Reference Ramage, J. D., Bean, J. C., & Johnson, J. (2018). The Allyn & Bacon guide to writing (8th ed.). Pearson. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Carefully read chapter 4 of the ABGW This chapter will prepare you for the Annotated Bibliography. Write a short summary about the chapter. Be sure to explain or answer what the following: -How do messages persuade using angle of vision -How to recognize angle of vision in a text -How messages persuade using ethos, logos, and pathos -Define each rhetorical appeal (ethos, logos, and pathos) -How do messages persuade using a writer's style and voice -Mention the factors that work together to create different effects including: Ways of shaping sentences, types of words, voice or persona and tone -What are some ways to make your writing more powerful? As always, look up any words you do not know! Write about 300 Words Max and Submit only as a Microsoft Word Doc Learning Objectives 4.1Analyze how messages persuade through their angle of vision. 4.2Analyze how messages persuade through appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. 4.3Analyze how messages persuade through the writer’s style and voice. A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing. —Kenneth Burke, Rhetorician The goal of this chapter is to help you analyze the rhetorical strategies that make messages persuasive. When you understand how messages achieve their effects, you will be better prepared to analyze and evaluate them and to decide whether to resist or accede to their arguments. You’ll also be better prepared to use these rhetorical strategies effectively and ethically in your own writing. Concept 4.1: Messages persuade through their angle of vision. 4.1 Analyze how messages persuade through their angle of vision. One way that messages persuade is through their angle of vision, which causes a reader to see a subject from one perspective only—the writer’s. Writers create an angle of vision through strategies such as the following: Stating point of view directly • Selecting some details while omitting others Choosing words or figures of speech with intended connotations Creating emphasis or deemphasis through sentence structure and organization The writer’s angle of vision—which might also be called a lens, a filter, a perspective, or a point of view—is persuasive because it controls what the reader “sees.” Unless readers are rhetorically savvy, they can lose awareness that they are seeing the writer’s subject matter through a lens that both reveals and conceals. A classic illustration of angle of vision is the following thought exercise: Thought Exercise on Angle of Vision Suppose you attended a fun party on Saturday night. (You get to choose what constitutes “fun” for you.) Now imagine that two people ask what you did on Saturday night. Person A is a close friend who missed the party. Person B is your parent. How would your descriptions of Saturday night differ? Clearly there isn’t just one way to describe this party. Your description will be influenced by your purpose and audience. You will have to decide: What image of myself should I project? (For your friend you might construct yourself as a party animal; for your parent, as a more detached observer.) • • How much emphasis do I give the party? (You might describe the party in detail for your friend while mentioning it only in passing to your parent, emphasizing instead all the homework you did over the weekend.) What details should I include or leave out? (Does my parent really need to know that the neighbors called the police?) • What words should I choose? (The slang you use with your friend might not be appropriate for your parent.) You’ll note that our comments about your rhetorical choices reflect common assumptions about friends and parents. You might actually have a party-loving parent and a geeky friend, in which case you would alter your party descriptions accordingly. In any case, you are in rhetorical control. You choose what your audience “sees” and how they see it. 4.1.1: Recognizing the Angle of Vision in a Text This thought exercise illustrates a key insight of rhetoric: There is always more than one way to tell a story, and no single way of telling it constitutes the whole truth. By saying that a writer writes from an angle of vision, we mean that the writer cannot take a godlike stance that allows a universal, unfiltered, totally unbiased or objective way of knowing. Rather, the writer looks at the subject from a certain location, or, to use another metaphor, the writer uses a lens that colors or filters the topic in a certain way. The angle of vision, lens, or filter determines what part of a topic gets seen and what remains unseen, what gets included or excluded, what gets emphasized or deemphasized, and so forth. It even determines what words get chosen—for example, whether the writer says “fetus” or “baby,” “plutocrat” or “job creator,” or “terrorist” or “freedom fighter.” What influences a writer’s angle of vision in a piece of writing? The angle of vision a writer adopts is influenced by the rhetorical context—particularly the writer’s purpose and targeted audience. Sometimes the writer consciously adopts an angle of vision. For example, a sales manager may adopt a positive angle of vision to promote a company’s product, while a candidate for city council might focus on the negative aspects of her opponent’s record. But the writer’s angle of vision can also reflect his or her own authentic values and beliefs (including the writer’s place of