ON RHETORIC
Review of Rhetoric and its situations
Rhetoric Defined
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Rhetoric is 2,500 years old
Originally considered as a study of the power of language. In the classical
era it was purely defined as the art of persuasive communication through
the appeal to logos (rationality), ethos (a person’s moral sense), and pathos
(emotions).
 In ancient Greece, there were no lawyers, so every land owning citizen
needed to have to be able to defend, or persuade, a jury of his (no her)
innocence of any crime. For some, rhetoric was initially a sort of
“lawyering for dummies” or more charitably stated, “a heuristic for
persuasion.”
 For others, rhetorical skill became a way to make a living—rhetors
would travel from town to town and give speeches. Sometimes they
would even have rhetorical duels (i.e., debates) as if it were a sport.
Classical Definitions of Rhetoric
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Plato: "art of enchanting the soul" (Phaedrus)
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Aristotle: "Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic. It is the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of
the available means of persuasion" (On Rhetoric)
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Roman Cicero (55 BC) outlined the stages of speech writing: Invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. We
come up with an idea, then we put the parts together to have the greatest impact, then we alter the style for our
audience, come up with a way to memorize it (or make it memorable), and then figure out the medium or delivery of it.
Quintilian: "Rhetoric is the science of speaking well, the education of the Roman gentleman, both useful and
virtue."(Institutes of Oratory)
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Aristotle thought that rhetoric and argument worked together. Your speech needed substance (argument, claims,
evidence) but it had to be tailored to the audience (rhetoric).
Cicero: "Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five lesser arts: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and
pronunciatio. It is speech designed to persuade." (Of Oratory)
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Plato was distrustful of rhetoric; “enchanting” anything in 370 BC was not something you wanted to be accused of. But
Plato was distrustful of writing too, thinking it was destroying our memories and ability to connect with people.
Plato thought rhetoric was bad because it allowed bad people to persuade you. Quintilian figured that rhetoric itself
only worked if it was spoken by the well meaning and ethical. Ethos became more associated with the speaker around
this time (95 AD).
St. Augustine: "Rhetoric is the art of expressing clearly, ornately (where necessary), persuasively, and fully
the truths which thought has discovered acutely." (On Christian Doctrine)
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In contrast to Quintilian, St. Augustine figured that rhetoric was applied to invention (“the truths which thought has
discovered”) after the fact.
Contemporary Rhetoric
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Contemporary rhetoric scholars have attempted to refine,
revise, and extend the definitions of rhetoric to account for
the fact that rhetoric has endured two millennia of critique.
At one time, rhetoric moved from the art of persuasion to the
“art of expression” (Perelman, 1969) in which the display
and style of a speech was more important than its
substance. This is where we get a modern definition as used
by politicians and newscasters that suggests that rhetoric has
no substance.
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“Obama’s rhetoric on fighting poverty doesn’t match his policies.”
“Pope’s Rhetoric on Economy Worrying Rich Donors.”
Contemporary Rhetoric
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Some “new” definitions:
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Kenneth Burke: "the use of language in such a way as to
produce a desired impression upon the hearer or reader"
(Counter-Statement, 1931, p. 210)
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In other words, we cannot speak and then magically change
minds—instead, we try to create connections with others.
Kenneth Burke: “the use of language as a symbolic means of
inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to
symbols” (Rhetoric of Motives, 1950, p. 1032)
It’s not just speech but “symbolic” means: writing & visuals.
 Burke also added “identification”—a writer attempts to create a
connection with a reader through identifying with her/him in turn
seeking that he/she identify with the writer.

Rhetoric Defined, Again
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Despite these nuances, rhetoric still remains the art
of persuasive communication WITH the
understanding…
 that
all “symbolic means” are persuasive, whether
audio, visual, alphabetic, haptic, or procedural.
 that your audience is not a blank slate without their own
values or concerns.
 that you persuasive efforts can, at best, induce
cooperation or identify with an audience.
Rhetorical Situation
Rhetorical Situation
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One more name (not that you will remember or even
have to) is Lloyd Bitzer (1968).
Rhetoric isn’t about the writer exerting some influence
on the reader. Instead, communication is a whole
situation consisting of a number of elements. Or, as
Bitzer defines it:
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“a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations
presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be
completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into
the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to
bring about the significant modification of the exigence"
Rhetorical Situation Defined
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“Thing” – my highly technical term meaning speech, essay, movie, poster,
advertisement, scientific study, video game, lab report, children’s story.
(Sure, scholars might use the term “artifact” or “text”, and you might even
use these two in your writing, but for this example, let’s just call it a “thing”)
Audience – person reading/hearing the thing
Writer – the person or persona creating the thing
Purpose – the writer’s intention with the thing
Exigence – some idea or occurrence that motivated the writer to create the
thing
Constraint – the limitations of the situation imposed by the genre, writer,
medium, time, audience, purpose.
Modification – changing the exigence with the thing.
Context – the place or medium of the thing.
