What Is Rhetoric? Part Two

1. Writing Notes #4 What Is Rhetoric? Part Two Rhetorical strategies and how to use them.

2. What are they? Rhetorical strategies are techniques for presenting ideas clearly and effectively. Rhetorical strategies reflect patterns of thought long in use in Western cultures. A writer chooses a specific rhetorical strategy according to what he or she wants to accomplish.

3. Be more specific… -Narrative: telling a story. -Descriptive: giving a detailed explanation that appeals to reader’s senses. -Process: explaining the chronological sequence of actions with which something is made or done. -Example: providing a particular instance of a larger category. An extended example is when one focuses on just one significant example. -Definition: giving meaning to a specific term to explain another.

4. Be more specific… -Analysis: breaking down the whole into smaller parts. -Classification: organizing items based on shared characteristics. -Comparison and contrast: similarities and differences. -Analogy: a comparison of two relationships. -Cause-and-effect analysis: explaining the before and or after of an event.

5. So how do you use them? Often, your topic sentence will steer you toward a particular pattern. For example, if a topic sentence is “Grilling a great hot dog is easy,” the implied pattern- or rhetorical strategy- is to explain the process of how to grill a hot dog. Or if a topic sentence is “To see many different styles of architecture in one US city, visit Chicago,” the implied pattered- or rhetorical strategy- is to give examples.

6. So how do you use them? Sometimes, you need to use a combination of rhetorical strategies. For example, in a paragraph on types of color blindness, you might use a combination of definition and classification. A paragraph explaining why one brand of house paint is superior to another might call for comparison and contrast combined with description- and, perhaps, also definition and examples.

7. Ethos/Author So how, as a student, can I apply this to my writing? You have probably experienced writing prompts where you were asked to write about a topic that you had just learned about from an accompanying article. What level of background knowledge do teachers actually expect students to have? Most teachers have this expectation, for students to know little about some random writing prompts. What they are looking for, future audiences in further education or some careers included, is a respect for general facts and humility towards the audience’s own knowledge. This includes calling the sky red or stating, “Everyone knows unicorns smell funny.” Or addressing the audience disrespectfully. So remember to: -Know your audience (who are you writing to? Why are you writing to this particular audience?) -Respect your audience (this includes the audience’s ability to have an opposing opinion, and to uphold the truth and not pursue false or unsupportable information)

8. Examples Walking to the ranch house from the shed, we saw the Northern Lights. They looked like talcum powder fallen from a woman’s face. Rouge and blue eye shadow streaked the spires of a white light which exploded, then pulsated, shaking the colors down- like lives- until they faded from sight. -Gretel Ehrlich, “Other Lives”

9. Examples Casual dress, like casual speech, tends to be loose, relaxed, and colorful. It often contains what might be called “slang words”: blue jeans, sneakers, baseball caps, aprons, flowered cotton housedresses, and the like. These garments could not be worn on a formal occasion without causing disapproval, but in ordinary circumstances they pass without remark. “Vulgar words” in dress, on the other hand, give emphasis and get immediate attention in almost any circumstance, just as they do in speech. Only the skillful can employ them without some loss of face, and even then, they must be used in the right way. A torn, unbuttoned shirt or wildly uncombed hair can signify strong emotions: passion, grief, rage, despair. They’re most effective if people already think of you as being neatly dressed, just as the curses of well-spoken persons count for more than those of the customarily foul-mouthed do. Alison Lurie, The Language of Clothes

10. Examples Making chocolate isn’t as simple as grinding a bag of beans. The machinery in a chocolate factory towers over you, rumbling and whirring. A huge cleaner first blows the beans away from the accompanying debris- sticks and stones, coins and even bullets can fall among cocoa beans being bagged. Then they go into another machine for roasting. Next comes separations in a winnower, shells sliding out one side, beans falling from the other. Grinding follows, resulting in chocolate liquor. Fermentation, roasting, and “conching” all influence the flavor of chocolate. Chocolate is “conched” – rolled over and over against itself like pebbles in the sea- in enormous circular machines named conches for the shells they once resembled. Climbing a flight of steps to peer into this huge, slow-moving glacier, I was expecting something like molten mud but found myself forced to conclude it resembled nothing so much as chocolate. Ruth Mehrtens Galvin, “Sybaritic to Some, Sinful to Others”