Rhetorical Appeals
Appeals to emotions
What is pathos?
Emotionally powerful word choice used to influence the audience.
What is charged language?
“As a doctor with 20 years of experience, I know this treatment works.”
What is ethos?
A speaker asks, 'How many more students must fail before we change this policy?' without expecting an answer. Identify the device.
What is a rhetorical question?
The term for language an author uses to persuade or influence an audience.
What is rhetoric?
Uses statistics and evidence to convince.
What is logos/appeals to logic?
Which device uses a balanced series of similarly structured words or phrases?
What is parallellism?
A speaker describes families losing their homes to encourage people to donate money.
What is pathos/appeals to emotions?
“The cruel school policy unfairly punishes hardworking students.”
What is charged language?
"Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension which is necessary for growth." (Figurative Language)
What is an allusion?
Appeals to author's credibility to convince.
What is ethos?
Comparison between two things to explain an idea or make it easier to understand. Authors use to help readers connect an unfamiliar or complicated idea to something they already know.
What is an analogy?
An author uses statistics and research studies to prove that school lunches should be healthier.
What is logos?
'The plan is simple, affordable, and effective.'
What is parallellism?
An author repeats 'Our community deserves better' throughout a speech advocating for improved public schools. How does the repetition support the author's purpose?
It emphasizes the community's right to better schools and reinforces the call for improvement. Repetition reinforces the central claim and makes it memorable.
Appeals to timeliness
What is kairos?
Contradiction between what is said and what is meant.
What is irony?
"As in so many past experiences, our hopes have been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us."
What is pathos?
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
What is an antithesis?
Two authors argue for the same cause. One uses personal stories, while the other uses statistics. How do their rhetorical strategies differ?
One primarily uses pathos, while the other primarily uses logos.
An author wants an audience that distrusts politicians to support a new environmental law. Explain how the author could use ethos, pathos, and logos together.
Establish credibility with a respected scientist, use a story about a community affected by pollution, and provide scientific data.
Device that places opposite words, ideas, or qualities parallel to one another.
What is an antithesis?
A speaker combines personal experience as a firefighter with statistics about house fires. Identify the two main rhetorical appeals.
What are ethos and logos?
"...bad check, a check which has come back marked as insufficient funds."
What is an analogy?
When analyzing rhetoric, why is it not enough to simply identify ethos, pathos, or logos?
Students must explain how the rhetorical choice supports the author's purpose and influences the intended audience.