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Assignment 3 Notes

HOW TO “TURN THE VOLUME DOWN” ON PATHOS:

1. using the passive voice

2. using comfort, or cognitive ease by keeping things simple, empowering the audience, and trying to get them to smile

3. humor: urbane (wordplay), wit (situational), factiousness (joke-telling), and banter (snappy answers)

4. backfire: calming emotions in advance by initially overplaying it yourself

WATCH AND LISTEN TO YOUR AUDIENCE FOR THE COMMONPLACE.

HOW TO REFRAME, OR LABEL, AN ARGUMENT TO SUIT YOUR OWN RHETORICAL COMFORT:

1. term changing: inserting your own terms instead of accepting those of your opponent

2. redefinition: accepting your opponent’s terms while changing their connotation (“owning it”)

STEPS FOR REFRAMING:

1. Find the audience commonplace words that favor you.

2. Define the issue in the broadest context.

3. Deal with the specific problem using the future tense.

RHETORICAL FOULS (OUT-OF-BOUNDS) THAT MAKE DELIBERATIVE ARGUMENT IMPOSSIBLE:

1. Switching tenses away from the future. (opponent sticking with the present and/or the past)

2. Inflexible insistence on the rules by using the voice of God, sticking to your guns, or refusing to hear the other side.

3. Humiliation—an argument that sets out only to debase the opponent, not to make a choice

4. Innuendo—using understatement and irony (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) to humiliate the opponent

5. Threatening

6. Nasty language/signs

7. Utter stupidity

ETHOS DEFENSE (QUESTIONING SOMEONE’S SINCERITY/TRUSTWORTHINESS):

1. the needs test (disinterest): Are the persuader’s needs your needs?  Whose needs are being met?

2. checking the extremes (virtue): Does the opponent describe the opposing argument?  How close is the middle-of-the-road to yours?

• A virtuous choice is a moderate

• Extremists usually describe the middle course as extreme!

THE DEFENSIVE TOOLS OF PRACTICAL WISDOM (HOW TO ASSESS SOMEONE ELSE’S):

1. the “that depends” filter: Does the persuader want to know the exact nature of your problem?  Or is it a one-size-fits-all choice?

2. comparable experience

3. “sussing”: Do they cut to the chase?

THE BASIC TOOLS OF LOGOS:

1. deduction: applying the general to the particular (enthymeme:  “We should [choice] because [commonplace].”)

2. induction: arguing by example; applying the particular to the general (facts, comparisons, and stories)