Visually, it looks like…
The means of persuasion
Rhetorical Appeals
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Appeal to reason (logos)
Appeal to personality, values, or character (ethos)
Appeal to emotions (pathos)
Logos – Appeal to Reason
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Logical appeal to an audience’s reason and
understanding of the facts of a situation. Recognize,
however, that facts can change, and different people
will see different facts within a given situation.
Academic audiences prefer logos over other appeals
 Scientific discourse requires logos and never pathos. Ethos
in scientific discourse is established by lengthy literature
reviews
 Popular writing privileges personal stories, and thus, ethos
and pathos are greater. Logos is often “revised” so as to
make it easier for mass audiences to understand.
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Connect with the reader using data and evidence that is
generated for the writer’s purpose.
Logos example 1
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“Pew Internet and American Life researchers found
that 44% of ages 18-49 have used Wikipedia to
find information” (1).
 We
see the survey-based evidence here and we see
that the claim is substantiated. Recognize that logos
can be written differently as well—it’s not just “fact.”
For example, think how the following is different:
“Pew Internet and American Life researchers found that
56% of ages 18-49 have not used Wikipedia.”
Logos example 2
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“According to a recent U.S. Census poll, 29% of
movie theater revenues come from food and
beverage sales.”
Once again, statistics are used as evidence. Not all statistics
have built-in corroboration. In this case, the data is closer to
“fact” than the Wikipedia logos from example 1, but we
also don’t see the full picture. Compare this, for example, to
other data:
“According to Time magazine, movie theaters make 85%
profit on food and beverage sales.”
 Recognize that revenue and profit are different things here.
It’s all about how you report logos.
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Logos example 3
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Geico insurance’s famous advertising tag line, “15
minutes could save you 15% or more on car
insurance.”
 This
is a rational appeal (logos), but recognize it is
consequence/effect and not a “fact” or statistic (go
back to the Argument PowerPoint). They use “could” (a
qualifier) and “15% or more” meaning there is a
chance or mystery that people just love to explore.
Ethos – Appeal to Character
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Ethical appeal – claims and evidence from one’s
character (to another’s character)
1.
2.
3.
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Establish character of author
Provide details about the character of the evidence
Demonstrate authority and credibility.
Authority – The author knows about the subject, and
provides evidence of such.
Credibility – The author is honest and respectful to the
audience and provides relevant support to claims
Values – The author displays or appeals to similar
values as those of the audience
Ethos Example 1
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“Bob’s rant-now website recently reported that over
60% of Americans like to eat pizza for breakfast.”
We don’t know Bob. Because he doesn’t have authority, we
might not trust him. If he had included his method for how
he got this data, he would build credibility.
 Note that Pew Internet and American Life (from Logos
example 1) provide their method in a full report, but they
are also a reputable non-profit research group that have
earned authority over the years.
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Ethos Example 2
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“Professor Jones has studied learning and memory
theory for over twenty years and has served on the
board of Harvard Medical school department of
neurology.”
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We see Jones has authority based on the background
provided. However, if he were writing about bicycles, we
wouldn’t automatically trust him. If he were writing or
speaking about learning and memory, we would more likely
trust him.
Ethos Example 3
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Mitt Romney’s famous 47 percent speech:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for
the president no matter what. All right, there are 47
percent who are with him, who are dependent upon
government, who believe that they are victims, who
believe the government has a responsibility to care
for them, who believe that they are entitled to health
care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”
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The speech was given at the home of equity manager Marc
Leder, where Romney was talking privately to wealthy
contributors. He was attempting to align his values with
theirs. It might have worked had it not been for pesky
bartender Scott Prouty filming it.
Pathos
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Emotional appeal – claims and evidence from the heart (and to the heart).
Connect with the reader using anger, sadness, happiness, and humor.
You are trying to instill these emotions in your audience – trying to
persuade them to feel emotional.
Theory of proximity – the closer you are (or portray yourself to be) to the
social, political, and ideological position of your readers’ values, the easier
you can persuade them using emotions.
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A note about humor – it’s tricky because it relies on the theory of proximity to
work correctly. One theory of humor is that it is absurd. For the absurdity to
work, a common assumption must be shared from which to riff off of.
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To see this in action, a study by LaMarre, Landerville, and Beam found that
Republicans think Stephen Colbert is an actual Republican pretending to be
funny and Democrats think he is acting as a character and is being satirical.
Pathos Example 1
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From Pink Floyd’s song “The Final Cut” (1982) from the album of the
same name:
“Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes, I can barely
define the shape of this moment in time. And far from flying
high in clear blue skies, I’m spiraling down into the hole in the
ground where I hide.”
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The song invokes sadness in its audience to get them to feel sympathy
(pathos) for the singer and the situation. The song is partly about isolation.
We identify or the emotional appeal works better if we have ever looked
through tear-stained eyes or have felt isolated ourselves as it takes us to
that moment again.
Pathos Example 2
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From an op-ed piece in The New York Times, “I ♥ Pluto” by Tim
Kreider (2006):
“I’ve long regarded Saturn’s misty tantalizing moon Titan as
the Homecoming Queen of the solar system, courted and
fawned over, stringing us along with teasing glimpses under
her atmosphere, while Pluto was more like the chubby Goth
chick who wrote weird poems about dead birds and never
talked to anybody. Still, I just can’t stand by and watch as the
solar system’s Fat Girl gets pushed down into ever-more
ignominious substrata of social ostracism.”
