Chapter 5: Understanding Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasion

Every act of communication involves choices.

A student asking a professor for an extension might choose between an email and an after-class conversation. The student must decide how much context to provide, what tone to use, when to make the request, and how directly to state the need. The same message sent to a close friend would probably use different language, evidence, detail, and formality.

Those changes are rhetorical. They respond to differences in audience, purpose, relationship, genre, and situation.

Rhetorical choices can include:

• which ideas or details to include;
• which ideas to omit;
• how to organize the message;
• what tone to establish;
• what words, examples, images, or sounds to use;
• what evidence to present;
• which source or speaker to feature;
• what genre or medium to choose;
• when and where to communicate;
• how directly or indirectly to state the purpose;
• which audience values, concerns, or expectations to address.

Key Insight: Rhetoric is not a decorative layer added after the “real” message. The choices through which a message is created help determine what that message means and how an audience may receive it.

Rhetoric as a reader

When you read rhetorically, you ask more than What does this text say?

You also ask:

• Why does this text exist?
• What situation prompted it?
• Who seems to be addressed?
• What response does the creator appear to want?
• Why was this form or medium selected?
• What choices shape the message?
• What effects might those choices have?
• What does the text assume about its audience?

Rhetoric as a writer

When you write rhetorically, you consider how your own choices fit the situation.

You ask:

• What am I trying to accomplish?
• Who needs to understand or respond to this message?
• What does that audience already know?
• What concerns, questions, values, or resistance might the audience bring?
• What evidence will be useful and credible here?
• What tone and organization fit the purpose?
• What genre and medium will help the message work?

Rhetorical awareness does not guarantee that every message will succeed. Audiences are not machines that produce a predictable response when the correct lever is pulled. It does, however, help communicators make more deliberate choices.

A rhetorical situation is the set of circumstances in which communication is created and received. Different scholars describe its parts in slightly different ways, but several elements are especially useful for college writers.

Creator or rhetor

The creator may be an individual, group, institution, company, agency, or other organization.

Ask:

• Who created the message?
• What role, experience, perspective, or institutional position does the creator bring?
• What relationship does the creator have to the issue and audience?
• Is the creator speaking personally, professionally, or on behalf of an organization?

The creator is not always identical to the visible speaker. A commercial may feature an actor, but a company and advertising team produced the message. A public statement may carry one person’s name while representing an institution.

Exigence or motivating problem

Exigence is the situation, problem, event, question, or need that invites a response.

Ask:

• What happened or what condition made this message necessary?
• Why communicate now rather than earlier or later?
• What problem does the creator appear to recognize?
• What might happen if no one responds?

Not every exigence is an emergency. A professor may write an assignment because students need guidance. A business may advertise because it wants customers. A student may write an analysis because a text raises a question worth exploring.

Audience

The audience includes the people who encounter, interpret, or use the message.

Ask:

• Who is the intended or primary audience?
• Who else may encounter the message?
• What might this audience already know?
• What values, experiences, expectations, or concerns may matter?
• What questions or objections might the audience bring?
• What relationship does the audience have with the creator?

Avoid reducing an audience to a demographic checklist. Age, education, location, and other characteristics may matter, but audience analysis also considers knowledge, purpose, values, expectations, access, and situation.

Purpose

Purpose is what the creator hopes the message will accomplish.

A text may aim to:

• inform;
• explain;
• define;
• persuade;
• invite;
• warn;
• reassure;
• entertain;
• motivate action;
• change a belief;
• strengthen an existing belief;
• build or repair a relationship;
• document a decision or event.

Texts often have more than one purpose. A college webpage may inform students about a program while also persuading them that the program is welcoming and worthwhile.

Subject and message

The subject is the issue or topic being addressed. The message is what the text communicates about that subject.

Two writers may address the same subject but construct very different messages. “Campus parking” is a subject. One message might argue that parking fees should fund public transit, while another might explain how to appeal a citation.

Context

Context includes the social, cultural, historical, political, economic, geographic, institutional, and conversational circumstances surrounding the text.

Ask:

• When and where was the text created?
• What events or debates shaped it?
• What previous messages is it answering?
• Where was it published or distributed?
• What institutional rules or expectations matter?
• What information would the original audience likely have known?

Context can change how a message is understood. A campus safety announcement sent during a routine drill will be read differently from a similar message sent during an unfolding emergency.