origin, ethnicity, profession, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, and political views). Whether a writer is writing from an assumed role and/or from genuine conviction and personal stance, the angle of vision will shape what readers see. As an illustration of angle of vision, consider the cartoon in Figure 4.1, which shows different ways that stakeholders “see” sweatshops. For each stakeholder, some aspects of sweatshops surge into view, while other aspects remain unseen or invisible. An alert reader needs to be aware that none of these stakeholders can portray sweatshops in a completely “true” way. Stockholders and corporate leaders emphasize reduced labor costs, enhanced corporate profits, and retirement portfolios while deemphasizing (or omitting entirely) the working conditions in sweatshops or the plight of U.S. workers whose jobs have been outsourced to developing countries. Consumers enjoy abundant low-cost goods made possible by sweatshops and may not even think about where or how the products are made. Opponents of sweatshops focus on the miserable conditions and low wages faced by sweatshop workers, the use of child labor, and the “obscene” profits of corporations. Meanwhile, as the U.S. union worker laments the loss of jobs in the United States, workers in developing countries and their children may welcome sweatshops as a source of income superior to the other harsh alternatives such as scavenging in dumps or prostitution. The multiple angles of vision show how complex the issue of sweatshops is. In fact, most issues are equally complex, and any one view of the issue is controlled by the writer’s angle of vision. 4.1.2: Analyzing Angle of Vision Just as there is more than one way to describe the party you went to on Saturday night or to write about sweatshops, there is more than one way to write a letter of recommendation for U. R. Riddle. The writer’s angle of vision determines what is “seen” or “not seen” in a given piece of writing—what gets slanted in a positive or negative direction, what gets highlighted, what gets thrown into the shadows. As rhetorician Kenneth Burke claims in the epigraph for the chapter, “A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing.” Note how the writer controls what the reader “sees.” As Riddle’s former professor, you might in your mind’s eye see Riddle as long-haired and sloppy, but if you don’t mention these details in your letter, they remain unseen to the reader. Note too that your own terms “long-haired and sloppy” interpret Riddle’s appearance through the lens of your own characteristic way of seeing—a way that perhaps values business attire and clean-cut tidiness. In an effective piece of writing, the author’s angle of vision often works so subtly that unsuspecting readers—unless they learn to think rhetorically—will be drawn into the writer’s spell and believe that the writer’s prose conveys the whole picture of its subject rather than a limited picture filtered through the screen of the writer’s perspective. Contrasting Angles of Vision in Two Texts Consider the differences in what gets seen in the following two descriptions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska (the ANWR), where proponents of oil exploration are locked in a fierce battle with anti-exploration conservationists. The first passage is from a pro-exploration advocacy group called Arctic Power. The second is from the website (defenders.org) of conservation advocates, “Defenders of Wildlife.” Arctic Power’s Description of the ANWR On the coastal plain [of the ANWR], the Arctic winter lasts for 9 months. It is dark continuously for 56 days in midwinter. Temperatures with the wind chill can reach –110 degrees F. It’s not pristine. There are villages, roads, houses, schools, and military installations. It’s not a unique Arctic ecosystem. The coastal plain is only a small fraction of the 88,000 square miles that make up the North Slope. The same tundra environment and wildlife can be found throughout the circumpolar Arctic regions. The 1002 Area [the legal term for the plot of coastal plain being contested] is flat. That’s why they call it a plain. [ . . . ] Some groups want to make the 1002 Area a wilderness. But a vote for wilderness is a vote against American jobs. Defenders of Wildlife’s Description of the ANWR At more than 19 million acres, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the crown jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge System. It is also one of the last intact landscapes in America, and home to 37 species of land mammals, eight marine mammals, 42 fish species, and more than 200 migratory bird species. Established in 1960 to protect its extraordinary wildlife, wilderness, and recreational qualities, the Arctic Refuge is a place where natural processes remain mostly uninfluenced by humans. But for all its unique beauty and importance for wildlife, the Arctic Refuge is under assault. The oil industry and its political allies continue to launch attacks to open this national treasure to destructive oil drilling, while climate change threatens to disrupt its habitats faster than wildlife can adapt. Defenders of Wildlife is committed to protecting the Arctic Refuge and the wildlife that calls this remarkable place home. How Angle of Vision Persuades To understand more clearly how angle of vision persuades, you can analyze the language strategies at work. Some strategies that writers employ consciously or unconsciously are described in Strategies Chart 4.1. Strategies Chart 4.1 Strategies for Constructing an Angle of Vision StrStrategy