Common Rhetorical Devices

Anecdote: 

• What is it: Short personal story

• Look for: Personal pronouns (I, me, my, we, us, our, etc.)

• Effect: Personalizes facts, provides eyewitness testimony; helps evoke emotion in the audience; helps the audience relate to the content

Rhetorical Question:

• What is it: Questions that are asked of the reader

• Look for: Question marks (?)

• Effect: Invites the reader to answer and get involved, makes an inference

Citations:

• What is it: Quotations from other sources

• Look for: Quotation marks (“__”)

• Effect: Provides expert opinion or eyewitness testimony; can typically help build speaker’s credibility

Allusion:

• What is it: Reference to a well-known piece of art or literature (Bible, Shakespeare, etc.)

• Effect: Evokes a sense of history or a long held belief; helps audience better understand the topic and/or relate to it; can typically help build speaker’s credibility

Analogies (metaphor or simile):

• What is it: Comparing two things 

• Look for: “Like,” “as,” or other verbs used to draw comparisons

• Effect: Makes an unfamiliar topic more familiar and accessible; increases imagery

Personification:

• What is it: Giving human traits to a non-human item 

• Effect:  Increases emotion, connection, or understanding in a situation that otherwise might be dry; makes certain topics seem more human/realistic

Hypothesis/Speculation:

• What is it: Guesses or predictions about future outcomes 

• Look for: “If,” “might,” “may,” “perhaps,” etc.

• Effect: Lets the author suggest implications/predict what will happen; can be used to develop a particular organizational structure

Hyperbole:

• What is it: Exaggeration for dramatic purposes

• Effect: Can be used to point out absurdity; elevates the importance of something/someone

Irony

• What is it: When the opposite of what is expected happens; sarcasm

• Effect: Used for humor; can point out flaws in logic

Cliché

• What is it: An overused statement/common expression (“Every cloud has a silver lining”)

• Effect: Often deconstructed; can be used to reveal irony and logical inconsistencies or to make a topic more relatable to the audience

Qualification

• What is it: Adds more info to soften a strong or harsh statement (Math is awesome: it’s not everyone’s favorite though)

• Look for: Dashes (-), colons (:)

• Effect: Allows the author to make controversial statements without alienating a reader

Generalization

• What is it: Speaking about large groups or people, trends, or broad categories

• Look for: “Many,” “most,” “often,” “usually,” etc.

• Effect: Allows the reader to anticipate outcomes of events or situations based on “what everyone else does;” can be used to unify or to peer pressure an audience; can also be used to lessen the importance of something

Concession/Acknowledgement

• What is it: Admission that at least part of the opposing point of view is correct

• Effect: Umbrella strategy that brings all points of view together; increases speaker’s credibility by eliminating some bias

First/Second/Third Person Point of View

• What is it: Use of specific pronouns

• Look for: 

  • First person: I, me, my, we, us, our

  • Second person: you, your

  • Third person: he, she, it, them, they

• Effect:

  • First person: Personalizes content; can let readers identify more with the author

  • Second person: Puts the reader in the content, but not the author

  • Third person: Less personal; allows the author to present info that may be upsetting in a neutral way

Perspective.

• What is it: Organizational strategy moving either from the personal, small scale to the broad, large scale, or from the world view to the individual

• Effect: Provides multiple contexts for the author’s perspective; solidifies a line of reasoning; helps the audience follow the argument

Historical Fact

• What is it: Explains the other events outside the topic being discussed that may have had an impact or been a result of the topic

• Look for: Specific dates or time periods (the Middle Ages, twenty years ago, in the 1970s, etc.)

• Effect: Give context and relates the topic to other ideas, creates connections

Word Play/Puns

• What is it: Using similar sounding words or varied interesting vocabulary

• Effect: Shows emphasis and humor; indicates that the author believes a point is important in some way 

Repetition/Parallel Structure:

• What is it: Repetition of words, phrasing, or whole sentences

• Look for: Similarities in language, word order, verb tense etc. May begin sequential paragraphs, be used in a closing to reflect an opening, or be used side by side

• Effect: Indicates importance to the author; makes themes more memorable; draws attention to specific components

Numbers

• What is it: Data, statistics, or specific facts

• Effect: Provides evidence that is generally irrefutable (cannot be contradicted/disproved)

Diction (but be careful and specific with this one; this technically aligns to all categories because it’s just the words being used)

• What is it: Specific and intentional word choice; varied connotations

• Look for: Words that particularly stand out or seem especially necessary to achieve the desired effect

• Effect: Can emphasize and draw attention to specific points; has overlapping effects with the other choices because this is an umbrella choice