Rhetorical Appeals Appeals How to Persuade Ethos appeals

Rhetorical Appeals

Appeals: How to Persuade Ethos: appeals to a sense of character, credibility, authority. The writer makes a good impression. The reader believes the writer knows what he or she is talking about. The speaker’s ethos is his expertise, knowledge, experience, training, sincerity, or a combination.

Appeals: How to Persuade Logos: appeals to reason, sense of logic. Solid facts Sound argument Acknowledge Concession the counterargument and refutation

Appeals: How to Persuade Pathos: appeals to emotion Figurative Personal First language anecdote person Strong connotations.

Arrangement Another element of rhetoric: organization of an essay or speech.

Arrangement Classic arrangement: Introduction: Narration: draws the reader in facts and background Confirmation: main part developing the proof Refutation: Conclusion: addresses the counterargument appeal to pathos, reminds reader of ethos established earlier. Answers the question, “so what? ”

Modern Patterns of Development: Narration Description Process Analysis Exemplification Comparison and Contrast Classification and Division Definition Cause and Effect

Other Rhetorical Devices Repetition “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” Parallelism- utilizing parallel sentence structure “I have a dream that one day… I have a dream that my four… I have a dream that…” Simile- comparison using “like” or “as” Metaphor- direct comparison Allusion- reference to a historical or well known work The roller coaster Goliath at Six Flags

Logical Fallacies Types of reasoning that may seem convincing but contain inherent flaws

Ad hominem Attack on a person’s character

Ad Populum Attempting to induce acceptance of an unexamined or unproved conclusion by arousing the feelings, prejudices, or interests of a political party, mob, or any large group of people

False Causality An assumption that because A happened before B, A caused B (war happened, gas prices went up=war caused high gas prices) There are more drownings and ice cream sales during the summer, therefore ice cream causes drowning. =

Red Herring Distracting listeners from a more important issue ISIS dropped more bombs, but Kim Kardashian and Kanye West get in a fight at the Oscars…more to come on their epic food fight

Bandwagon It is right because it is popular “Jump on the bandwagon”

Propaganda presenting one side of an argument as correct (other side is not included)

Slippery Slope a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect If you play violent video games, you will become a psychopath and murder people!

Straw Man An intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument We did NOT evolve from monkeys! If we did, why are there still monkeys?