Genre and medium

Genre is a recognizable type of communication, such as an email, essay, infographic, advertisement, report, podcast, speech, or social-media post. Medium is the channel or material form through which it reaches the audience.

Genre and medium create possibilities and limits.

A poster can use size, color, and placement to attract attention but may provide little room for detailed explanation. A research article can develop evidence extensively but may reach a narrower audience. A short video can combine image, sound, pacing, and spoken language, yet viewers may encounter it while distracted or without sound.

Constraints and opportunities

A rhetorical situation also includes factors that limit or enable the communicator.

These may include:

• time and length limits;
• assignment requirements;
• available evidence;
• platform rules;
• accessibility needs;
• legal or ethical responsibilities;
• audience expectations;
• institutional authority;
• technology;
• cost;
• the creator’s knowledge and position.

A constraint is not always a flaw. A two-minute presentation forces different choices than a ten-page report. Skilled communicators work within constraints and sometimes use them creatively.

Key Insight: The elements of a rhetorical situation interact. Audience affects purpose, context affects credibility, genre affects organization, and exigence affects timing. A rhetorical situation is a web, not a row of isolated boxes.

Consider this original Scholar’s Compass scenario:

A community college library plans to remain open until midnight during final-exam week. The library posts a square graphic on Instagram showing the new hours, a photograph of a well-lit study area, and the sentence “A little more time to finish strong.” The caption lists tutoring hours, transportation information, and a link to the full schedule.

Creator

The college library communicates as an institutional service. Its authority comes partly from its responsibility for the space and schedule.

Exigence

Students need additional study time and academic support during final-exam week.

Audience

The primary audience is current students, especially those preparing for exams or completing projects. Secondary audiences may include faculty, staff, and family members who follow the college account.

Purpose

The post informs students about extended hours, encourages them to use the library, and presents the library as supportive and responsive.

Context

The timing matters because final-exam week creates urgency, stress, and altered student routines. Transportation and safety may become more important when the building remains open late.

Genre and medium

Instagram allows the library to combine a brief visual message with a longer caption and link. The square graphic must communicate quickly to users who may be scrolling.

Constraints and opportunities

The post has limited visual space, so it emphasizes the central information and moves details to the caption. The image creates an opportunity to show the study environment, while the transportation link addresses a practical constraint.

This analysis provides the situation in which the choices occur. The next step is to examine how specific rhetorical appeals and strategies operate within that situation.

The classical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos describe broad ways a message can become persuasive. Kairos draws attention to timing, opportunity, and appropriateness.

The appeals are not ingredients that a creator pours into a text by the spoonful. They are relationships and effects created through choices.

• Ethos concerns credibility, character, trust, and authority.
• Pathos concerns emotion, values, identification, and felt experience.
• Logos concerns claims, evidence, reasons, definitions, examples, and patterns of reasoning.
• Kairos concerns timing, urgency, opportunity, relevance, and fit within a particular moment.

A single choice can contribute to more than one appeal. A personal story may create an emotional connection, establish firsthand credibility, and illustrate a logical point. A statistic may support reasoning but also produce concern or urgency.

Key Insight: Do not stop after naming an appeal. Rhetorical analysis explains what creates the appeal, how it operates in the situation, and why it may matter to the audience and purpose.

Ethos concerns the credibility and character an audience associates with a communicator or message.

Ethos may exist before the text begins. A medical researcher, local resident, public agency, student organization, or company enters a situation with an existing reputation and relationship to the issue.

Ethos is also constructed within the text through choices.

Ways a communicator may build ethos

• demonstrating relevant knowledge or experience;
• identifying a role or institutional responsibility;
• using appropriate and credible sources;
• representing evidence accurately;
• acknowledging uncertainty or limitations;
• addressing counterarguments fairly;
• using a tone suited to the audience and situation;
• explaining methods or decision-making processes;
• correcting errors transparently;
• showing awareness of the audience’s needs and concerns;
• following the conventions of an appropriate genre.

Credentials are not the whole of ethos

A title or degree may matter, but credentials alone do not guarantee trustworthiness. A person may have expertise in one field but not another. A source may possess formal authority while communicating carelessly or unfairly.

Similarly, firsthand experience can create meaningful credibility without making a person an expert on every aspect of the issue.

Ethos in the library example

The library’s institutional account, accurate schedule, transportation information, and link to full details help establish credibility. The practical information suggests that the library has considered what students will need, not merely what image it wants to project.