ANWR Example U. R. Riddle Example SState your intention directly.gy • In the preceding excerpts, some passages directly state Arctic Power’s (AP) pro-drilling stance and Defender of Wildlife’s (DW) anti-drilling stance. You might say “Riddle would make an excellent manager” or “Riddle doesn’t have the personality to be a bank manager.” Select details that support • your intentions; omit or deemphasize others. • • The AP writer “sees” the cold, barren darkness of the ANWR; DW sees “exquisite beauty.” AP “sees” the people who live on the coastal plain and makes the animals invisible; DW “sees” the wildlife species and makes the people invisible. AP “sees” jobs created by drilling; DW “sees” the ecosystem destroyed by drilling. • • A positive view of Riddle would select and emphasize Riddle’s good traits and deemphasize or omit his bad ones. A negative view would take the opposite tack. Choose words that frame your subject in the desired way or have desired connotations. • AP frames the ANWR as the dreary “1002 Area”; DW frames it as “one of the last intact landscapes in America” and as a remarkable “home.” “Riddle is an independent thinker who doesn’t follow the crowd” (frames him positively in a value system that favors individualism). “Riddle is a loner who thinks egocentrically” (frames him negatively in a value system favoring consensus and social skills). You could say, “Riddle is forthright” or “Riddle is rude”—positive versus negative connotations. Use figurative language (metaphors, similes, and analogies) that conveys AP avoids figurative language, claiming objective presentation of facts; AP uses the positive metaphor “crown jewel.” To suggest that Riddle has outgrown his alienating behavior, you could say, “Riddle is a social late bloomer.” your intended effect To recommend against hiring Riddle while still being positive, you could say, “Riddle’s independent spirit would feel caged in by the routine of a bank.” Use sentence structure to emphasize and deemphasize your ideas. AP uses short sentences to emphasize main points: “It’s not pristine.” “It’s not a unique ecosystem.” “That’s why they call it a plain.” (Emphasize an idea by placing it at the end of a long sentence, in a short DW uses longer sentences that place main points in main clauses at the end of the sentence. Consider the difference between the following: “Although Riddle had problems relating to other students, he is a brilliant thinker.” “Although Riddle is a brilliant thinker, he had sentence, or in a main problems relating to other students in the class.” clause.) Concept 4.2: Messages persuade through appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. 4.2 Analyze how messages persuade through appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Another way to think about the persuasive power of texts is to examine the strategies writers or speakers use to sway their audiences toward a certain position on an issue. To win people’s consideration of their ideas, writers or speakers can appeal to what the classical philosopher Aristotle called logos, ethos, and pathos. Developing the habit of examining how these appeals function in texts and being able to employ these appeals in your own writing will enhance your ability to read and write rhetorically. Let’s look briefly at each: Understanding Logos, Ethos, and Pathos Logos is the appeal to reason. It refers to the quality of the message itself— to its internal consistency, to its clarity in asserting a thesis or point, and to the soundness of its reasons and evidence used to support the point. Ethos is the appeal to the character of the speaker/writer. It refers to the speaker/writer’s trustworthiness and credibility. One can often increase one’s ethos in a message by being knowledgeable about the issue, by appearing thoughtful and fair, by listening well, and by respecting alternative points of view. A writer’s accuracy and thoroughness in crediting sources and professionalism in caring about the format, grammar, and neat appearance of a document are part of the appeal to ethos. Pathos is the appeal to the sympathies, values, beliefs, and emotions of the audience. Appeals to pathos can be made in many ways. Pathos can often be enhanced through evocative visual images, which are frequently used in Web sites, posters, and magazine or newspaper articles. In written texts, the same effects can be created through vivid examples and details, connotative language, and empathy with the audience’s beliefs and values. A fuller discussion of these classical appeals appears in Chapter 14, “Writing a Classical Argument.” To see how these three appeals are interrelated, you can visualize a triangle with points labeled Message, Audience, and Writer or Speaker. Rhetoricians study how effective communicators consider all three points of this rhetorical triangle. (See Figure 4.2.) Pathos: Does the writer use pathos effectively by drawing you into the subject, making you care about it, and feel what is at stake? Or does the writer rely too heavily on emotional words or heart-wringing examples? Logos Does the writer appeal effectively to logos through use of reasons and evidence? Ethos Does the writer appeal effectively to ethos by seeming credible, honest, and willing to listen to alternative views? Or do you distrust the writer in some way or dislike the writer’s tone and voice? Concept 4.3: Messages persuade through a writer’s style and voice. 