Friday, February 5, 2016

Rhetorical Strategies



Rhetorical Strategies: Strategies used in order to sway the reader, or audience, in favor of the authors/speakers position. 

Examples: As discussed in class, there are many examples of rhetorical strategies. The main ones are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. One would use Ethos when trying to appeal to credibility/character. For example, when using Ethos it helps when the author demonstrates great knowledge about the subject he/she is writing about. This can include personal stories, a change in tone, references to credible sources etc. Pathos is an appeal to emotion. As the definition suggests, the goal of this strategy is to stir up the audience’s emotions. It can accomplish that by using the tone of humor, anger, anguish, or sadness. Finally, there is Logos; the appeal to logic. In order to appeal to logic, authors may use Historical records, statistics, reports, case studies etc. 

From The Text: In the first paragraph of Deluca and Peeples, the authors begin by using Pathos right away as seen here: “…crowds of thousands clogging the commercial center of Seattle and stranding WTO delegates in the mass of humanity…black-clad anarchists trashing the material manifestations of corporate global dominance: Starbucks, Nike Town, McDonald’s…black booted sci-fi storm troopers marching in goose step and restoring order via tea gas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades” (Deluca and Peppels, 183). In this quote, we see the authors attempt to stir the reader’s emotions in favor of the protesters and against the authority (the troopers) which are trying to calm the protest.  

Works Cited: DeLuca, Kevin M and Jennifer Peeples, "From Public Sphere to Public Screen: Democracy, Activism, and the 'Violence' of Seattle." Tactics for External Audiences. 2002.  

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