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Analyzing King's 'Toolbox'

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In "What Writing Is", King likens writing to telepathy. He is able to convey thoughts and images to the reader without actually saying anything. I have never thought of writing as a form of telepathy before, but I do see the resemblances. In the chapter entitled "Toolbox", King talks about vocabulary, grammar, and structure. On vocabulary King asserts that its best to use the first word that comes to our mind. However, he cautions not to use long words just for the sake of using long words. Of grammar he reminds us that, "bad grammar produces bad sentences." One of the things that stood out to me was his statement, "I 'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing." King 's writing style is active and direct. He is not afraid to
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King uses many forms of rhetorical devices in his letter in order to effectively make impacts on his audience. In his counterargument against the praises towards the Birmingham police force, King brings new lights of the police force to the public eye. He uses parallelism to target his audience and change the public opinion on the police force “I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes ... if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together”(King 561-570). King counter the praises that states the police kept “order” for the public and prevented any violence to take place,

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His masterful delivery of these metaphors and the frequent repetition makes the speech much like a poem or a part of a song. This special lyrical and parallel structure helped get his main points across and allows a large audience to understand simple but powerful words (Layfield) . The rhythm and frequent repetition are used to drive home his key points, stressing the importances of his goal. As example, King uses “I have a dream that one day...” and “Let freedom ring..” to open his points on how Americans should change against racial indifferences. Furthermore the King’s parallel structure clarifies and highlights his intent by building up to a more important point.

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King’s purpose for using rhetoric is that the world needs change and needs to improve for equality. Claims that a lot of people have faith in the movement like a 72 year old who said one of the most powerful quotes in the letter, “my feet is tired, but my soul is rested.” (King 182). Another powerful quote stated in the letter is, “If I have said anything that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg for forgiveness.” (King 182).

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King had to utilize each of them to get his point across. Each of King’s statements could not be boiled down to one single persuasive tool, therefore a lot of comorbidity exists within “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. Such as the difference between order and justice appeals to logos and

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Throughout the book of The Once and Future King T.H. White explores political theories and various leadership qualities. Merlyn changes Wart into different animals to show different political philosophies. Merlyn is non-human and the Wart’s teacher. T.H. White makes Wart learn about different political theories whilst being an animal by including how they operate and what they do regarding leadership.

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In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” it can easily be argued that King used many rhetorical devices such as anaphora and tone in order to further persuade his audience to take action on behalf of the Civil Rights movement. Through copious examples, the reader is presented with King’s effort to use repetition in order to drive his point as well as being presented with the changing tone of his writing which allows the reader to experience a shift in emotions and urgency throughout the

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866 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the text, King utilized the values of his audience to gain sympathy and later on support. His use of diction and syntax would align his mission to God’s, and show that he was in the right and the clergymen were in the wrong. In his letter, King effectively used an extended periodic sentence that consisted of more than 300 words. The sentence has an extreme appeal to pathos, with such vivid imagery

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Each of these three rhetorical devices play to an overall theme of the speech. These rhetorical devices comforts the readers through logic, and a plan for their future as well as reminding them to have hope, so that the homosexual community is one day be treaty the same as any other communitie. Mr. King on the other hand, uses correction of erroneous views, emotional words, and allusions to get his point across. He first starts out correction of erroneous views by calling out those who criticize him, and explains that he is in Birmingham because of injustice. Next he uses emotion words when he is describing how he must tell his daughter out the outside world and how the fact of reality is that he will always be a “nigger” or “boy” despite his positions in life.

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Knowing these facts, he knew he would have to write in an effective manner. Also, he was aware that a letter from a black man would only be taken seriously, or at all, if it made an impact. Therefore, it is clear in his letter that King wrote with a purpose and a passion, despite knowing his letter may not be read, much less, taken seriously. This is why he is a great role model for those of us who want to write an effective piece of

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King's impassioned words reverberated with vivid imagery, persuasive repetition, and

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And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . . .””(31). King includes these parallel structures so that his examples can stand out and be remembered well in the reader's mind. He wants them to be stuck in their brain because they are all reliable sources and he has many of them. It is easier to be persuasive when there are lots of examples to support the claim.

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King used robust figurative language to persuade his audience, to impress upon them the severity of the situation. The fact that king was a preacher also contributed to his speech in many ways. Some of these ways included that King was practiced in the art of persuasion, he carefully chose his language each week for his sermon, and was clearly comfortable delivering a speech after the many hours of practice being a preacher provided. King used figurative language to empower his speech in such as way that the audience could see, feel, and hear what King saw, felt, and hear. King provided vivid imagery, one aspect that Lucas

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As for style choices, King used friendliness to engage his listeners and activist. Formality to show to other races, primarily white people, that he was educated

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King uses tone, literal and figurative language to establish structure and language in his letter. King’s use of tone in his letter was a great way to lay out the foundation of his letter and add structure. In paragraph 2 and 3, King explains in the “hard, brutal and unbelievable facts” of the actions taken toward blacks

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1111 Words | 5 Pages

To achieve this, he used rhetorical strategies such as appeal to pathos and repetition. His passionate tone flowed through these strategies, increasing their persuasive power on the people and encouraging them to follow/listen to his message on racial injustice. While pathos elicits an emotional response from the audience to make them more accepting of King’s ideas, repetition structures the speech and emphasizes key ideas for the audience to take away from listening. These two techniques played a crucial role in furthering his purpose and in provoking a powerful response from the audience that made this speech memorable and awe-inspiring. To this day, King’s speech remains one of the most famous and influential speeches in

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