Questions for analyzing ethos

• What makes the creator appear knowledgeable, responsible, or trustworthy?
• Is the claimed expertise relevant to the subject?
• What sources or evidence strengthen credibility?
• Does the communicator acknowledge limits or competing views?
• How do tone, design, grammar, and organization affect trust?
• Does the publication or platform contribute borrowed credibility?
• What might cause the intended audience to distrust the message?
• Does the message earn trust, request trust, assume trust, or imitate trust?

Problems involving ethos

False authority: A person’s fame, title, or expertise in one area is used as proof of expertise in another.

Ad hominem: A person is attacked instead of the person’s claim or evidence being addressed.

Guilt by association: A claim is dismissed only because of another person or group connected to it.

Manufactured credibility: A message imitates the appearance of expertise through vague titles, invented organizations, misleading design, or unsupported claims.

Ethos is not simply “the author is credible.” A useful analysis explains which choices create credibility for which audience and whether that credibility is deserved.

Pathos concerns the emotions, values, attachments, and experiences through which audiences respond to a message.

Emotional appeals are not automatically irrational or manipulative. People make decisions about issues that affect safety, belonging, fairness, identity, hope, grief, pride, fear, responsibility, and care. Emotion often helps audiences recognize why an issue matters.

Ways a communicator may create pathos

• telling a personal story;
• describing a specific person, place, or event;
• using vivid or sensory language;
• selecting emotionally weighted words;
• using photographs, music, color, pacing, or facial expression;
• inviting the audience to imagine a possible outcome;
• using humor;
• emphasizing shared values or identity;
• arranging information to create surprise, tension, relief, or urgency;
• showing the human consequences of an abstract policy or statistic.

Pathos in the library example

The phrase “finish strong” acknowledges student effort and creates encouragement. The warmly lit study area presents the library as calm, open, and supportive. Those choices may reduce anxiety or help students imagine themselves using the space.

Questions for analyzing pathos

• What emotions or values does the message invite?
• Which words, images, sounds, examples, or stories create that response?
• Why might that response matter to this audience?
• Does the emotional appeal support the message’s purpose?
• What experiences or identities are audiences invited to recognize?
• Whose feelings or experiences are centered?
• What perspectives are absent?
• Does the message create emotion honestly, or does it exaggerate, distort, or distract?

Problems involving pathos

Scare tactic: A message creates disproportionate fear without adequate evidence.

Appeal to pity: Sympathy is used as a substitute for addressing the claim or decision at issue.

Loaded language: Emotionally charged terms push an audience toward judgment without sufficient explanation.

Sentimental substitution: A moving story replaces rather than illustrates the necessary evidence or reasoning.

A strong rhetorical analysis does not merely say that an image “uses pathos.” It identifies the emotion or value, explains how the choice produces it, and considers its likely role in the situation.

Logos concerns the relationships among claims, reasons, evidence, examples, definitions, and conclusions.

Logos is not simply the presence of numbers. A statistic can be irrelevant, misleading, or poorly interpreted. A story or comparison can contribute to reasoning when it clearly supports a claim.

Ways a communicator may build logos

• defining important terms;
• stating a clear claim;
• offering reasons that support the claim;
• providing relevant examples;
• using credible statistics or research;
• explaining cause-and-effect relationships;
• comparing useful similarities or differences;
• organizing ideas coherently;
• addressing counterarguments;
• qualifying a claim when the evidence is limited;
• connecting evidence explicitly to a conclusion.

Claims, evidence, and the missing connection

Evidence does not explain itself. A communicator must show why the evidence supports the claim.

Consider:

Claim: The library should remain open later during final-exam week.

Evidence: Evening attendance increased during last semester’s extended-hours pilot.

Reasoning: The increased use suggests that students need study space beyond regular closing time, particularly when projects and exams concentrate near the end of the semester.

The reasoning sentence explains the relationship between the evidence and claim.

Logos in the library example

The post lists exact hours, tutoring availability, transportation information, and a schedule link. Those details allow students to make practical decisions. The reasoning remains mostly implicit: extended access and support are useful during a period of increased academic demand.

