1. Rhetorical Analysis Evaluating the Art of Persuasion

2. What is Rhetoric? Rhetoric is the art of speaking or writing effectively.  Effective writers use words for a purpose, most often to persuade.  Rhetorical analysis involves analyzing, or looking closely at, the arguments of others.

3. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, claimed that there are three main strategies for appealing to an audience: 1. Logical (Logos) 2. Emotional (Pathos) 3. Ethical (Ethos)

4. Logical Appeals: Logos Appeals to logic (wisdom and common sense) with well-reasoned argument. Facts, statistics, and research are often cited to make logical appeals. The hope of the writer or speaker who uses logical appeals is that the audience is intelligent and capable of making a good decision when faced with evidence and facts that support the author or speaker’s claims.

5. Emotional Appeals (Pathos) Appeals to emotion using techniques meant to sadden, inspire, entertain, or even anger. Writers evoke emotion through figurative language, imagery, and carefully crafted syntax (sentence structure). Examples of Pathos: Hallmark and ASPCA commercials, public service announcements about poverty or hunger, your parents’ guilt trips

6. Ethical Appeals (Ethos) Appeals to the audience's trust by establishing credibility or authority. Writer states qualifications for expertise. - “As a doctor, I know that smoking causes cancer.” Writer restates opposing views accurately and fairly. - “While I understand that…” - “I recognize that, but I must point out that…”

8. Rhetorical Devices Rhetorical device: any structure of language that writers use to persuade an audience. Examples: - Diction (individual word choices) - Imagery (appeals to the 5 senses) - Details (facts, figures, and statistics) - Language (similes, metaphors, allusions, etc.) - Syntax (sentence structure; parallelism)