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Choices for Rhetorical Effect:Different Audiences,Different Choices:& Articulating Style

The art of successful communication

The art of making choices (a lot of choices) when communicating (in any form) that are based around the many contexts the communication is happening within

Rhetoric

Your purpose Your audience(s) Specific contexts (historical, social,

cultural, spatial, etc.)

Contexts

Reverse Engineering Communication Studying the contexts of a piece of

communication and looking for why the author potentially made the choices they did

Why? To learn for your own improved

communication To better understand the communication

around you

Rhetorical Analysis

Words have connotations that are wrapped up in historical, social, cultural, and highly personal contexts that effect their meanings.

Because of this, rhetorically savvy authors can choose their words carefully to create specific effects in their readers

Though we’ve focused mainly on words: tone, syntax, punctuation, metaphor/simile, choice of details, etc. can all be purposefully chosen for specific effect.

A (perhaps) Overkilled (but important) Point

Word Choice? Sentence Structure? Tone? Details Included versus Left Out? Specific References

What can we tell about an author & their audience from these?

A 3-Step Process Identify Aspect of the Writing

(Choice Made) Articulate Intended Effect and

Why it Works (or maybe doesn’t work in a critique)

Link Intended Effect to Larger Purpose, Audience, Context

Writing About Rhetorical Choices

“The author is sure to offer praise about his students.

A 3-Step ProcessIdentify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

“The author is sure to offer praise for his students when he says that they tend to be open-minded and overwhelmingly generous. He uses a whole separate paragraph to make sure this point stands out.”A 3-Step Process

Identify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

“The author is sure to offer praise for his students when he says that they tend to be open-minded and overwhelmingly generous. He uses a whole separate paragraph to make sure this point stands out. This move is important because the author spends the majority of the essay offering critiques. Some praise lends balance and puts the audience in a better mood to take his critiques seriously.

A 3-Step ProcessIdentify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

The professor assigns an open-ended, guaranteed 50 point assignment where students are encouraged to flex their creativity.

A 3-Step ProcessIdentify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

The professor assigns an open-ended, guaranteed 50 point assignment where students are encouraged to flex their creativity. The professor hopes the students will take joy and freedom in the creative process because school work rarely allows this.A 3-Step Process

Identify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

The professor assigns an open-ended, guaranteed 50 point assignment where students are encouraged to flex their creativity. The professor hopes the students will take joy and freedom in the creative process because school work rarely allows this. The hope is that students will find a way to incorporate that creativity into the stricter, more requirement-based assignments throughout the semester.

A 3-Step ProcessIdentify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

The author chooses to call the proposed nuclear power plant a “clean energy facility” because he recognizes that the word “nuclear” is frightening to some parts of his audience at the city council. By using words like “clean” and “energy,” he hopes to distract from the potential dangers of the plant and put the audience in a better position to be persuaded towards the plant’s usefulness.This is the kind of

writing we’re shooting for.

The author chooses/decides to/counts on The reason for this is . . . Considering this was written

to/during/around The effect of this is . . .

Words/Phrases you use a lot in Rhetorical Analysis

“Saying,” in contrast to formal logic, can only produce empirical cloudiness, an image that again recalls Mallarme’s attitude towards the impurity of everyday language. Logic can show pure form in crystalline purity, in all its adamantine hardness, as that which will never be subject to the sullying flux of the contingent world. It seems clear that underlying this development is an attitude akin to the Platonic mysticism that placed mathematics outside the realm of temporal flow and ordinary language.

“The author makes reference to many philosophical terms (such as “ontology”) but gives no further explanation of what they mean. From this choice, we can tell that the author assumes the audience already has knowledge of these terms.

A 3-Step ProcessIdentify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

“The author makes reference to many philosophical terms (such as “ontology”) but gives no further explanation of what they mean. From this choice, we can tell that the author assumes the audience already has knowledge of these terms. This serves to reward the knowledge of the intended audience while simultaneously keeping less advanced readers outside the text. The slightly arrogant author likely did this on purpose to make his ideas seem more unique or special.

A 3-Step ProcessIdentify Aspect of the Writing (Choice Made)Articulate Intended Effect and Why it WorksLink Intended Effect to Larger Purpose

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees—willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool.

Jennifer Lopez is doing her best to put on a happy face and start over, while Ben Affleck lays low in Los Angeles following the very public breakup of their engagement. Instead of pacing the rooms of her Los Angeles home, wondering where her engagement went wrong, Jennifer has made an effort to go out and have fun in the company of her friends.

Do not add water. Heat, covered, in medium microwavable bowl OR 2 individual microwavable bowls on HIGH about 3 min. Careful, leave in microwave 1 min., then stir. Promptly refrigerate any unused portion in separate container. Recommend use by date on can end. Store unopened can at room temperature. If you prefer, open bottom of can with can opener.

I have written to you several times over the past threemonths requesting an explanation on why you have failedto bring your account with us current.

By ignoring these requests, you are damaging theexcellent credit record you had previously maintainedwith our company. In addition, you are incurringadditional expense to yourself and to us.

Unless I hear from you within ten days, I will have noother choice but to turn your account over for collection.I am sorry that we must take such drastic action but I amafraid you leave us no alternative. You can preserveyour credit rating by remitting your check today for theamount stated above.

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Society has developed over the last few decades from a Barry Lyndon gentility to a bunch of Thunderdome mooks. Nowadays, thoughtless clods all across this great land of ours do everything from clipping their fingernails in restaurants to checking themselves for polyps in the buffet line. Look, I'm not some tie-dyed karma maitre d' trying to seat everybody in the no-conflict section. Day-to-day life, to say the least, can be combative. As far as I'm concerned, the New Age goal of perpetual, smiling bliss is a far worse hell than anything imagined by Quentin Tarantino on windowpane. I don't want some vacant-headed, defanged Quaker land. That's not civility, that's banality. And I'm not talking Amy Vanderbilt civility either, where there's nine forks arranged around your dinner plate like some cutlery Stonehenge and if you choose the wrong one you're sent away to become Edwin Newman's personal toy.

Idk f dis pRticulR pasag s aimed @ a specific audience. Hwevr, praps itz safe 2 sA dat der r typz of audiences hu wd B mre lIklE 2 put up W it n try 2 figa ot w@ it sEz. Otha ppl wd giv ^ almst instantly n mve 2 somit Ls.