Questions for analyzing logos

• What is the central claim or message?
• What reasons support it?
• What evidence is provided?
• Is the evidence relevant, sufficient, current, and accurately represented?
• What assumptions connect the evidence to the conclusion?
• Are key terms defined?
• Does the organization help the audience follow the reasoning?
• Are alternatives or counterarguments considered?
• Does the conclusion match the evidence’s actual level of certainty?

Common reasoning problems

Hasty generalization: A broad conclusion is drawn from too little or unrepresentative evidence.

False dilemma: A message presents only two options when other possibilities exist.

False cause: Sequence or correlation is treated as proof of causation.

Slippery slope: One action is said to lead inevitably to extreme consequences without adequate support.

Straw man: Another position is simplified or distorted so it is easier to reject.

Cherry-picking: Only favorable evidence is selected while important contrary evidence is ignored.

Red herring: An irrelevant issue diverts attention from the central question.

A fallacy label should begin analysis, not end it. Explain where the reasoning breaks down and why that problem matters to the argument.

Kairos refers to the opportune or fitting moment for a message. It involves more than the publication date. Kairos asks whether a message fits the needs, urgency, expectations, and possibilities of a particular situation.

Kairotic choices may involve:

• when a message is released;
• when a claim appears within the message;
• when evidence or a call to action is introduced;
• whether the issue feels urgent or newly relevant;
• whether the audience is prepared to hear the message;
• whether the genre and medium fit the moment;
• whether a response arrives too early, too late, or at an especially useful time;
• whether a creator takes advantage of a cultural event, deadline, controversy, or opening.

Kairos in the library example

The library post appears shortly before final-exam week, when students are planning study schedules. The message would be less useful if posted after exams ended. Instagram may also be appropriate because students can encounter and share the update quickly.

Questions for analyzing kairos

• Why does this message appear now?
• What event, deadline, need, or conversation creates the opportunity?
• How does the creator establish urgency or relevance?
• Is the audience likely to be receptive at this moment?
• Does the timing strengthen or weaken the message?
• Is the chosen genre or medium appropriate to the moment?
• Where within the message do the strongest claim and evidence appear, and why?

Kairos reminds us that a well-reasoned message can still fail if it arrives at the wrong time, in the wrong form, or without attention to what the situation currently requires.

Ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos frequently overlap.

In the library post:

• the official account and complete information contribute to ethos;
• the image and “finish strong” language contribute to pathos;
• the hours, tutoring details, and transportation link contribute to logos;
• the timing before final-exam week contributes to kairos.

That list identifies the appeals, but rhetorical analysis must go further.

A stronger explanation might say:

By pairing precise logistical information with the encouraging phrase “finish strong,” the library presents extended hours as both a practical service and an expression of institutional support. The official schedule link strengthens credibility, while the timing allows students to incorporate the new hours into their exam-week plans. Together, these choices make the post more likely to feel useful rather than merely promotional.

This explanation identifies choices, connects them to the situation, and considers their combined effect.

Do effective messages need equal amounts of every appeal?

No. The rhetorical situation determines what matters most.

A laboratory report may rely heavily on evidence, method, and disciplinary credibility. A memorial speech may place greater emphasis on shared experience and emotion. An emergency alert may prioritize clarity, authority, urgency, and immediate action.

Balance does not mean equal portions. It means that the choices work coherently for the audience, purpose, and situation.

Key Insight: Appeals are effective only in relation to a situation. The question is not “Does the text contain pathos?” but “How does this emotional choice function for this audience, purpose, and moment?”

Students often begin rhetorical analysis by locating appeals:

The post uses ethos, pathos, and logos.

That observation is a useful starting point, but it does not yet make an analytical claim.

A rhetorical analysis explains:

1. the situation in which the message operates;
2. the specific choice the creator makes;
3. how the choice works in the text or medium;
4. the response or understanding it may invite from the audience;
5. why that effect matters to the creator’s purpose;
6. how effective or ethical the choice appears within the situation.

A practical analysis pattern

Choice → Effect → Audience → Purpose

• Choice: What did the creator do?
• Effect: What does the choice emphasize, suggest, clarify, conceal, or make the audience feel?
• Audience: Why might that effect matter to this particular audience?
• Purpose: How might it help or hinder what the creator wants to accomplish?

Weak identification

The library uses pathos by showing a nice study space.

Stronger analysis

The photograph of a bright, orderly study area invites students to imagine the library as a calm alternative to crowded or distracting environments. During final-exam week, that visual reassurance supports the library’s purpose by presenting extended hours not simply as more time, but as access to a space where focused work seems possible.

