Rhetorical Analysis:The Basics

Strategies

Rhetorical Strategy

A rhetorical strategy is the specific approach or approaches a writer employs to achieve an intended

purpose.

PURPOSE

Purpose is the reason why you or any other person chooses to communicate

with an audience – the goal, the intended effect.

THE BASIC PURPOSES ARE:

To inform To entertain To question To argue To elicit an emotional response

Rhetorical Strategy

How the writer accomplishes this purpose is called a rhetorical strategy.

RHETORICAL DEVICES

If a rhetorical strategy is the carefully developed plan for achieving a specific writing purpose, then

rhetorical devices are the tools and mechanisms the writer employs to

produce that plan.

RHETORICAL DEVICES

The writing tools and mechanisms that an author uses to develop a specific

strategy.

Think about it this way…

Devices Strategies

Purpose Effect on Audience

So…

We use a device to achieve a strategy.(i.e., parallelism is a syntactical choice)

And…

We use a strategy to achieve an intended purpose.

(i.e., a sarcastic tone helps a writer mock his or her subject)

Finally…

Ask yourself what effect these choices have on the reader. This is purpose.

Rhetorical Analysis is essentially identifying and discussing:

1. The WHAT (purpose/content)2. The HOW (strategy/form)3. The EFFECT (audience/effectiveness)

RHETORICAL STRATEGIES

How you use these tools (devices), when, where, and how often.

STRATEGIES DICTION

SYNTAX

ORGANIZATION

TONE & ATTITUDE

DETAIL

DICTION

WORD CHOICE. It is the conscious decision the author makes when choosing vocabulary to create an

intended effect.

Some terms used to describe diction:

formal, informal, poetic, heightened, pretentious, slang, colloquial,

ordinary, simple, complex

SYNTAX

The grammatical structure of a sentence.

The carefully chosen sentence structure and variety the writer uses

to develop the subject, purpose, and/or effect.

To discuss syntax, you should have a working knowledge of each of the

terms in the following list of basics.

Syntax:

Phrases (at the same time) Main clauses (Horatio watches the

“Today” show) Subordinate clauses (before Horatio

goes to work) Declarative sentences (Horatio

watches)

Syntax:

Imperative sentence (Horatio must watch.)

Exclamatory sentence (Horatio really watches!)

Interrogative sentence (Does Horatio watch the “Today” show?)

Simple sentence (Horatio watches the “Today” show.)

Compound sentence (Horatio watches the “today” show, and he eats his breakfast at the same time.)

Complex sentence (As Horatio eats his breakfast, he watches the “Today” show.)

Compound-complex sentence (Before he goes to work, Horatio eats his breakfast, and he watches the “Today” show at the same time.)

Syntax:

Loose sentence (Horatio watches the “Today” show, and he eats his breakfast at the same time.)

Periodic sentence (Before going to work and while eating his breakfast, Horatio watches the “today” show.)

Inverted sentence (The “today” show Horatio does watch.)

Syntax:

Paragraphing Punctuation and spelling

TONE AND ATTITUDE

The author’s perception about a subject and its presentation to an audience.

Tone wordsACERBICBENEVOLENTBITTERSWEETCLINICALCOLLOQUIALCONDESCENDING

CONTEMPTUOUSCRYPTICCYNICALDESPONDENTDIDACTICDISDAINFULELEGIACENIGMATIC 

EUPHORIC FACETIOUS FLIPPANT FRIVOLOUS GRANDIOSE HOSTILE ICONOCLASTIC IMPARTIAL INDIGNANT INSIPID IRREVERANT LACONIC LAUDATORY MORALSITIC 

NOSTALGIC OBSEQUIOUS OSTENTATIOUS PATRONIZING PEDANTIC PITHY POIGNANT MATERNAL/

PATERNALPRECOCIOU PRETENTIOUS PROSAIC RIBALD RUEFULSACCHARINE

SARCASTIC SOMBER SARDONIC SOPHOMORIC SUPERCILIOUS SYMPATHETIC SUSPENSEFUL TRANQUIL VOCIFEROUS WHIMSICAL CANDID AMBIVALENT INTROSPECTIVE SCATHING

 

ATTITUDE

His or her relationship to the audience:

Talking down to the audience as an advisor Talking down to the audience as a satirist Talking to the audience as an equal. Talking up to the audience as a subordinate or

supplicant.

ORGANIZATION

The way an author presents ideas to an audience.

Organizational Patterns Chronological Cause/effect Spatial Compare/contrast Least to most important

General to specific Specific to general Most important to least Flashback/flash forward

Detail/Imagery

Descriptive details allow sensory recreations of experiences, objects, or imaginings. In other words, description encourages a more concrete or sensory experience of a subject, one which allows the reader to transport himself or herself into a scene. Writing that lacks description is in danger of being plain or overly general.

Using detail in the Narrative Essay (Gilbert Findlay, Department of English, CSU)

All writing is an act of definition. The writer uses some terms that are key to the subject. Take for example this passage from Itabari Njeri: 'Because of my family, I learned to see and hear the complexity and grand drama that underlay the simplest of human actions.' The key terms here are 'family,' complexity,' and 'human actions.' Then, the writer is obliged to follow with descriptive detail. It must be concrete in order to 'define' these terms in context. Without descriptive, contextual detail, the reader may only understand 'family' with reference to his or her own family, while what Njeri may be promising about an understanding of culture through family may be 90 degrees off from what the reader assumes. "

Persuasive Writing (Karen Wuest, GTA -

Department of English)

There is a significant difference between choosing details simply to describe something and selecting details that not only describe, but also reveal. This is particularly true in fiction—selective details which reveal character, or which might enlighten the reader about the narrator. It is also true in general, where details often reveal some deeper issue throbbing beneath the surface.

That details can be used to describe is essential and true, but they should also go beyond that. Sheer description bogged down with details lacks energy, verve. The details must carry weight, reveal something beyond just the surface they have been describing.

In the Creative Writer's Handbook, Philip K. Jason and Allan B. Lefcowitz explain that "sensory experience is primary experience: we see, feel, taste, smell, and hear before we think, analyze, choose, and argue" (130). Therefore, before an argument can effectively persuade an audience, the writer must carefully select and utilize descriptive details. If a writer can effectively engage the reader's primary senses, then the audience can be more easily enticed to feel the validity of the argument. For example, an argument which provides a plea to end deforestation is far more moving when it includes an emotional and sensory depiction of the desolate environment, the ravaged wilderness, the displaced animals. Descriptive details can cause emotional triggers which are key when attempting to persuade an audience.