Elements of Rhetoric

Elements of Rhetoric Authors Purpose
Why did this person write this; what is his/her message or argument? What is the reason he/she is writing it? Whats the occasion for writing it?
Audience
Who is the person really writing to? What assumptions does he/she make about his/her readers experiences, backgrounds, needs, or feelings? How does the context also shape how he/she approaches his/her audience?
Tone
How is the writer coming across? What kind of an attitude does he/she take about his/her specific topic/subject? Also what effect does this tone have on the passage/audience?
Form
How is the writer getting what hes/shes saying across to the reader? How is the language formatted to present the argument and how is the passage set up? Symbols? Archetypes? Metaphors? Repetition? Emotional Appeal? Either or reasoning?
The Four Questions: The Four Elements of Rhetoric At first, when you begin any writing task you should find it helpful to separate these elements and ask yourself these four questions: 1. What is my purpose in writing? What need or occasion is causing me to write? 2. Who is my audience? Why are they reading and what important characteristics do they have that I need to keep in mind? 3. What is the tone I should use in this paper? How do I want to come across to my readers? 4. What is form should I use? How am I going to present this argument? What form would be the most effective? When you are reading someone else's writing and need to understand that writer's rhetorical situation, you should turn the questions around and phrase them like this: 1. What is the writer's purpose? What need or occasion is causing him or her to write? 2. What audience does the writer envision? What assumptions does he or she make about that audience? 3. What tone is the writer assuming? Does he or she project an authentic voice and what is effect of the one used? 4. What is the writer's form? How is the language used to present this argument in a persuasive and clear manner?
Questions to address when you read something: 1. Divide the text into four parts. What is the main point of each of the parts What is the author saying or what is happening in each of these parts? 2. Are there any topics or things repeated? 3. What topic does the author seem to be addressing in this selection? 4. What problems does the author seem to address? Problems with characters, in the story, society, or something he/she talks about? 5. What solutions does the author seem to suggest for solving these problems? Characters solutions, options offered, ways the story is solved, etc.? 6. How does the author seem to approach or talk to the audience (the reader) in some way? Does he/she do so directly? By telling a story? Offering examples? What? 7. Is the author attempting to get the audience to think something, do something, or feel a certain way? Explain. What are some things said/that may have occurred in the text that showed the authors intent with the audience? 8. What attitude or opinion does the author seem to have about this topic? Going Deeper in Your Analysis of Form 1. What major supporting reasons does the author offer for having this attitude/opinion? Or why does the author suggest that others should think this way? Include some of the authors backing to support your argument. 2. How does the author present the things he/she says in the work? Are there any formal devices within the text? How is the passage structured/set up? 3. What sentence structure does the writer use frequently, and how do these structures encode meaning? Are the sentences in a passage primarily simple, primarily compound, primarily complex? Is there extensive subordination? How do these structures help control and pace a reader's response? 4. Does the writer use any rhetorical devicesparallelism, repetition of initial or final words, sound devices like those used in poetry-to underline or supplement meaning? How do these devices affect responses? 5. What kinds of words does the author use? Are these formal and learned, informal, colloquial, slang or nonstandard? Do they emphasize denotative precisionas in scientific description or connotative evocativeness? Are there puns or other word play that indicate an intent other than that conveyed by explicit meaning? 6. What, overall, is the effect of the passage? What relationship-usually called tonedoes it imply among the author, the subject, and the reader? How do all the components of the passage-paraphrasable content, syntax, rhetoric, diction-combine to help create tone?
"What Is a Poet?" Mark Van Doren Here is the figure we have set up. A pale, lost man with long, soft hair. Tapering fingers at the ends of furtively fluttering arms. An air of abstraction in the delicate face, but more often a look of shay pain as some aspect of realitya real man or woman, a grocer's bill, a train, a load of bricks, a newspaper, a noise from the street makes itself manifest. He is generally incompetent. He cannot find his way in a city, he forgets where he is going, he has no aptitude for business, he is childishly gullible and so the prey of human sharks, he cares nothing for money, he is probably poor, he will sacrifice his welfare for a whim, he stops to pet homeless cats, he is especially knowing where children are concerned (being a child himself), he sighs, he sleeps, he wakes to sigh again. The one great assumption from which the foregoing portrait is drawn is an assumption which thousands of otherwise intelligent citizens go on. It is the assumption that the poet is more sensitive than any other kind of man, that he feels more than the rest of us and is more definitely the victim of his feeling
Purpose
Audience
Tone
Form
James Thurber: A Dog's Eye View of Man
If Man has benefited immeasurably by his association with the dog, what, you may ask, has the dog got out of it? His scroll has, of course, been heavily charged with punishments: he has known the muzzle, the leash, and the tether; he has suffered the indignities of the show bench, the tin can on the tail, the ribbon in the hair; his love life with the other sex of his species has been regulated by the frigid hand of authority, his digestion ruined by the macaroons and marshmallows of doting women. The list of his woes could be continued indefinitely. But he has also had his fun, for he has been privileged to live with and study at close range the only creature with reason, the most unreasonable of creatures. The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals. The dog has long been bemused by the singular activities and the curious practices of men, cocking his head inquiringly to one side, intently watching and listening to the strangest goings-on in the world. He has seen men sing together and fight one another in the same evening. He has watched them go to bed when it is time to get up, and get up when it is time to go to bed. He has observed them destroying the soil in vast areas, and nurturing it in small patches. He has stood by while men built strong and solid houses for rest and quiet, and then filled them with lights and bells and machinery. His sensitive nose, which can detect what's cooking in the next township, has caught at one and the same time the bewildering smells of the hospital and the munitions factory. He has seen men raise up great cities to heaven and then blow them to hell.
Purpose
Audience
Tone
Form

Elements of Rhetoric

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What is the author's purpose in writing this passage?

Who is the intended audience of this passage?

Elements of Rhetoric Authors Purpose

James Thurber: A Dog's Eye View of Man

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