4.3 Analyze how messages persuade through the writer’s style and voice. So far we have shown how messages persuade through angle of vision and appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. In this section we explain the persuasive power of style and voice, which are themselves factors in the creation of a message’s angle of vision and contribute to its logical, ethical, or emotional appeals. 4.3.1: Understanding Factors That Affect Style Style refers to analyzable features of language that work together to create different effects. As Figure 4.3 shows, style is composed of four factors: The Four Factors of Style Shape: Ways of shaping sentences, such as length or complexity of sentence structure. Word choice: Word choice, such as abstract versus concrete or formal versus colloquial. Voice: Voice, or persona, which refers to the readers impression of the writer as projected from the page: expert versus layperson, scholarly voice versus popular voice, formal voice versus everyday voice Tone: Tone, which refers to the writer’s attitude toward the subject matter or toward the reader, such as cold or warm, humorous or serious, detached or passionate, straightforward or satirical. The following lists provides aspects of the 4 factors that affect style: ways of shaping sentences; types of words; voice or persona; and tone. First factor, ways of shaping sentences. • • • • • Long or short. Simple or complex. Many modifiers or few modifiers. Normal word order, or frequent inversions or interruptions. Mostly main clauses or many embedded phrases and subordinate clauses. Second factor, types of words. • • • Abstract or concrete. Formal or colloquial. Unusual or ordinary. • • • Specialized or general. Metaphorical or literal. Scientific or literary. Third factor, voice or persona. • • • • • Expert or layperson. Scholar or student. Outsider or insider. Political liberal or conservative. Neutral observer or active participant. Fourth factor, tone. • • • • • • • • Intimate or distant. Personal or impersonal. Angry or calm. Browbeating or sharing. Informative or entertaining. Humorous or serious. Ironic or literal. Passionately involved or aloof. The style you adopt depends on your genre, audience, and purpose. Consider, for example, the style differences in two articles about the animated sitcom South Park. The first passage comes from an academic journal in which the author analyzes how race is portrayed in South Park. The second passage is from a popular magazine, where the author argues that despite South Park’s vulgarity, the sitcom has a redeeming social value. Passage from a Scholarly Journal In these cartoons, multiplicity encodes a set of nonwhite identities to be appropriated and commodified by whiteness. In the cartoon world, obscene humor and satire mediate this commodification. The whiteness that appropriates typically does so by virtue of its mobile positioning between and through imagined boundaries contrarily shown as impassible to black characters or agents marked as black. Let me briefly turn to an appropriately confusing example of such a character in South Park’s scatological hero extraordinaire, Eric Cartman . . . . Eric Cartman’s yen for breaking into Black English and interactions with black identities also fashion him an appropriator. However, Cartman’s voice and persona may be seen as only an avatar, one layer of textual identity for creator Trey Parker, who may be regarded in one sense as a “blackvoice” performer.(continued) —Michael A. Chaney, “Representations of Race and Place in Static Shock, King of the Hill, and South Park” Passage from a Popular Blog You can work overtime to protect your children’s sweetness and innocence, or you can launch your pre-teens on the road to early cynicism by encouraging them to watch South Park. Consider the lessons that South Park teaches to its four protagonists, sensitive Kyle, A-student Stan, silent (and always one-step-away-from-death) Kenny, and obnoxious Cartman: Your teachers aren’t very smart, and they come into the classroom with their own warped agendas. Your parents, and adults in general, are ignorant, pretentious, or downright moronic. The people running your country (and every other country) are power hungry, insane, and at least a little perverted. The people you consider your closest friends may not be friends at all, but simply a group of individuals with whom you are placed in an involuntary social net, whether a classroom, a town, or an office. While it’s easy to be offended by South Park’s bitter and biting satire of American (and world) culture, there’s no denying the elements of truth at its core. Education is inherently political; many adults are no more mature than most children; politicians, by virtue of their chosen profession, are by definition flawed (often desperately flawed) individuals. As the show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, prove in every episode, the most embittered cynics are the most disappointed idealists. —Gareth Loken, Teach Your Children Well 4.3.2: Ways to Make Your Style More Powerful Your stylistic choices can enhance your appeals to logos (for example, by emphasizing main ideas), to pathos (by using words that evoke emotional responses and trigger associations), and to ethos (by creating an appropriate and effective voice). In the rest of this section we show how these strategies can make your own style more effective. Construct Sentences to Emphasize Main Ideas Experienced writers craft sentences that emphasize main ideas. For example, you can highlight an idea by placing it in a main clause rather than a subordinate clause or by placing it in a short sentence surrounded by longer sentences. We illustrated