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It uses humor and personification as a way to persuade us to care
emotionally whether Pluto should be a planet or not because we don’t like
to see people get picked on.
The humor works unless we ever aligned our identity with the “goth chick” or
thought we were ever overweight, then it seems to be shaming us as an
audience in its humor. It’s also gendered in a way that some might object to.
Other Rhetorical Concerns
Kairos
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Kairos means the opportune moment, finding that
right time.
Situations change quickly, so making an argument
with evidence that is timely makes for a better
argument than using old evidence or making an old
argument.
We cannot control kairos (there is never an appeal
to kairos); what we do is seize on it or exploit it or
take advantage of it.
Kairos:
Martin Luther King, jr. “I Have a Dream”
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King famously gave his speech about social justice on the steps of the
Lincoln memorial in Washington, DC in 1963. He worked on the speech
with some colleagues the night before, but then when it came time to give
the speech, he basically improvised the majority of it. As a result, he seized
the moment or kairos, and had lines such as the following:
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a
state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the
heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of
freedom and justice.”
What makes this kairotic was that the temperature was in the 80s, it was
late in the day, and people were crowded together and tired. King was
using the moment (kairos) to make the audience empathize with the “heat”
and to long for an oasis both politically and individually at that moment.
Kairos:
Which is from 2014? Which is from 1961?
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The reduction or control of
fat consumption under
medical supervision, with
reasonable substitution of
polyunsaturated for
saturated fats, is
recommended as a possible
means of preventing
atherosclerosis and
decreasing the risk of heart
attacks and strokes.
[check your answer]

Current evidence does not
clearly support
cardiovascular guidelines
that encourage high
consumption of
polyunsaturated fatty acids
and low consumption of
total saturated fats.
[check your answer]
Types [Species] of Rhetoric
Aristotle defined three “species” of rhetoric.
 Deliberative – What should we do about the
future
 Forensic – What do we know about the past
 Epideictic – Praise or blame in the present
Their uses
1. Deliberative arguments are used in politics and advertisements. They
are used for writing about the future (do this, buy that, think this):
 Exordium (Hook) – Creating goodwill, connecting with the audience
 Narratio (Problem) – Background, situation, and problem.
 Confirmatio (Proof, Solution) – Outlines a solution to the problem
 Peroratio (Call to action) – Specific benefits of the solution and call to
action
2. Forensic arguments are used in law and science. They are used to
evaluate the past:
 IRAC (Issue, Rule of Law, Analysis, Conclusion)
 IMRAD (Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion)
3. Epideictic arguments are used to inspire, entertain, lament, praise, and
blame
Caveats
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Linear texts (movies, television, essays) rely on
patterns of development to make a case. They
more closely follow the hook, problem, solution, call
to action.
Non-linear and static texts (print advertisements)
have to rely on traditional arrangement, style,
memory, and delivery.
But how does rhetoric work in our
brains?
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Thinking expends energy. Your body wants to conserve
energy. Thus, it will find ways to expend less energy.
Common patterns, models, and experiences will insert
themselves in new tasks to help you conserve energy—and it
is done subconsciously.
Theory (jargon, models, ideas) gives us a form and
language to talk about thought. It allows us to use tools to
create new jargon, models and ideas.
A good deal of rhetorical practice is implicit because its
practice has been repeated for thousands of years. Using
the language to talk about these implicit practice makes you
smarter because it allows you to uncover and disassemble
the subconscious thinking. In other words, it helps you figure
out how language works.
Effective rhetoric
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A “text” should be motivated by a clear exigence,
and the author should want to modify that exigence
with a clear purpose.
A “text” should be directed towards an audience by
using appropriate emotional, ethical, and logical
appeals for that audience and their values.
A “text” should be relevant (kairotic) to the time by
referring to current events or by being about
current events.
Practice
esurance commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLB-yryclc0
Rhetorical Analysis
In the Beatrice esurance advertisement, can
you name the following?
What is the exigence?
 What is the purpose?
 Who is the Audience?
 How is esurance portraying themselves (persona/writer)?
 What are the logical appeals (Logos)?
 What are the emotional appeals (Pathos)?
 What are the ethical appeals (Ethos)?
 Why is it the opportune moment (Kairos)?
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Any rhetorical analysis should attempt
to do the following
1.
2.
3.
4.
Who is the audience(s)? How do you know? Be as specific as possible in
describing the audience. Include as many details as you can in this
description. Narrow the audience down as much as possible.
What is the primary purpose of the piece? What was it trying to persuade
the audience of? What are the other purposes? Be specific and clear in
describing the purposes.
What are some genre features used in this piece? Why were these
particular genre features effective in reaching the audience and achieving
the piece’s purpose?
What appeals are used (logos, pathos, ethos), and how are these features
persuasive for the piece’s audience and achieve the piece’s purpose?
Be specific in describing the rhetorically effective features.
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Give examples from the piece to illustrate the rhetorically effective writing
strategies you are describing.