Rhetoric

In his essay titled “The Men We Carry in Our Minds,” Scott Russell Sanders is quite effective in using both ethos and pathos to persuade his readers. By portraying himself as an empathic and just...

Rhetoric is important because it enhances communication by persuading, informing, or motivating audiences through effective speaking and writing. Its functions include shaping public opinion,...

For many years, cigarette companies would try to cite examples of healthy older smokers as proof that cigarettes did not harm one's health. This is an example of improper use of inductive...

In Anna Quindlen's Commencement Speech at Mount Holyoke College, she says it is OK to be "imperfect." She compares the pressure to be perfect to the burden of carrying a backpack full of bricks. You...

In her commencement speech at Mount Holyoke College, Anna Quindlen quotes from a number of different sources. These quotations add to the variety and authority of her speech in various ways,...

"This technique involves an appeal to the reader's sense of logic or understanding by using evidence and examples to support a point. The author uses expert witness, hyperbole, and satire in his...

As I understand your question, you are answering a textbook assignment found in Style by John Haynes. If this is correct, you are studying le mot juste: "A very common view of style is that it is a...

In her commencement speech at Mount Holyoke College, Anna Quindlen uses two major figures of speech.  The first says that the typical human desire to be perfect is like wearing a backpack full...

Over 2300 years ago, Aristotle wrote On Rhetoric and gave the basis for persuasive speaking and writing.  His theory became the basis for persuasion and endures to this day.  Although...

Incorporating personal experiences into a speech helps establish a speaker's ethos and should be used in conjunction with pathos and logos. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's speech shows how a speaker can...

Matt Cutts uses multiple persuasive types of appeal, but he mainly uses ethos.

This is a way of classify statement types by purpose. It's not really a system used in contemporary rhetorical theory or scholarship, but rather just a pedagogical device. In other words, your...

In this speech that he gave to the Virginia convention, Patrick Henry urges them to fight back against the oppressive Britain that has been defecting on promises for so long.  Many of the...

"The British crown has been plagued by scandal." Let's analyze the sentence, then pinpoint the rhetorical devices, also recognized as literary devices, that are operating in it. Starting with the...

Unclear, vague, and ambiguous words in a message from the White House on battling coronavirus include "could" and "possibly." Cliches such as "red tape" and "every tool at his disposal" also add to...

Some tips to keep an informative speech both informative and engaging are to know your audience, use anecdotes, and use visual aids.

An argument that appeals to emotion uses the mode of persuasion, or rhetorical device, known as Pathos. Pathos forms part of Aristotle's triangle of persuasion, which also includes Ethos and...