this phenomenon in our discussion of the U. R. Riddle exercise on angle of vision earlier in this chapter, where variations in sentence structure created different emphases on Riddle’s good or bad points: 1.Although Riddle is a brilliant thinker, he had problems relating to other students in my class. (Emphasizes Riddle’s personal shortcomings) 2.Although Riddle had problems relating to other students in my class, he is a brilliant thinker. (Emphasizes Riddle’s intelligence) Neither of these effects would have been possible had the writer simply strung together two simple sentences: 1.Riddle had problems relating to other students in my class. He is also a brilliant thinker. In this version, both points about Riddle are equally emphasized, leaving the reader uncertain about the writer’s main point. If you string together a long sequence of short sentences—or simply join them with words like and, or, so, or but—you create a choppy effect that fails to distinguish between more important and less important material. Where Appropriate, Write Low on the Ladder of Abstraction In previous writing courses, you might have been told to use concrete, specific language or to “show, not tell.” Our advice in this section follows the same spirit: to write as low on the ladder of abstraction as your context allows. We use the metaphor of a ladder to show how words can vary along a continuum from the abstract (“harm the environment”) to the more specific and concrete (“poison freshwater trout with toxic sludge”). As a general rule, details that are low on the ladder of abstraction have a particular kind of rhetorical power: They appeal to logos by providing specific factual data as evidence or they appeal to pathos by triggering vivid images with emotional associations. As an illustration, consider Figure 4.4, which depicts a ladder of abstraction descending from abstract terms at the top toward more specific ones at the bottom. The ladder of abstraction lists the level on the ladder, high, middle, or low, with corresponding examples of clothing, charity, global agriculture, and gendered play. The high level on the ladder is abstract or general; the low level is specific or concrete. The following lists provide the terms at the high, middle, then low levels on the ladder, within each example. • • • • • Clothing example. High: footwear. Middle: flip flops. Low: purple platform flip-flops with rhinestones. Charity example. High: love your neighbor. Middle: help slash feed the poor. Low: chop vegetables for the Friday night soup kitchen dinner on third avenue. Global agriculture example. High: traditional crops grown in India versus commercial crops. Middle: crops grown in India by traditional farmers versus genetically engineered crops. Low: In Northern India, traditional mandua and jhangora versus genetically modified soy beans. Gendered play example. High: Sam exhibited gendered play behavior. Middle: Sam played with trucks and fire engines. Low: Sam gleefully smashed his toy Tonka fire engine into the coffee table. Choosing words low on the ladder of abstraction is particularly effective for descriptive writing, where your goal is to create a vivid mental image for readers—hence the maxim “Show, don’t tell.” Tell words interpret a scene or tell readers what to feel about a scene without describing it. (“The food smells wonderful and the people have happy faces.”) In contrast, show words describe a scene through sensory details. (“The tantalizing smell of grilled hamburgers and buttered corn on the cob wafts from tailgate party barbecues, where men in their cookout aprons wield forks and spatulas and drink Budweisers.”) The description evokes the desired effect without requiring the writer to interpret it overtly. • Of course, not all writing needs to be this low on the ladder of abstraction. Our advice, rather, is this: The supporting details for a paper should come from as low on the ladder as your context allows. Even the most abstract kind of prose will move up and down between several rungs on the ladder. In closed-form prose, writers need to make choices about the level of specificity that will be most effective based on their genre, audience, and purpose. Note the differences in the levels of abstraction in the following passages: • Passage 1: Fairly High on Ladder of Abstraction The passage, from a general interest informative article on weatherrelated accidents, reads as follows. Margin comments follow the passage. • • Although lightning produces the most deaths and injuries of all weather-related accidents, the rate of danger varies considerably from state to state. Florida has twice as many deaths and injuries from lightning strikes as any other state. Hawaii and Alaska have the fewest. The first sentence is labeled, point sentence. Beginning from, related accidents, the rate of danger, in the first sentence, the paragraph provides details relatively high on the ladder of abstraction. Passage 2: Lower on Ladder of Abstraction • The passage, from a safety article aimed at Florida golfers, reads as follows. Margin comments follow the passage. • Florida has twice as many deaths and injuries from lightning strikes as any other state, with many of these casualties occurring on the open spaces of golf courses. Florida golfers should carefully note the signals of dangerous weather conditions such as darkening skies, a sudden drop in temperature, an increase in wind, flashes of light and claps of thunder, and the sensation of an electric charge on one’s hair or body. In the event of an electric storm, golfers