Empoword

General Introduction xlvi But let’s back up a second. What’s rhetoric? You may have heard of a rhetorical question before—a question that someone asks you without expecting an answer. What’s the point of asking a question with no answer? To somehow impact the person who hears it, maybe by making them think about an issue in a different way. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , rhetoric is “The art of using language effectively so as to persuade or influence others, esp. the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques to this end. ” 10 Very generally speaking, rhetoric refers to a set of strategies that authors use to connect to their readers. More often in this book, though, I use “rhetoric” to refer to any text that tries to do something to a reader, viewer, or listener. Vague, I know, but let’s consider some examples that require such a vague definition: An essay on capital punishment tries to convince a reader to form a particular opinion on the issue. A T-shirt with a Boston Red Sox logo to rally team spirit. A Levi’s advertisement in a magazine to sell you Levi’s and to build a brand image. A website for Portland Community College to provide resources for students, faculty, and staff. What other purposes do you think each of these texts might try to achieve?