Review

Summarising Rhetoric

There are serious issues facing our world today. And, unfortunately, many of the challenges we face result from the misuse of rhetoric to spread misinformation, skew data and deny undesirable outcomes.

Fortunately, we all have the capacity to use rhetoric to argue for what we believe in.

To achieve this, we must use all modes of persuasion to appeal to our listeners. This means using ethos to establish our credibility, logos to present reasonable arguments, and pathos to evoke emotional responses.

In addition, we should make deliberate language choices to ensure our arguments are communicated in the most effective ways possible. This means considering our diction when preparing what we are going to say, and deciding whether to use objective or subjective language to appeal to listeners.

Finally, we should consider how we can use specific persuasive techniques to reinforce our points. These include the use of rhetorical questions to guide listeners towards desirable conclusions, anecdotes to make ourselves and our arguments more relatable, and hypothetical examples and questions to illustrate points and promote audience engagement.

Preparing our arguments with all of these considerations in mind takes time and practice. However, as US President Theodore Roosevelt once said: Nothing worth having comes easy.

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Rhetoric Guide