The stronger version identifies the visual choice, names the likely effect, connects it to students’ situation, and explains its relationship to purpose.

Rhetorical analysis is not mind reading

A writer usually cannot prove exactly what every audience member felt or what every creator secretly intended.

Use appropriately qualified language:

• may encourage;
• invites the audience to see;
• positions the issue as;
• emphasizes;
• suggests;
• creates the impression;
• could strengthen;
• appears designed to;
• is likely to resonate with;
• risks alienating.

Qualified language allows you to make a reasoned interpretation without pretending that audience response is perfectly predictable.

Rhetorical analysis is not personal approval

You may dislike a message that is rhetorically effective, or agree with a message that is poorly designed.

Rhetorical analysis asks:

• How does the message work?
• For whom might it work?
• What choices make it more or less effective?
• What ethical concerns arise?

Your personal reaction may provide a clue, but the analysis must examine the text and situation.

Step 1: Read or view for the main message

Identify what the text communicates before dividing it into parts.

Step 2: Map the rhetorical situation

Record the creator, exigence, audience, purpose, subject, context, genre, medium, constraints, and opportunities.

Step 3: Notice significant choices

Look for patterns in:

• diction and tone;
• examples and stories;
• evidence and sources;
• organization and sequence;
• repetition;
• definitions;
• images, color, layout, typography, and spacing;
• sound, music, editing, pacing, and performance;
• what is emphasized or omitted;
• calls to action;
• the placement of claims and evidence.

Step 4: Select choices worth analyzing

Do not attempt to mention everything. Select choices that appear central, repeated, surprising, revealing, or especially connected to audience and purpose.

Step 5: Develop an analytical claim

A useful rhetorical-analysis thesis identifies:

• the text or message;
• its primary purpose or situation;
• the significant choices or pattern;
• the effect or larger insight those choices create.

Model thesis:

By combining precise logistical information with reassuring visual and verbal cues, the library’s final-exam post presents extended hours as both a practical resource and an expression of institutional care, a strategy likely to appeal to students managing academic pressure and complicated schedules.

Step 6: Use evidence and explain it

Quote or describe the relevant wording, image, design feature, sequence, or sound. Then explain how the evidence supports the analytical claim.

Chapter 4’s prepare-present-explain structure can help you integrate this evidence without dropping it into the paragraph.

Step 7: Evaluate in context

Consider whether the choices fit the audience, purpose, genre, and moment. Evaluation should grow from analysis, not from a quick declaration that the text is “good,” “bad,” “effective,” or “biased.”

Persuasion is not automatically manipulation. Communication becomes ethically concerning when it distorts evidence, conceals important information, exploits vulnerability, misrepresents other positions, or removes meaningful opportunities for judgment.

Questions for ethical analysis

• Is the evidence accurate and fairly represented?
• Are important qualifications or risks omitted?
• Does the communicator identify uncertainty?
• Are emotional appeals proportionate to the issue?
• Does the message exploit fear, shame, grief, or identity?
• Are opposing positions represented fairly?
• Does the audience have enough information to make an informed decision?
• Does the design make an important option difficult to notice or choose?
• Is authority earned, relevant, and transparent?
• Who benefits from the message?
• Who may be excluded, stereotyped, or harmed?

Effectiveness and ethics are different questions

A misleading message may persuade some audiences. An ethical message may fail because it is poorly timed or unclear.

Rhetorical analysis can therefore ask both:

1. How effectively does the message pursue its purpose?
2. How fairly and responsibly does it pursue that purpose?

The two questions belong together, but they should not be confused.

Rhetorical analysis applies to more than printed essays.

Written texts

Notice claims, evidence, tone, organization, sentence structure, definitions, examples, and source use.

Images and advertisements

Notice composition, scale, perspective, color, contrast, gaze, symbols, captions, absence, and placement.

Video and film

Notice framing, editing, camera angle, performance, music, pacing, sequence, lighting, and spoken language.

Podcasts and speeches

Notice voice, pauses, emphasis, repetition, sound, organization, storytelling, and delivery.

Websites and interfaces

Notice navigation, labels, defaults, hierarchy, button placement, color, accessibility, prompts, notifications, and the pathways made easy or difficult.

Maps and designed spaces

Notice boundaries, labels, scale, orientation, projection, access, barriers, pathways, visibility, and which users or activities the design appears to anticipate.

