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If a writer is describing how to do something, they may use sequencers to show the steps the reader needs to take:
Writers can use italics and bold to highlight important words and phrases.
This presentation will show you some rhetorical devices people use to make their writing more effective.
First lift up the receiver. Next dial the code for the country you are ringing. Then dial the area code. After that dial the telephone number of the person you are ringing. Finally their phone should ring.
Tony Blair said that his main priority as Prime Minister would be:
Education, education, education.
Repeating important words or phrases can indicate to the reader that they are important. They help to make the writing more persuasive and make certain words or phrases stick in the reader’s head.
Alliteration is where two or more words begin with the same letter.
You should take up juggling because it is fantastic fun.
Can you fill in these sentences with alliterative words?1. The ____ weather made me feel _____ _______!2. ____________ is a ______ _______ _________3. I can’t believe how _______ ______ ______ was!
These are questions which you don’t expect the audience or reader to answer. Using a rhetorical question is a way of putting an idea in their minds so that you can answer it.
Rhetorical questions
Why do you always have to talk through my lessons, Megan?
Using the words of famous people can enhance your meaning.
As John F. Kennedy once said:
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for
your country.
Quotes
However, you have to make sure that your quote is relevant and that it makes sense to begin with! You should also choose someone to quote from whom your audience is likely to know and respect.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can
never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police
brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot
gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of our cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and
robbed of their dignity by signs stating ‘For whites only’. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied
until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
repetition
simile
rhetorical question including the audience
fact
Martin Luther King
In this famous speech, how has Martin Luther King made his meaning so effective?
Here is an edited version of the speech with some of the rhetorical devices removed. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights when they will be satisfied. They say they can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of police brutality, as long as their bodies, tired after travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities, as long as their children are faced with signs stating ‘For whites only’. The Negro in Mississippi still cannot vote and a Negro in New York still believes he has nothing to vote for. They will not be satisfied until they get justice.
Which version is more powerful?
Martin Luther King
How effective would Martin Luther King’s speech have been if he hadn’t used rhetorical devices?
…We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with
growing confidence and growing strength in the air…
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be…
repetition
lists
rhetorical question
metaphor
Can you name the rhetorical devices Churchill uses in the speeches below?
Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee-I have thee not and yet I see thee still!Art thou not, fatal vision, sensibleTo feeling as to sight? Or art thou butA dagger of the mind, a false creation,Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?I see thee yet, in form as palpableAs this which now I draw…
Choose a controversial topic such as school uniform, religion in schools or animal experiments.
Write a magazine article (roughly 500 words long) which aims to convince your readers of your point of view on the subject.
Make sure that you look at both sides of the issue to avoid bias, and try and use as many rhetorical devices as you can in order to convince your readers that your point of view is the best one.