This year so far ENG 103 has learned quite a bit about rhetoric, yet it is still sometimes confusing to me. When I look back on everything we learned, it starts making a lot of sense to me. Some important thinks that have really stuck with me is how rhetoric can be used in a fight or an argument. In a fight, the goal is to win, where as an argument, it is to persuade and achieve a goal. Rhetoric has some vital functions in society such as testing ideas, assisting in advocating for something or someone, distributing power, sharing facts, shaping knowledge, and building communities.
According to Aristotle there is 3 types of persuasive appeals, also called rhetoric devices. Ethos, pathos, and logos are the main 3, but there is a few others including authority, popularity, beliefs or convictions, and ascetics.
Ethos- used to convince audience of your credibility by your moral character.
Pathos- appeals to emotion, provoking a feeling, used a lot in our age of mass media
Logos- logic or reasoning, using analogies, examples, citations, and stats, not always just facts and figures but can be the structure and content of speech itself, the more convincing the message is the better
Deciding which types of appeals to use is a matter of audience. Hopefully those that have taken this class have taken a lot away to use in writing great essays and using in everyday life.
I also find rhetoric confusing. I think the appeals a writer uses makes it easy for their audience to understand their argument but when we write our papers in English 103, it is challenging to explain the rhetoric aspect of the paper.
ReplyDeleteWe did learn alot about rhetoric and how to use it and everything about it but i think we learned other stuff as well. From this class i understand what it takes to write a good essay too, rhetoric including. We've also learned stuff about history like Columbus and the real story behind that. Another thing i learned is about the tobacco companies. Both of these are something that you wouldn't find in a english class but these things helped uo understand the use and purpose of rhetoric on different topics and times.
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