A PowerPoint I use in my composition course.

1. The Rhetorical
Situation

2. What Is Rhetoric?
• Argument
• Communication
• Presenting your view of
the world to others

3. Components of the Rhetorical
Situation
• Author – speaker, message sender
• Audience – receiver, must participate
• Context – time, place, attitudes, etc.
• Purpose – why you are communicating
• Topic – what you are communicating about
• Genre – medium, way of communicating

4. Author
• Beliefs, values
• Experience
• Ethos – credibility
• Personal choices

5. Audience
• Real
• What does the
audience value?
• Interesting
• Original
• Makes sense
• Length
• Trust/ integrity

6. Audience
Where on the line does the audience fall?
• ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
• Completely agree Unsure/uniformed/uninterested Completely Disagree

7. Context and Exigency
• Situation that calls for change
• Situation calls for rhetoric and argument

8. Purpose
• Persuade
• Inform
• Analyze – look closely at
• Entertain
• Describe
• Ask for something

9. Topic
• What you are communicating about

10. Genre
• Website
• News clip
• Documentary
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Books – novel, fiction,
scientific, biography

11. Rhetorical Strategies

12. Ethos
Appeals to Credibility
• Position
• Education
• Knowledge/ background
• Experience
• How one presents oneself
• Present research of others,
responsibly and accurately
• Published and where published
• Proofread/ professional
presentation

13. Pathos:
Appeals to Emotion and Values
• Health
• Family
• Patriotism
• Education
• Hunger
• Taste
• Money
• Emotions like anger, fear,
sadness, joy, etc.

14. Logos:
Appeals to Logic
• Makes sense
• Logic
• Facts and figures

15. Logical Techniques
• Sign - A sign of something else - Someone who is extremely thin might be a
sign of malnutrition
• Induction - Many examples to prove a point - To say that global warming
exists means showing examples from many countries, not just one or two
• Cause - One thing logically causes another - HIV virus, if untreated, causes
AIDS virus
• Definition - Be sure to define your terms! Remember, poverty in one country
may be defined differently than in another country
• Analogy - Comparing one thing to another - This depends on both things
being similar - For example, immigration laws in some states may work in this
state.
• Deduction - Start from a general principle and work down - All cats are
mammals. Whiskers is a cat. Whiskers is a mammal.
• Statistics - Numbers, percentages, ratios, results of studies, etc.

16. Organization and Structure
• Cause & Effect
• Comparison
• Chronological
• Emphatic
• General to Specific

17. Language
• Language is used to convey emotion, logic, and
credibility!