AP Lang Rhetorical Essentials

Rhetorical Situation

The circumstances surrounding an argument, including the speaker, audience, message, purpose, and context.

Ethos

An appeal based on credibility, character, trust, experience, or shared values.

Logos

An appeal based on reasoning, evidence, facts, examples, definitions, statistics, or cause and effect.

Pathos

An appeal to the audience's emotions, values, experiences, or imagination.

Claim

The main position of an argument that asks the audience to accept.

Evidence

The information used to support a claim, including facts, statistics, examples, observations, testimony, research, or personal experience.

Warrant / Assumption

The unstated belief or principle connecting the evidence to the claim.

Enthymeme

An argument in which part of the reasoning is left unstated because the audience is expected to understand or accept it.

Counterargument

An opposing position that a writer or speaker seriously acknowledges and addresses.

Concession

An acknowledgment that part of the opposing argument is reasonable or valid.

Qualifier

Language that limits a claim so that it is more accurate and defensible.

Common Ground

A belief or value shared between the speaker and audience, even when they disagree about the solution.

Rogerian Argument

An approach to argument that begins by understanding the opposition and finding common ground rather than attacking immediately.

Arrangement

The deliberate order and organization of an argument.

Style

The way a speaker or writer uses language to shape the audience's experience.

Hasty Generalization

A logical fallacy where a small sample becomes a big conclusion.

Straw Man

A fallacy where an easier or distorted argument replaces the real argument.

Ad Hominem

A fallacy where attacking the person replaces addressing the argument.

Slippery Slope

A fallacy where one possible consequence becomes a guaranteed chain of increasingly extreme consequences.

Appeal to False Authority

A fallacy where status in one area is falsely treated as expertise in an unrelated area.

Bandwagon

A fallacy where popularity or a sense of belonging is used as evidence.

Black-and-White / Either-Or Reasoning

A fallacy reducing a complicated range of possibilities to only two choices.

Scare Tactic / Appeal to Fear

A fallacy where fear replaces evidence to make the audience feel endangered.

Red Herring

A fallacy where a distraction replaces a substantive response.

Faulty Causality

A fallacy assuming that because two things happen together or sequentially, one caused the other.

Circular Reasoning

A fallacy where the claim becomes its own evidence without independent support.