“He who does not study rhetoric will be victim of it.” –
found on a Greek wall from 6th Century B.C
What is Rhetoric?
The art of communication…
Analysis and
comprehension of how a
writer/speaker has achieved
his/her effect from a text on
an audience.
So what does this mean to
you?
Developing Skill with Rhetoric:
The Rhetorical Triangle
“Words – so innocent
and powerless as they
are, as standing in a
dictionary, how potent
for good and evil they
become in the hands
of one who knows
how to combine
them.” ~Nathaniel
Hawthorne
The Three Appeals:
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
Ethos: Understanding the Ethical
Appeal



Ethos = writer or
speaker’s credibility on
his/her subject
What can we tell about
the “character” of the
speaker?
If we don’t know the
author, then we have to
look at his/her text
 The tone of the text
 Persona
Teachers
Dog trainers
Doctors
Muscians
Situated and Invented Ethos
Situated Ethos
Invented Ethos
The kind of character developed  The kind of character developed
“around” the speaker/writer.
"in the text," the ways that the
Whenever we are dealing with
writer's words and phrases, as
writers we know, writers who
well as his/her selection of
have been talked about a great
deal or popular figures that we
examples and ideas, establish the
encounter in the press, these
writer's authority.
writers have an established ethos
 Bill Clinton was a man who came
that is situated in who they are
from a poor family in Arkansas
and how they have been
represented.
and was the child of divorced and
re-married parents
 George W. Bush was the son of a
political family — his father had
 He was a Rhodes Scholar and
been vice-President for eight
had a prestigious college
years and was then President for
education, one which his family
four years before Clinton, and he
couldn't have afforded without
had served in many political
offices before that. Likewise, the
the scholarships Clinton received
Bush family was considerably
through hard work.
"monied"

Pathos: Understanding the Pathetic
Appeal

Pathos = an
emotional appeal
on the audience

Most of us make
our decisions on
more emotional
than logical bases
Cottonelle Toilet Paper
Commercials
ASPCA Commercials w/
Sarah McLachlan
Logos: Understanding the Logical
Appeal


Logos = the
methods of
persuasion within
the language itself
How the argument is
supported
 Facts
 Statistics
 Examples
6 Keys to Developing Skill with
Rhetoric
“I would hurl words into this
darkness and wait for an
echo, and if an echo
sounded, no matter how
faintly, I would send other
words to tell, to march, to
fight, to create a sense of
hunger for life that gnaws in
us all.”
~Richard Wright
The Six Keys…






Persona
Appeals to Audience
Subject Matter and
Its Treatment
Context
Intention
Genre
Key #1: Understanding Persona

What is Persona?

Why is it important to
understand persona?
 so that you do not get
fooled by the author.
 The writer/speaker
creates a persona to
make himself or
herself more
believable and
trustworthy so that the
audience will buy into
what he or she is
saying.
What is Persona? Persona = the “mask” or
character the writer or speaker
creates for him/herself
Key #2: Understanding the
Appeals to the Audience
Key #3: Understanding Subject
Matter and Its Treatment

When deciding on what kinds of information to include
in a text, writers/speakers need to keep in mind…
 INTENTION: What is the purpose of the text? What
am I trying to achieve?
 AUDIENCE: Towards whom is the text directed?
 GENRE: What kind of text is most appropriate for my
audience?
○ Would it be effective to include an article addressing the
negative impact of eating meat in a hunting magazine? Why?
Key #4: Understanding Context
DEFINITION: how society
impacts the subject of a text
Buffalo Springfield’s
“For What it’s Worth”

An effective writer / speaker
knows how to refer to
context to help the
audience understand the
position he or she takes
and to connect positively
with this or her argument.

A careful reader
understands how context
affects the text he or she is
analyzing.
Key #5: Understanding Intention

Intention = Purpose…
what the writer or
speaker wants to
happen as a result of
the text, what he or she
wants the audience to
believe or do after
hearing or reading the
text.

What is the purpose of
the text? Is it…




To persuade
To call to action
To entertain
To inform
Key #6: Understanding Genre

Most appropriate genre =
audience + purpose

Questions the writer or
speaker should ask to
help find the most
appropriate genre of text:
 What is the context calling
forth a piece of writing?
 Who needs to know what I
intend to write about?
 What is the best, most
appropriate genre to
produce?
Works Cited
Banks, William P. “A Short Handbook on
Rhetorical Analysis.” 2001. 27 Feb.
2007.
http://english.ecu.edu/~wpbanks/rheto
ric/rhetanalysis.html.
Roskelly, Hephzibah & Jolliffe, David.
Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in
Reading and Writing. Pearson
Longman, New York: 2005.