1. Bakersfield College Jessica Wojtysiak
AcDv B80

2. Today’s Lecture Topic
The Rhetorical Modes

3. Author’s Purpose
To Inform
To Persuade
To Entertain

4. Aristotle, Rhetoric, and Reading Well
Lived 384 to 322 B.C.E.
Taught by Plato
Taught Alexander the Great
Produced hundreds of treatises, about 30 exist today
Wrote on a wide range of subjects: biology, logic, philosophy, art & aesthetics, politics, and rhetoric.

5. The Art of Rhetoric
“Rhetoric is the faculty of discerning, in any given situation, the available means of persuasion.”

6. Argumentation Strategies
Aristotle believed that there were three essential strategies to achieving persuasion:
Logos
Ethos
Pathos
(page 109 in Course Handout Packet)

7. Examples
Think back the first two articles we read as a class. Can you identify examples of logos?
Ethos?
Pathos?

8. Modern Rhetorical Modes
Definition
Narration
Process Analysis
Description
Illustration
Comparison/Contrast
Cause/Effect
Division/Classification
Argumentation

9. The early Modes Definition, Narration, Process Analysis, Description
Tend to be literal and straight -forward

10. Explains what a word, idea, or topic means
Definition
Explains what a word, idea, or topic means
Dictionary or Author’s own words
Example: Context Clues

11. Narration
Tells the story of what happened, the specific events that happened, and the people who were involved
May use first, second or third person in any narrative
Example: Mark’s narrative voice in True Notebooks

12. Process Analysis
Describes how to do something, how a particular event occurs, or how something works
Instructions: How to cook your favorite meal

13. The Glowing Pickle Apparatus

14. Description
Uses sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch to convey an image or represent an idea

15. Description Practice
Take out your journal. Think of an animal. Write a description of that animal. You cannot say what the animal is, and you cannot name other animals in your description. We’ll see if others can guess your animal based solely upon your description.

16. Increasing Complexity
The Later Modes
Increasing Complexity
Tend to support argumentation (the attempt to persuade)

17. Illustration
Explains a general statement by means of one or more specific examples.
Examples are specific cases or stories which make a general statement more believable.
Example: General ideas and specific ideas in paragraph construction.

18. Comparison/Contrast
Comparison examines the ways in which two persons, places, or things are similar
Literary Examples: Metaphor & Simile
Often used for evaluation

19. Cause/Effect
Refers to a direct relationship between events
Answers the question "why did something happen, and/or what results did it have?"

20. Division/Classification
Gathers items, ideas, or information into types, kinds, or categories according to a single basis of division

21. The Periodic Table

22. Argumentation (Persuasion)
The writer articulates an opinion about a topic
Sometimes involves using outside sources and references to other writers

23. ARgue
Evidence & Logic

24. Any Questions about the Rhetorical Modes?
Let’s Pause a Moment…
Any Questions about the Rhetorical Modes?