should run into a forest, get under a shelter, get into a car, or assume the safest body position. To avoid being the tallest object in an area, if caught in open areas, golfers should find a low spot, spread out, and crouch into a curled position with feet together to create minimal body contact with the ground. • The first sentence is labeled, point sentence. • From, dangerous weather conditions, to, in the event of an electric storm, the passage provides details at the middle level on the ladder. From, golfers should run into a forest, to the end of the paragraph, the passage provides details at the lower level on the ladder. • Both of these passages are effective for their audience and purpose. The first passage might be compared to a distant shot with a camera, giving an overview of lightning deaths in the United States, while the second zooms in for a more detailed look at a specific case, Florida golf courses. Sometimes, low-on-the-ladder particulars consist of statistics or quotations rather than sensory details. For example, civil engineer David Rockwood (see Concept 3.1) uses low-on-theladder numerical data about the size and number of wind towers to convince readers that wind generation of electricity entails environmental damage. Your rhetorical decisions about level of abstraction are important because too much high-on-the-scale writing can become dull for readers, while too much low-on-the-scale writing can seem overwhelming or pointless. For Writing and Discussion Choosing Details for Different Levels on the Ladder of Abstraction The following exercise will help you appreciate how details can be chosen at different levels of abstraction to serve different purposes and audiences. Working in small groups or as a whole class, invent details at appropriate positions on the ladder of abstraction for each of the following point sentences. 1. Yesterday’s game was a major disappointment. You are writing an e-mail message to a friend who is a fan (of baseball, football, basketball, another sport) and missed the game; use mid-level details to explain what was disappointing. 2. Although the game stank, there were some great moments. Switch to low-on-the-ladder specific details to describe one of these “great moments.” 3. Advertising in women’s fashion magazines creates a distorted and unhealthy view of beauty. You are writing an analysis for a college course on popular culture; use high-to-mid-level details to give a one-paragraph overview of several ways these ads create an unhealthy view of beauty. 4. One recent ad, in particular, conveys an especially destructive message about beauty. Choose a particular ad and describe it with low-on-the-ladder, very specific details. Create a Voice Matched to Your Genre, Audience, and Purpose College students often wonder what voice is appropriate for college papers. For most college assignments, we recommend that you approximate your natural speaking voice to give your writing a conversational academic style. By “conversational,” we mean a voice that strives to be plain and clear while retaining the engaging quality of a person who is enthusiastic about the subject. Of course, as you become an expert in a discipline, you may need to move toward a more scholarly voice. For example, the prose in an academic journal article can be extremely dense with technical terms and complex sentence structure, but expert readers in that field understand and expect this voice. Students sometimes try to imitate a dense academic style before they have achieved the disciplinary expertise to make the style sound natural. The result can seem pretentious or phony. At the other extreme, students sometimes adopt an overly informal or street slang voice that doesn’t fit an academic context. Writing with clarity and directness within your natural range usually creates the most effective and powerful voice. Although the conversational academic voice is appropriate for most college papers, especially those written for lower-division courses, many professors construct assignments asking you to adopt different voices and different styles. It is thus important to understand the professor’s assignment and to adopt the style and voice appropriate for the assigned rhetorical situation. Chapter Summary In this chapter we looked briefly at rhetorical theory in order to explain the persuasive power of both verbal and visual texts. Chapter Summary Concept 4.1 Messages persuade through their angle of vision. Any text necessarily looks at its subject from a perspective—an angle of vision—that selects and emphasizes some details while omitting or minimizing others. You can analyze writers’ angle of vision by considering their direct statements of intention, their selection of details, their word choice, their figures of speech, and their manipulation of sentence structure to control emphasis. Concept 4.2 Messages persuade through appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos refers to the power of the writer’s reasons and evidence; pathos to the way the writer connects to the reader’s sympathies, emotions, values, and beliefs; and ethos to the way the writer portrays himself or herself as trustworthy and credible. Concept 4.3 Messages persuade through a writer’s style and voice. Stylistic features such as sentence structure, word choice, voice, and tone work together to create different rhetorical effects. An effective style highlights key ideas, moves down the ladder of abstraction for details, and establishes an appropriate voice.
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