Week 2_1/23/16_The Definition of Rhetoric

                  Rhetoric is the means by which you persuade someone to your opinion. Logos, pathos, and ethos are also important. In addition, rhetoric is the use of language in one's speech or writings to convey meaning. Some encompassing terms that can be associated with rhetoric are kairos, audience, and decorum. Kairos is the moment in which your speech will be the most well-received. Audience is those who are receiving your message. To better reach out to your audience, one must analyze how the audience would think of your message in terms of relevancy and persuasiveness. Decorum happens to involve the context in which you present your message to your audience. As mentioned before, logos, pathos, and ethos are all tactics to enhance the probability of the message effecting your audience. Logos is using reason and common sense to persuade. On the opposite side of the spectrum, pathos uses emotion to sway the audience. Lastly, ethos is your reputation's ability to enhance the credibility of your claims. In terms of ethos, if your audience trusts you, they will believe more of what you say. Delivery, memory, style, arrangement, and invention also effect how effective your message will be. Delivery happens when you present the final product to your audience. Memory includes how well you know and remember your topic. Style in the way in which you present your subject, and arrangement is how your delivery is organized. In addition, invention, the first step of rhetoric, is when you brainstorm and organize your ideas on a subject. Undoubtedly, all these factors drastically determine whether or not your audience will accept what you say. Interestingly enough, I'm currently taking a Public Speaking course this semester, and almost all of these principles have been mentioned. I agree that the art of rhetoric is important, especially out in the real world. Before I took I started this semester, I always thought rhetoric was a sort of optional way to "spice up" your argument. I never really thought of it as necessary. In the past, I have taken courses that mentioned rhetoric, but we never dabbled too much in it. A year ago, rhetoric was mentioned in class while we were reading Plato's Republic. Because I loathe philosophy, I never thought to apply rhetoric or even remember it. The more knowledge I gain about succeeding in today's workforce, the more I understand that rhetoric is not optional; it is absolutely necessary. I thought this website was extraordinarily helpful. I especially liked how organized and easy it was to find specific categories about rhetoric. Another thing I admired about the website was how easy formerly challenging concepts were to understand. When I found the timeline about rhetoric, I was delighted to see familiar names like St. Augustine, who wrote City of God, Erasmus, and Quintilian, a former scholar of the Roman Empire. What I didn't like was how stuffy and technical the language was. Occasionally, the concepts were not expanded on and only included a few, choice words. Also, there were no examples included, which I something I really love about They Say, I Say.

Burton, Gideon O. "The Forest of Rhetoric." Silva Rhetoricae:. Brigham Young University, 26 Feb. 2007. Web. 23 Jan. 2016.