Critical Thinking, Rhetoric, and Argumentation in Literature and Media

Critical/Criticism

Attention to something that results in assertion or argument that you make and defend. Barnet and Bedau's components of critical thinking: imagination, analysis, evaluation.

Argument

Your claim and whether it works together.

Text

Speech, essay, novel, movie, song, TV show, advertisement in print or broadcast media, building, photograph, dialogue, stadium, sport, event.

Thesis

An argument boiled down into a sentence or one claim.

Rhetoric

The strategic use of symbols.

Critical claim

A contestable statement about a text that cannot be factual information and requires evidence to support it.

Imagination, Analysis, Evaluation

Components necessary for making a critical claim.

Logos/pathos

Appeals to logic and emotion in argumentation.

Contestable

Make sense

APA citation format

Prioritizes last name of author and year of publication (Yel, 2025)

APA citation assumption

Assumes newer is better

Abbreviated reference in text

Must be connected to a full citation in the reference list

Standard in-text citation format

(Author, Date)

Quote in-text citation format

(Author, Date, p.#)

Multiple Authors in-text citation format

(Author and Author, Date) or (Author et al., Date)

Basic 5-paragraph Essay Structure

Intro: General to specific, end with thesis. Support 1, Support 2, Support 3. Conclusion: Restate thesis, end with broader application.

Sophists

Created rhetoric and manipulated language for various purposes

Sophistry

Unethically manipulating words

Cicero's canons of rhetoric

Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, Delivery

Metonymy

A figure of speech where a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with it

Chiasmus

A reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases that creates new meaning

Allegory of the Cave

A philosophical work by Plato that illustrates the difference between the world of appearances and the world of reality

Dialogue

A literary genre that involves a conversation between two or more characters

Dialectic

The best way to understand things through a collaborative process of give and take

The Republic

The larger work by Plato from which 'The Allegory of the Cave' is taken

Pop Culture Uses of the Cave

Alice in the Wonderland, The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz, Stranger Things

Plato's view on rhetoric

Manipulative and takes advantage of people who don't know better

Cookery in Plato's Gorgias

A sham version of medicine in the same way that rhetoric is the sham version of justice

Socrates' characterization of rhetoric

Ignoble

Political oratory

Argues to do or not to do something, concerned primarily with the future

Epilogue parts

Should have 4 parts

Plato's comparison of rhetoric today

To fad diets, makeup, bodyshapers, plastic surgery

Plato's belief about rhetoricians

Have no power

Aristotle

Plato's student who thinks Plato's ideas on rhetoric are wrong

Aristotle's teaching

Taught Alexander the Great

On Rhetoric

Aristotle's rhetorical manual

Rhetoric definition by Aristotle

The faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion

Inartistic proofs

Used proofs in your argument (eyewitness, fingerprints)

Artistic proofs

Logos, pathos, ethos

Classical form of reasoning

Syllogism

Example of syllogism

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal.

Enthymeme

Means held in the mind

Assertion + reason example

Study for the midterm because it will help you get a better grade.

Ceremonial discourse

Asks the audience not to make a judgement or ask a question.

Forensic/judicial rhetoric

Asks the audience to judge the past.

Political/deliberative rhetoric

Asks the audience to judge what should be done in the future.

Speaker's knowledge in ceremonial rhetoric

Speaker must know deeds of subject.

Speaker's knowledge in forensic rhetoric

Speaker must know the facts of the case.

Speaker's knowledge in political rhetoric

Speaker must know RESOURCES involved.

Aristotle's advice for political arguments

To make a good political argument; you must include what the costs are. What's in it for you?

Epilogue/conclusion

A section that summarizes the main points and provides closure.

Kenneth Burke

Most important rhetorical theorist of the 20th century who connected literary criticism with rhetorical criticism.

Form

The creation and satisfaction of an appetite in the reader/hearer.

Information

Relies heavily on facts and becomes uninteresting once consumed.

Perelman & Ohlbrecht's - Tyteca

Argued that ceremonial discourse can be a basis for persuasion.

Bitzer

Introduced the concept of the rhetorical situation, which includes exigency, audience, and constraints.

Exigency

The defect the rhetoric can address.

Foss & Griffin

Developed the concept of invitational rhetoric, which invites feedback and revisions from the audience.

Organizational rhetoric

Rhetoric that cannot always be connected to one individual.

Orientational Metaphor

Based on physical orientation, such as 'happy is up, sad is down'.

Identification

Getting an audience to share interests with the rhetorician.

Four Identification Appeals

Associational, dissociational, transcendent 'we', and unifying symbols.

Metaphor

Simple sentence communicating a relationship between tenor and vehicle = tenor is vehicle

Cicero's Canons

1. Invention

2. Arrangement

3. Style

4. Memory

5. Delivery

Soundness

truth and validity

Validity

Internally consistent