Definitions
This rhetorical choice occurs when an author compares two opposing objects for the purpose of highlighting a difference or juxtaposition.
What is a metaphor?
By using words such as monstrous and massacre, which have strong connotations to violence and fear, an author might be trying to elicit this type of appeal.
What is pathos?
By using repetition, writers employ this rhetorical strategy.
What is emphasis?
The emotion the writer evokes in the text. Often highlighted through diction.
What is tone?
This is the reason for which the writer is speaking in connection with the audience.
What is occasion?
An example of this long from choice can be seen in Toni Morrison's Nobel Lecture speech, or The Crucible. It is an extended comparison to symbolize an idea or prove a point.
What is an allegory?
For an argument to be successful, an audience needs to trust that the writer is knowledge, nuanced, and balanced. In order to do this, the writer may employ personal testimony or allusion in order to evoke this rhetorical appeal.
What is ethos?
To illustrate a contrasting idea or point in a text, a writer may use this rhetorical choice, forcing two opposite things side by side in a sentence.
What is juxtaposition?
It is not enough to just know their name, but also their role in the context of the text.
Who is the speaker?
"Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country" is an example of this rhetorical choice.
What is antithesis?
Without understanding the connotation and denotation of specific diction within a text, audiences may find it hard to understand this potential limitation of the speaker.
What is bias?
In Kimmerer's essay "The Gift of Strawberries," she was able to appeal to the audiences' values of hard work and gratitude by using this rhetorical choice at the beginning of the essay when explaining the berries she picked to bake a cake for her father.
What is anecdote?
A writer wants to build credibility with the audience by illustrating an experience they had as a child that impacted their perspective on the importance of education. The writer should use this rhetorical choice.
What is anecdote?
At the end of her essay "I Want a Wife," Judy Brady provides the rhetorical question, "My God, who wouldn't want a wife?"
In doing so, she is connecting with this vital part of the rhetorical situation.
What is the audience?
By using this rhetorical choice, which includes only one independent clause, the writer can emphasize the idea presented in that clause.
What is a simple sentence?
Many writers allude to this social institution as a way to unite the audience under shared values and moral guidance.
What is religion?
In, "Why I Hunt" Rick Bass uses cause and effect when he states: "The thrush wants to remain a thrush. The goshawk wants to consume the thrush and in doing so, partly become the thrush--to take its flesh into its flesh. They weave through the tangled branches of the forest, zigging and zagging, the goshawk right on the thrush’s tail, like a shadow."
In using the Cause/Effect method of development, he evokes this rhetorical appeal.
What is logos?
In order to provide balance to a nuanced argument, a writer might incorporate the following rhetorical choice:
"We must still act with bravery. We must still act with intention. Without it, we will act too late."
What is parallel structure?
In his speech commemorating a Rosa Parks statue at the US Capitol, President Obama emphasizes the importance of one choice impacting history for decades to come. The commemoration of Rosa Parks at the Capitol during the first Black presidency in America is this part of the rhetorical situation.
What is exigence?
In Abigail Adams 1780 letter to her son, she writes:
"I cannot fulfill the whole of my duty towards you, if I close this Letter, without reminding you of a failing which calls for a strict attention and watchfull care to correct. You must do it for yourself. You must curb that impetuosity of temper, for which I have frequently chid you, but which properly directed may be productive of great good"
This passage reveals this to be her message.
What is her son must watch his temper and use it for good while on a business trip with his father, so he does not disappoint the family or the country.
By using this rhetorical choice, an author may include an explanatory or qualifying word, phrase, or sentence. The choice could be left out of a sentence and still be considered a complete and grammatically correct idea.
What is parenthesis/parenthetical elements?
Rhetorical appeals cannot be used as these, but rather are important to understanding strategies.
What are rhetorical choices?
By using one item to represent an idea or belief, this rhetorical choice emphasizes the specific belief in connection with the audience's values.
What is a symbol?
SOAPSTEM refers to these eight elements of the rhetorical situation
What is Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone, Exigence, Message?
When writing commentary for a rhetorical analysis essay, and hoping for sophistication, I should include these three components under Context, Implications, and Connections.
What is rhetorical choice, rhetorical strategy, and connection to the rhetorical situation in order to prove my thesis.