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Rhetorical Strategies In Freakonomics

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Dear Prof. Ulibarri, As I was sitting in the library writing this paper, I was glad that we had gone so in depth into all the rhetorical strategies in class. I started by memorizing what each rhetorical strategy was and how it was used to persuade the reader I then looked up examples of each one so it would be easier for me to locate them in the text of Freakonomics. I then re-read the chapter I chose and highlighted the rhetorical strategies I found. From there I found quotes in the text to back it up and identified how the authors, Levitt and Dubner used them to persuade readers. After that I took a look at the index of templates in They Say I Say to choose which templates I would use to begin the sentences of every beginning paragraph …show more content…

Uniquely, they ask questions, and then provide strong evidence to support their opinions on the matter or the claim. The tone of this book is mainly critical, the author introduces possible arguments to answer the questions at hand, and continues by refuting them and explaining why they are incorrect. In chapter 3, “How Is the Ku Klux Klan like a Giant Group Of Real-Estate Agents?” Levitt and Dubner mainly use the rhetorical strategy, pathos, when talking about the Ku Klux Klan because what person can disagree with someone proving how terrible a multi-state terrorist organization who’s purpose was to frighten and kill black people in the United States was? The answer is simple, no one, because most people have morals and are disgusted by what the Ku Klux Klan did. The authors use pathos to grab us by our emotions and make us want to keep reading about such a historically powerful but terrible group. To do so they use powerful, livid, and emotional language. Levitt and Dubner help us to remember how terrible the Ku Klux Klan was and the repulsive things they did to not just “black people” but to human beings that did in no way deserve what they had to go through during slavery and even after with language that appeals to the senses. “The early Klan did its work through pamphleteering, lynching, shooting, burning, castrating, pistol-whipping, and a thousand forms of intimidation” (52). Levitt and Dubner start right off the bat using a rhetorical strategy called appeal to pity by very vividly listing the things the Ku Klux Klan did to their victims. This strategy makes us think about how terrible those the things they did are now and how it would be front page news if any of those things happened to any person nowadays. Once our emotions are conjured up and in tune, us as readers are more likely to agree with what the authors have to say. If Levitt and Dubner did not want us to

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