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Rhetorical Strategies in the Media

Rhetorical Strategies in the Media. Rhetorical Devices: A Handbook and Activities for Student Writers. Hyperbole. This is the most popular and commonly used rhetorical device in the entire world of rhetorical devices! Powerful, but distracting when used improperly

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Rhetorical Strategies in the Media

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  1. Rhetorical Strategies in the Media Rhetorical Devices: A Handbook and Activities for Student Writers

  2. Hyperbole • This is the most popular and commonly used rhetorical device in the entire world of rhetorical devices! • Powerful, but distracting when used improperly • Consists of exaggerating some part of your statement in order to give it emphasis or focus • Caution: Avoid stating hyperbole as fact.

  3. How to Use Hyperbole • Energize your statement and drive it home with gusto • There are more reasons for NASA to fund a trip to Jupiter than there are miles in the journey. • When you want your reader to snap to attention and focus on what you’re writing • At these words, the people became so silent you could hear a beating heart from across the room. • Demonstrate the differences between two things • Compared to the world during the last Ice Age, a Minnesota winter feels like spring in Hawaii.

  4. Understatement • You might find this device somewhat helpful as well. • The force of a descriptive statement is less than what one would normally expect (i.e. a category five hurricane described as “a bit of weather”) • Can be used to highlight the extreme nature of the event or for ironic effect, as in, “Leonardo da Vinci had a good idea or two.” • You’re signaling to the reader that the concept is so self-explanatory that there is nothing you can add to its force. By understating the case, readers are prompted to think how much more could be said. • CAUTION: repeated use can lull a reader into a sense of calm

  5. Understatement (cont’d) • Can also be used for humorous effect • Do not confuse understatement for simplifying a discussion or an idea. While simplification aims to make something more understandable, understatement is trying to bring out the full force of an idea. • Examples: • Whatever his faults, Sir Isaac Newton did have a fairly good mind for science. • The Middle East is currently having some political squabbles. • To the uninitiated, neurophysiology can be a bit of a challenge.

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