1. Reading Nonfiction

2. The Author’s Roles What is the author’s role?
First person
Third person
What effect does the author’s role have?
First person: Authorizing a thesis via personal experience.
Third person: Authorizing a thesis through a detached testimony.

3. Rhetorical Modes: Essential Questions
What is the author arguing for or against?
What is the author defining? redefining?
What is the author comparing?
What is the author asserting about cause and effect?
Which testimony is the author using?
Appeal to authority?
Appeal to personal experience?

4. In what category is the author arguing?
Social
Psychological
Economic
Political
Historiographical
Philosophical
Religious
Legal
Scientific

5. How does the author define or redefine?
Definition by tradition or convention
Definition by example
Definition by negation
Definition by analogy or comparison
Definition by association (connotation)
Definition by classification
Definition of genus
Definition of differentia

6. How is the author comparing?
By simile
By metaphor
By analogy
By contrast
By degrees of similarity
By degrees of difference

7. How does the author argue from cause or effect?
From cause to effect
From effect to cause
From simple causation
From multiple causation
From cyclical causation
From a chain of causes and effects (where an effect may become a cause)

8. How does the author use testimony to make the argument?
Argument from authority
Tradition (precedents)
Statistics (research)
Natural laws
Legislated laws
Argument from personal experience
Observation
first-person (the author may be involved)
third-person (the author may be detached)
Personal authority (ethos)
Personal emotions (pathos)