Across media, the central question remains: How do choices shape what an audience notices, understands, feels, and may be encouraged to do?

Practice 1: Map a rhetorical situation

Choose one of the following:

• an email requesting an extension;
• a campus announcement about a schedule change;
• a city notice about a new bike lane;
• a social-media advertisement;
• a public-service poster;
• an editorial about tuition or transportation.

Identify:

1. creator;
2. exigence;
3. audience;
4. purpose;
5. subject and central message;
6. context;
7. genre and medium;
8. constraints and opportunities.

Then explain which two elements most strongly shape the message and why.

Practice 2: Same purpose, different audience

Imagine that a college has changed its tutoring schedule.

Draft a one- or two-sentence message for each audience:

• current students;
• faculty advisers;
• parents or family members;
• prospective students;
• college administrators.

Afterward, explain how your tone, detail, evidence, and emphasis changed.

Practice 3: Move beyond appeal spotting

Choose an advertisement, announcement, post, speech, or short video.

For one important choice, complete the pattern:

• Choice:
• Effect:
• Audience:
• Purpose:
• Ethical question:

Turn those notes into a three- or four-sentence analytical passage.

Practice 4: Appeals working together

Return to the library example or choose another message.

Identify one choice that contributes to at least two appeals. Explain how the appeals overlap rather than discussing them as separate ingredients.

Practice 5: Reasoning repair

Identify the reasoning problem in each statement, then revise the claim so it becomes more accurate and supportable.

1. “My roommate missed one bus, so the entire public-transit system is unreliable.”
2. “Either the college eliminates all deadlines or it does not care about working students.”
3. “The tutoring center extended its hours, and grades rose that semester, so the new hours caused the increase.”
4. “Students who support free textbooks want professors to stop assigning serious reading.”
5. “A famous athlete recommends this study method, so it must be educationally sound.”

Practice 6: Analyze a multimodal text

Choose a video, infographic, webpage, map, poster, or designed space.

Record:

• the first element that attracts attention;
• the sequence in which information becomes available;
• the role of color, image, sound, placement, or movement;
• one element that builds credibility;
• one emotional or value-based appeal;
• one reasoning pattern or piece of evidence;
• one way timing or context matters;
• one element that is absent or difficult to notice.

Develop a paragraph explaining how two or three choices work together.

Practice 7: Draft a rhetorical-analysis thesis

Use this flexible pattern:

By using [significant choices or pattern], [creator/text] presents [subject or message] as [larger framing or effect], a strategy that [relationship to audience and purpose].

Revise the pattern so it sounds natural rather than filling blanks mechanically.

Practice 8: Make a rhetorical choice in your own writing

Choose a current assignment and identify:

• your actual and intended audiences;
• your primary purpose;
• the situation or problem your writing answers;
• the most appropriate tone;
• the evidence your audience will need;
• one likely audience concern;
• one choice involving organization, example, medium, or design;
• one ethical responsibility you should keep in view.

Write a brief plan explaining how those considerations will shape the draft.

Rhetorical choices do not emerge from nowhere. Communicators make decisions within systems of values, beliefs, expectations, and assumptions about how the world works or should work.

A message may assume:

• which problems deserve attention;
• whose experiences are normal or important;
• what counts as credible evidence;
• what responsibilities individuals or institutions should have;
• which outcomes are desirable;
• what an audience already accepts as common sense.

Before moving forward, choose a message and identify:

1. one value it appeals to;
2. one belief it appears to rely on;
3. one assumption it makes about the audience or issue;
4. one idea it presents as normal, natural, or inevitable;
5. one action or non-action the message encourages.

In Chapter 6: Values, Assumptions, and Ideology, you will examine how these deeper frameworks shape rhetorical choices and influence what people decide to do, support, resist, or leave unchanged.

You are ready to continue when you can:

• define rhetoric as strategic communication in context;
• identify the major elements of a rhetorical situation;
• explain how ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos overlap;
• distinguish appeal identification from rhetorical analysis;
• connect a specific choice to audience, purpose, and effect;
• use qualified language when discussing possible audience response;
• identify and explain a reasoning problem;
• evaluate both the effectiveness and ethics of a rhetorical choice;
• apply rhetorical awareness to your own writing.

Next: Chapter 6, Values, Assumptions, and Ideology

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Attribution and licensing note

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