a trip to the San Francisco
Department of Public Works where I introduced myself as an
editor of Urban Action. I spoke to two landscape architects both
of whom were very solicitous. One was acutely aware that "San
Francisco is the most famous skatespot in the world"—this was
the architect in charge of everything-proofing the city:
skateproofing, bumproofing, graffitiproofing, and so on. (She is
also the architect who told me that the anti-skate metal clips are
called “pig ears.”)…you try to predict the behavior of
undesirables and obviate those behaviors with subtle design
techniques: bright lights in corners, narrow benches, rigid
circulation patterns, and so on.”
Strategies in Sculpture: Maya Lin’s Vietnam
War Memorial
Why these choices for a memorial – what strategies
might they represent?
 The Vietnam war memorial is black
 It is made of reflective black granite. When a visitor looks at the wall,


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she will see the engraved names and her own reflection
The monument is built along a pathway that requires people to move
along the small corridor of space
Unlike many monuments, it lists all the names of U.S. soldiers who
died, and it does so in chronological rather than alphabetic order (Lin
has she wanted the wall to read “‘like an epic Greek poem’ and ‘return
the vets to the time frame of the war’)
Information about rank, unit, and decorations are not given
The wall is V-shaped, with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial
and the other to the Washington Monument. Lin's conception was to
create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the gravity of
the loss of the soldiers