Rhetorical Strategies

1. Facts/Logic: simply stating the truth; using logic to arrive at conclusions

2. Rhetorical questions: questions asked where an answer is not expected; used to make audience think, put themselves in a certain place  (Your mom says, “Do I look stupid to you?”)

3. Polarizing questions: questions that provide only two possible answers, each at an opposite pole of thought, as if there is no middle ground (“Do you want to go to college or do you want to work at a gas station?”)

4. Real questions: questions where an answer is expected

5. Saying the opposite of what you mean: sometimes used with self-deprecation, used for dramatic effect

6. Establishing something in common with audience:  attempt to elicit trust and credibility, sometime insincere or tenuous

7. Allusion: reference to a historical, classical, Biblical figure or symbol (Lincoln, Medusa, Zeus, Rome, parting of the Red Sea, “going to the mountain top”).  Used to give weight to content.

   Irony: Irony is what you do when you say something that seems to mean only one thing, but in reality also means something eFacts/Logic: simply stating the truth; using logic to arrive at conclusions

8. Rhetorical questions: questions asked where an answer is not expected; used to make audience think, put themselves in a certain place  (Your mom says, “Do I look stupid to you?”)

9. Polarizing questions: questions that provide only two possible answers, each at an opposite pole of thought, as if there is no middle ground (“Do you want to go to college or do you want to work at a gas station?”)

10. Real questions: questions where an answer is expected

11. Saying the opposite of what you mean: sometimes used with self-deprecation, used for dramatic effect

12. Establishing something in common with audience:  attempt to elicit trust and credibility, sometime insincere or tenuous

13. Allusion: reference to a historical, classical, Biblical figure or symbol (Lincoln, Medusa, Zeus, Rome, parting of the Red Sea, “going to the mountain top”).  Used to give weight to content.

14. ntirely else under the surface as well. Irony is used to suggest the difference between appearance and reality, between expectation and fulfillment, the complexity of experience. 

15. Sarcasm - Sarcasm is the biting tone employed with another strategy (irony or saying the opposite of what you mean). An ironic remark can be seen as "witty" but a sarcastic one as "mean." 

16. Self-deprecation: false modesty; putting down one’s self/skills in an attempt to appear modest or charming

17. Dramatic pauses: self-explanatory

18. Arousing curiosity or suspense: can be accomplished in different ways: giving only a small bit of information, asking a question, hinting at some issue; usually used in concert with other strategies

19. Using props: self-explanatory

20. Symbolism: a thing resonating with a larger meaning than itself (the highway=freedom; water=rebirth or cleansing, etc)

21. Metaphor/simile: implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; comparison of two seemingly unlike things to borrow associations from one to the other: “Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.”

1. Repetition: self-explanatory

2. Anaphora - deliberate repetition of the beginning of a sentence; used to build momentum and emphasis relationships: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

3. Parallelism – balancing sentences in structure or meaning: “That government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth" or “Been there.  Done that.”

4. Inverted syntax – word order is unexpected (“To grandmother’s house we go…”) or the subject comes after the verb (From my heart comes this love.)  Think Yoda’s speech patterns.

5. Anecdote – telling a story (about self or epitomizing character) to introduce ideas or exemplify a point

6. Metonymy – using one word, often an object, to refer to a group or larger entity – saying “The front office” when you mean the secretaries and principals in the front office; saying “Hollywood” when you mean “the entertainment industry”; the “crown” when referring to a monarch.

Antithesis - a balanced juxtaposition of words in a parallel construction.  Astronaut Neil Armstrong used antithesis when he said, about the moon landing: “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind