Rhetorical Strategies/Techniques
1. Analyze Cause and Effect
a. Cause helps the writer focus on why something happened, it is future orientated
(looks forward)
b. Effect helps the writer think about what might or could happened, it is past
orientated (looks backwards)
c. Helpful for cultural critiques, Op-eds, historical narratives, autobiographical
2. Comparing and Contrasting
a. Comparisons look for similarities between things; contrasts look for differences
b. Comparisons look for things that are in common, even if they have significant
differences
c. Can be used for a single paragraph or for an entire essay. It can be point-by-point
or block by block-by-block
3. Classifying and dividing
a. Putting or dividing things into groups or dividing up a large block into smaller
units.
b. Helpful in writing all genres of analysis: textual, visual, and cultural. In an
argumentative text because you can break down a complex argument into parts or
group pieces of evidence into similar categories
4. Defining
a. Telling your reader what something means and what it does not; telling readers
what something is and what it is not
b. Can mean redefining a common term to have a more precise meaning or giving
nuance to a term
c. Can include giving examples or providing descriptions
5. Describing
a. Involves showing rather than telling, helping readers see rather than giving them a
formal definition, making the subject come alive instead of remaining abstract
b. Choose precise verbs, specific nouns, vivid adjectives
c. Can use description in many kinds of assignments, it is a fundamental technique
6. Explaining a Process
a. Explains how something is done—from an everyday process to extreme
processes.
b. Can be used to show how something was done in the past
c. Need to identify the main steps or stages and then explain them in order, one after
another. Sequence matters
7. Narrating
a. Telling stories to make a point, illustrate an argument, offer evidence or
counterevidence, or can be used at times to substitute for an argument.
b. Consider sequence—order in which events occurred or an order in which the
event might be most dramatically presented (reverse chronological order or
present moment with flashback). Can begin in media res (in the middle of things)
and then flash forward or back to create a compelling story
c. Include time markers, such as dates, and sequential phrases (early one morning,
later that night, the next evening), use transitions and transitional words (first, last,
meanwhile, later, finally)
8. Avoiding Logical Fallacies
a. Avoid logical fallacies, which are false, illogical statements
b. Logical fallacies weaken your arguments success
9. Chiasmus
a. Creates emotional responses by changing the order of words to mirror each other
b. Examples: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” –Knute Rockne;
“You must eat to live, not live to eat.” –Socrates
10. Euphemism
a. Using a euphemism to replace a less pleasant word or phrase with something
more acceptable and easier to hear
b. Exp: “Mature” instead of “old,” “Passed away” instead of “died,” “Comfort food”
instead of “junk food”
11. Similes and Metaphors
a. Aims to compare two different items and indicate how they are alike.
b. Both compare, similes use “Like or as” and metaphors don’t.
c. Exp (Simile): “Straight as an arrow” and Exp (Metaphor): “America is a melting
pot of cultures”