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Writing essay about rhetorical. There's some structure that I uploaded.
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Rhetorical Analysis
In the 2012 TED Talk "The Happy Secret to Better Work," Shawn Achor introduces his
topic on the scientific discoveries of the human brain (that informed the positive psychology)
with a childhood story about him and his sister Amy's tragic but humorous experience. The
rhetoric demonstrates how the human brain can be 'tricked' to overcome innate reflexes and
respond positively to weather adversity. Achor captivates the audience with various rhetorical
devices throughout the TED Talk, which contextualizes the subject by making it funny, relatable,
and easy to understand for the lay audience. The speaker's primary purpose is to challenge
persisting assumptions about important measures of human potential that insist on eliminating
the negative outliers instead of understanding them. Since this is a scientific subject and TED
Talk is a mixed audience platform, Achor uses rhetorical strategies such as anecdotes, figurative
language, pathos, and logos to communicate the complex technical findings to the audience.
Anecdotes
Achor begins his TED Talk presentation with an anecdote about how he tricked his sister's brain
into avoiding focusing on the pain of falling from the bed by persuading her that landing on allfour was a confirmation of her otherworldly fete as a baby unicorn. Anecdotes are short and
exciting stories that can be used to not only lighten the mood and capture the audience's attention
but also communicate a deeper connection with the impending subject (Martin 150). It sparks the
listener's imagination, causing them to consider its deeper meaning in the context of the topic.
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For instance, when Achor says, "…And you could see my poor, manipulated sister faced the
conflict, as her little brain attempted to devote resources to feeling the pain….or contemplating
her new-found identity as a unicorn," he causes the listeners to connect the relevant dots (Achor).
Here, Achor illustrates the power of the human brain in overcoming negativity when
propositioned with overwhelmingly positive stimulus. Therefore, the speaker appropriates the
anecdotes to lighten the mood and introduce the complex positive psychology topic.
Figurative Language
Achor powerfully used figurative language to describe and personalize the topic in an engaging,
humorous, and patronizing manner. Figurative language encompasses various devices such as
imagery and personification, which allows one to appeal to the listeners' emotions and spark their
imagination (Hayward 242). Achor uses the dots in the projected graph to personify the
complexities of statistical measurements and errors. When he says, "There is one weird red dot
above the curve, there's one weirdo in the room—I know who you are, I saw you earlier—" he is
using figurative language to describe h...