Rhetorical Strategies and Techniques
What: Content, evidence and details from the text. The pattern of details in the text.
How: Rhetorical strategies and techniques
Purpose: The effect of the details, the strategies and techniques.
1. Diction is word choice. Writers choose words exactly and deliberately. Diction is closely
related to tone. Always use an adjective to describe a writer’s diction and tone.
2. Tone is the writer’s attitude about the subject. The “subject” means people, places, things,
thoughts, opinions, actions, motivation, decisions, and ideas.
3. Syntax is the sentence structure that the writer uses to present text to the reader. Short
sentences express simple ideas and emotions and thoughts and actions. Long sentences express
complex, deep, complicated ideas and emotions and thoughts and actions. The form (length) of
the sentence often matches the content of the sentence.
4. Juxtaposition is the writer’s choice to place one word or phrase adjacent to or juxtaposed
with another to create an effect, reveal an attitude, or to show the relationship between the two.
5. Connotation is the emotional implications and associations that a word may carry.
Connotation connects the reader to memories, experiences, and ideas. It is often emotional but
does not have to be.
6. Imagery is any sensory detail or evocation in work: more narrowly, the use of figurative
language to evoke feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object.
7. Repetition is the repeated use of words, phrases, clauses. This repeated usage places
emphasis on an idea. The idea is developed, made more complex, with each usage.
8. Metaphor is a type of figurative language in which the writer speaks of one thing as if it were
something else. The things compared can be people, places, things, and actions (nouns and
verbs express metaphor). These things are apparently dissimilar, but may be compared because
they share common traits.
9. A writer may use 3 appeals to persuade a reader to take action, to share a belief, to become
aware, to promote a cause, to find a solution, and so on. These three appeals are logos, ethos,
and pathos. Logos is the appeal to reason and logic. Ethos reveals the writer’s character,
authority on a subject, and the writer’s moral way of seeing the world. Pathos is an appeal to
the audience’s emotions. When writing about these appeals, do not write that “The writer uses
pathos.” Write these terms: reason, logic, authority, character, morals, and emotion. Speakers
appeal to the audience’s reason, logic, authority, character, morals, and/or emotions. Often a
writer appeals to an audience in two ways, i.e. reason and authority, emotion and morals, reason
and morals.
11. A writer uses hyperbole to deliberately exaggerate conditions to place emphasis on a
dilemma, a conflict, a character trait, a result, the impact of an event. Hyperbole makes these
things more noticeable. The exaggeration may elicit laughter, shock, horror, excitement, and
many other emotional reactions. The focus of the exaggeration is on one specific point.
Hyperbole often have a comic effect; however, a serious effect is also possible. Often, hyperbole
produces irony.
12. A writer uses understatement to make a statement, a situation, a conflict, a decision, a
choice, a result, or an effect seem less important and less serious than it really is. The use of
understatement is ironic, and is meant to inspire laughter, to deceive, to divert attention to
something else, to focus attention. . Understatement is the ironic minimizing of fact,
understatement presents something as less significant than it is. The effect can frequently be
humorous and emphatic.
13. Irony is the contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. The
difference between what appears to be and what actually is true. In general, there are three
major types of irony used in language; (1) In a verbal irony, the words literally state the
opposite of the writer’s (or speaker’s) true meaning. (2) In situational irony, events turn out
the opposite of what was expected - what the characters and the readers think ought to happen.
(3) In dramatic irony, facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction,
but know to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work. Irony reveals truth through a
relationship of perfect opposites.
14. Paradox is a statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense
but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity.
15. A rhetorical question is not answered by the writer because its answer is obvious or
obviously desired, and usually just a yes or no answer would suffice. It is used for effect,
emphasis, or provocation, or for drawing a conclusionary statement from the fact at hand.
Ex. We shrink from change; yet is there anything that can come into being without it? What does
Nature hold dearer, or more proper to herself? Could you have a hot bath unless the firewood
underwent some change? Could you be nourished if the food suffered no change? Do you not
see, then, that change in yourself is the same order, and no less necessary to Nature? --Marcus
Aurelius.
16. Satire is a work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions
for reform or ridicule. Regardless of whether or not the work aims to reform human behavior,
satire is best seen as a style of writing rather than a purpose for writing. It can be recognized by
the many devices used effectively the satirist: irony, wit, parody, caricature, hyperbole,
understatement, and sarcasm. The effects of satire are varied, depending on the writer’s goal,
but good satire, often humorous, is thought provoking and insightful about the human
condition.