GE105 Rhetorical Method Examples 1

GE105 Writing I: Academic Literacies

Spring Semester 2013

Week 3

Instructor: Sophia Katsochi

Rhetorical Method Examples

1. Narration

The Reverend Sylvester W. Graham preached that, rather than being born again, ones life could be salvaged by vegetarianism and bran. Living in New England in the early 19th century, the former Presbyterian preacher was an early champion of the low-fat, low-salt diet, brown bread as opposed to the socially sanctioned white, and fruits and vegetables as against beef or pork. If Reverend Graham could only see how his flocks have multiplied a century and a half later. As it was, espousing coarse, unsifted flour, slightly stale bread, and lots of bran, he left his name to a flour and a cracker.

From: Kanar, C. (n.d.). The confident writer (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

2. Description

Carnivorous plants are those that get nourishment by trapping and digesting insects. Specially modified flowers or leaves may produce an odor or have a color that is attractive to insects. In some species a sticky coating on the petals holds the insect in place while the flower closes around it, trapping it inside the flower. The plants juices contain a digestive acid.

From: Kanar, C. (n.d.). The confident writer (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

3. ProcessMark Prendergast, a neuroscientist at the University of Kentucky, recently revealed one way these hyperactive receptors kill brain cells. First, he exposed rat hippocampal slices to alcohol for 10 days, then removed the alcohol. Following withdrawal, he stained the tissue with a fluorescent dye that lit up dead and dying cells. When exposed to an alcohol concentration of about .08 percent, cell death increased some 25 percent above the baseline. When concentrations were two or three times higher, he wrote in a recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the number of dead cells shot up to 100 percent above the baseline.

From: Glenn, C., & Gray, L. (2008). The writers Harbrace handbook (Brief 3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

4. Cause & effect

Experts point to several factors for excessive credit card debt among college students. High on the list is students lack of financial literacy. The credit card representatives on campus, the preapproved applications that arrive in the mail several times a week, and the incessant phone offers for credit cards tempt students into opening accounts before they really can understand what they are getting themselves into. The people marketing these cards depend on the fact that many students dont know what an annual percentage rate is. Credit card companies count on applicants failing to read the fine print, which tells them how after an introductory period, the interest rate on a given card can increase two or three times. The companies also dont want students to know that every year people send money (in the form of interest charges) to these companies that there is no need to send. That annual fee that credit card companies love to charge can be waived. I think that many people, students and non-students alike, might be surprised how often and easily it can disappear if people call the company to say they dont want to pay it.

From: Glenn, C., & Gray, L. (2011). The writers Harbrace handbook (Brief 4th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

5. Comparison & contrast

[Perhaps psychologists never did a relevant study,] but the differences between mountain and beach people are as big as the climb from the sea level to McKinleys peak, with this important qualification: beaches and mountains, like their admirers, are not better than each other, only different. Beauty is not the kind of thing you can have a contest about. Neither, for that matter, is ugliness.

From: Kanar, C. (n.d.). The confident writer (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

6. Classification

[Most people] listen to music according to [their] separate capacities. [However,] for the sake of analysis, the whole listening process may become clearer if it is broken up into its component parts, so to speak. In a certain sense, people listen to music on three separate planes: For lack of a better terminology, one might [name the] sensuous plane, the expressive plane, and the sheerly musical plane. The only advantage to be gained from mechanically splitting up the listening process into these hypothetical planes is the clearer view to be had of the way in which we listen.

From: Kanar, C. (n.d.). The confident writer (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

7. Definition

The United States used to be famous for hard work. Now, work has become a four-letter word. Many Americans whether stuck on an assembly line or in the ranks of middle management consider work tedious, unsatisfying, a necessary evil that earns the paycheck and buys the food. In a society that idolizes wealth and worships leisure, work is the terrible drudgery that stands between the average American schmo and the weekend.

From: Kanar, C. (n.d.). The confident writer (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.