Week 12_4/14/16_Meaning of Rhetoric

            During the second week’s blog post, I defined rhetoric as the art of conveying the purpose of a literary work in the most effective manner through the use of rhetoric figures and other various forms of methods. Rather than from experience, that definition was derived from the Silva Rhetoricae website titled “The Forest of Rhetoric.” This website summarized the various rhetorical techniques and the history of the various uses of rhetoric. However, over the past semester, I through personally utilizing rhetorical techniques myself, I have gained better understanding of the term.

            Since before I came to this university, I had experience in writing essays and other forms of writings. I made use of evidences, tone, diction, and many other literary techniques. I was taught how to do all of these things, but I never considered these techniques as rhetorical devices. After viewing them from rhetorical point of view, they become a little bit more meaningful. Each device has the purpose of conveying the main thesis better to the audience. The knowledge of the audience is also more important for the writings must be adjusted to better commute with them. These past four months, I had the opportunity to write various assignments from rhetorical perspectives. I always had to keep in mind what I want to tell the audience and how to convince them of my positions.

            The most prominent example of my uses of rhetorical skills is the fifteen page argumentative essay. I made use of pathos, logos, and ethos, tone, diction, allusions, and even kairos. I had to make clear the audience I was addressing in order to maximize the chances of accomplishing what I wanted to do. The purpose of the essay was to make sure the lawmakers of this state addresses the problems of daily fantasy sports and ban it for minors. In order to do that, I had to make sure they understood that I was directly addressing them. Moreover, in order to persuade them, I had to make sure my logics stood on firm grounds and provide sources of my evidences and information to increase my credibility. That was done to make sure they took my writing seriously. However, simply listing the arguments was not enough. I had to appeal to emotion as well because doing so would increase their likelihood to view this subject from my point of view and make them more sympathetic to my cause. In order to do so, I had to keep in mind who would read my wring and what is important to them.

            Because the awareness of the audience is one of the most important elements of rhetorical writing, the audience paper played a big role in raising my understanding of the term rhetoric. During his assignment, I had to list the audiences, what influenced their thoughts and what would help them be more sympathetic to my cause. Also, the purpose had to be listed clearly, as well as the context. The combination of these points demonstrated the majority of what I would write in my argumentative essay. They are the core elements in all of rhetoric, and I believe keeping those points in mind will help me become a better writer.

            In conclusion, even though my main definition of the term rhetoric has not changed, and most of the skills I utilized were those I have already learnt, practicing them with rhetorical perspectives helped me learn how to use them in a better way. The definition has also grown to include keeping in mind what the purpose and audience are, and make the audience more sympathetic to my cause.