 Look up online the words “rhetoric”  Define it then in your own words

 Definition of rhetorical analysis:  “A process that uses textual and contextual information to break down HOW a particular example of communication achieves persuasion.”

 Aristotle, a classical Greek philosopher, studied rhetoric and devised three categories of persuasive appeals:  Ethos  Pathos  Logos

 Credibility: convincing someone through your character. Good sense, good will, good character. Author wants greater good and is not manipulative.  How?  Become an expert on the topic, be likeable and worthy of respect, intelligent

 Appealing to the emotions, values, and beliefs of an audience  How?  Word choice  Vivid examples and details  Tone

 Reasoning  Inductive: specific to broad  Deductive: broad to specific

 All swans we have seen have been white; therefore all swans are white.  All known planets travel about the sun in elliptical orbits; therefore all planets travel about the sun in elliptical orbits.

 All dogs are mammals. All mammals have kidneys. Therefore all dogs have kidneys.  Since all squares are rectangles, and all rectangles have four sides, all squares have four sides.

 How?  Use facts, research  Logical thought process  Use evidence to support claims

 Love  Statistics  Belief in fairness  Expert testimony  Credibility  Pity  Reliable sources  Greed  Experiments

 Determining how a text/author uses persuasive strategies

There are many different ways to communicate a message: through pictures, language, gestures, sound, etc. Depending on what type of text you analyze, you will look at different elements to determine how they help communicate a message.

In order to perform rhetorical analysis, one must always think about the context (ie, the purpose of the text, the audience, etc) writer audiencesubject

 Claim: The main idea, thesis, opinion, or belief of the argument. The claim answers the question, “What’s the point?”  Support : statements given to back up the claim. Facts, data, personal experience, expert opinion, evidence from other texts or sources, emotional appeals, or other means.  Warrant: connection, often unstated and assumed, between the claim and the supporting reason(s), or support. Or, in short, warrants are the beliefs, values, inferences and/or experiences that the writers/speakers assume they share with their audiences.

 Pretend that you have had 3 absences to a class already and are only allowed 3 before your grade suffers. You don’t hear your alarm go off and oversleep on a day and earn a 4 th. Use ethos, pathos and logos to appeal to your professor that she should not reduce your grade?

 Pretend that your parents just helped you buy a new car. The first night out in it, you hit an icy patch and total it.  Write a letter to your parents explain the situation  Now write a letter to your friend telling them what happened

 Please read Burton’s “What is Rhetoric and the excerpt from King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and do reading response