The document discusses the key components of rhetoric and persuasive writing and speaking. It identifies the rhetorical situation as comprising the writer, purpose, genre, audience, culture/context, and limitations/conventions. Choosing strategies that effectively engage all aspects of the rhetorical situation is important for persuasive communication. Rhetorical analysis involves evaluating how well an argument addresses and responds to the specific rhetorical circumstances.

1. The Power of Persuasion:

2. What is Rhetoric?
 The art of making an argument
 Making your language as effective as possible.
 For writers, readers and speakers.
 Not what you say, but how you say it.

3. The Rhetorical Situation
 The circumstances in which you are
speaking/writing.
 Greatly influences your rhetorical
strategies.
 Being aware of this gives you more
rhetorical power.

4. The Writer
 Your background (race, gender, class,
language, reputation)
 Your beliefs, values, and opinions.

5. Purpose
 What is the goal of this piece of
writing/speech?
 Can be expressed in the infinitive: to +
verb

6. Purposes of Sociological Writing
To
educate
To
explain
? To
advocate
to solve
problems
To inform

7. Genre
 The category of writing/speaking
 Novels, essays, poems, spoken word,
presentation, lecture, research paper,
poster, movie....
 Each genre has its own conventions,
purpose and context.

8. Take Immigration for Example....
Song:
 ―Paper Planes‖ by MIA
 ―Americano‖ Lady Gaga
 America‖ by K’naan
Novel:
 ―Enrique’s Journey‖ by Sonia Nazario
 ―Call It Sleep‖ by Henry Roth
 ―The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao‖ by Junot Diaz
Research Publication:
 ―Immigrant America: A Portrait‖ by Portes and Rumbaut
 ―Homebound: Filipino American Lives Across Cultures, Communities and
Countries‖ by Yen Le Espiritu.
Movie:
 Harvest of Empire (Documentary)
 The Visitor (Feature Film), Babel (Feature Film)

9. Limitations/Conventions
 What rules dictate how you will
write/speak?
 Be knowledgeable about what you can
and cannot do.
 Influenced by the audience, genre and
context.

10. •You want to
Context •You probably won’t rap
as an example
present about how • Final Research •You need to link your
youth are using Presentation for your findings to sociological
hip-hop as a tool B.A. at USF theory.
for activism • Expected to be a 20 •You cannot show a film
minute lecture on about the subject
your findings.
Topic Choices

11. Topic
 What you write and talk about
 It is determined by the writer; modified by
the context.
 Often manifests in scope of project

12. Audience
 Who you are writing for!
 Group that needs to be persuaded
 Factors that can influence the audience:
 Race, Gender, Class, Age, Education-level,
Occupation, culture, expectations....

13. Abraham Lincoln gives us a good example....
―Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man and the
other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and
therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all of
these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall
once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal‖—Northern
Illinois, 1858
―I will say then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in
any way the social and political equality of the white and black races
(applause); that I am not, nor have I ever been, in favor of making voters or
jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with
white women...And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain
together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as
nay other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white
race‖– Southern Illinois, 1858

14. Culture and Context
 The situation/environment where the
genre/conventions/audience/speaker
exist.
 What you write/say has to make sense
within the context of the situation

15. Word Usage can Show Context...
 ―...Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious
reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro
homes and churches in Birmingham than any home in the
nation...‖ Martin Luther King Jr. ―Letter From a Birmingham Jail‖
1963.
 ―We have always welcomed good colored people in South
Boston but we will not tolerate radical blacks or
Communists...Good colored people are welcome in South
Boston, militants are not‖ Boston Globe, 1975
 ―Woman is the Nigger of the World‖ Yoko Ono and John Lennon

16. Strategy
 How you choose to deliver your message
 Must fit the rhetorical situation
 Can also be used to gauge effectiveness

17. Rhetorical Situation:
 The Writer  Topic
 The Purpose  Audience
 The Genre  Culture and Context
 Limitations and  Strategy
Conventions

18. Rhetorical Analysis
 Evaluating how effective (or not!)
someone’s argument is
 Did they accurately asses and respond to
the rhetorical situation?

19. Practice

22. Rhetorically Analyzing
Sociological Stand-Up
 What is the rhetorical situation?
 Did they appeal to that situation? How?
Some aspects more than others?
 More engagement with the rhetorical
situation= more successful