ipl-logo

Rhetorical Strategies In Freakonomics

1658 Words7 Pages

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

Show More
Related
727 Words | 3 Pages

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle L. McGuire, does not sound at first like a book that would provide ample information about the role of the Ku Klux Klan in the Civil Rights Era, but through the various cases and demonstrations presented by McGuire, the reader is given insight into the Ku Klux Klan that has yet to presented by another author read for this study. In her book, McGuire analyzes various court cases and movements from the early 20th century into the 1970s to show the growth of the civil rights movement through black women's resistance. She focuses on the particular women involved and the role that respectability

Read More
1009 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout all of history, people have always tried to persuade someone to see their point of view. People from all kinds of backgrounds have engaged in such behavior, whether they realize it or not, in order to convince someone else that their opinion is correct. There have been many who have made themselves known by their opinion and power to persuade others such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose words were able to inspire a nation to have a change of heart. Authors, however, make up one of the larger portions of people trying to persuade others to agree with them on a topic. An author such as George Orwell writes in order to persuade others towards the kind of world they should want to be living in, and he crafts his writings in a way that achieves this purpose.

Read More
381 Words | 2 Pages

Jack Nguyen AP English 3 30, July 2015 Nickel and Dimed Rhetorical Strategies and Notes Thesis: Ehrenreich’s personal use of varied rhetorical strategies allowed her to divulge the working conditions and struggles of the poverty-stricken class to the readers in order to provoke them to realize that something has to be done about poverty.. First Body: What: Allusion Pg. 2, Logos Pg. 37. How & Effect: Ehrenreich uses these personal, rhetorical strategies based on her experiences as a low-wage worker in the poor working class. The effect is that Ehrenreich is able to show the readers the conditions in which the impoverished work in and the daily obstacles that they face in life; also there is an appeal to logic and a reference of a poverty idiom. Why: Ehrenreich is deliberately using these rhetorical strategies to incite the readers about the fact that changes need to be done to poverty because it is a detrimental thing to society.

Read More
559 Words | 3 Pages

These mob attacks were an attempt of creating fear in the hearts of African Americans’ within the U.S.
 Walker’s purpose for writing the Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, was to spark black unity within the states and to encourage them to fight against black maltreatment and prejudice. He wanted to address the issue of slavery and how unjust it was within the likes of religion; another position

Read More
1487 Words | 6 Pages

The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner talks about many different things, including cheating teachers and sumo wrestlers, how abortion lowered crime rates, how a street crack gang works, and whether the way parents raise their children even matter. These topics seem to have nothing in common, but all of these topics were identified in the same way: an economist (Levitt) looked at school test scores, crime data, and all sorts of other information, looking at them in unconventional ways. Because of that, he has come to many interesting and unique conclusions that make complete sense. These findings were based on some simple ideas: the power of incentives, conventional wisdom is not always right, things may not have obvious causes, and experts often serve their own interests instead of the interests of others. Perhaps the most important idea in the book is, as Levitt and Dubner state, “Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so” (14).

Read More
670 Words | 3 Pages

In the chapter titled “How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of Real-Estate Agents?”, the

Read More
2034 Words | 9 Pages

The book, “America Swastika: Inside the white power movement’s hidden spaces of hate” by Pete Simi and Robert Futrell, was written 2010. I chose this book because I am interested in learning about why these racist groups have so much hate towards another race or group. Personally, I do not condone racism because it does not make sense to me as to how one person can hate another one without knowing them. I wanted to learn about how people who are in groups such as, the Ku Klux Klan, live in our country which is identified as a melting pot. White power movements are talked about in our history books and are explained as if they are in the past, but they aren’t.

Read More
1060 Words | 5 Pages

Rhetorical strategies are a variety of parts that make up an essay. The strategies include everything from explaining a process, to structure of writing. Whether the author 's purpose is to entertain, inform, or persuade, ultimately these strategies will strengthen not only the author’s purpose, but also the writing itsef. Typically when authors use these strategies, they are very precise to how they use them, and when deeply analysing a piece of writing, this is very clear. In Bell Hooks’ “Understanding Patriarchy”, she used rhetorical strategies to convey her purpose.

Read More
496 Words | 2 Pages

The Ku Klux Klan first emerged in Pulaski, Tennessee following the Civil War. As we know today, the mere mention of the Klan triggers fear as the KKK is known for its various tactics of violence that came in the form if lynchings, murders, and mutilations. Following their emergence, the KKK were quickly symbolized and portrayed as the protectors of the South, following the defeat of the Southern states in the Civil War and the beginning of the period of Reconstruction by the federal government (Gurr, 1989, p. 132). During the 1920s, the KKK achieved its greatest political success and growth outside of the South. During this period, the membership of the Klan heavily expanded to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Oregon, to which the KKK obtained two to two and one-half million members at its apex.

Read More
649 Words | 3 Pages

Douglass uses pathos and analogy to show slaveholders that they need to abolish slavery because their lives will always be dominated by fear. Mr. Douglass finds his way to freedom in the north and has to be careful of who he talks to because he never knows when a kidnapper is right around the corner. Douglass compares the “money loving kidnappers” to “ferocious beast” trying to catch the easy prey. Once the slaves fought and achieved their freedom they had to make sure they didn’t run into the “beast” or kidnappers. The way Mr. Douglass describes the slave as a “panting fugitive” makes the reader feel sympathy for the slave because he/she can never catch a break and for the rest of their lives they will always be looking over their shoulders which causes fear in their

Read More
2399 Words | 10 Pages

The narrator’s violent actions are understandable because as Dr. King mentions, “Vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim” (2). When a person is the victim of this kind of hatred it is understandable why is he has bitterness and rage and that he may turn to violence after he experiences of any type of continued

Read More
814 Words | 4 Pages

However, Douglass, who knows the true culprit, refutes this idea saying instead that slaves would join together in song to tell of their hatred and sorrow. Another way that Douglass rebukes this friendly image is with the gory horrific reality. For instance, when a savage overseer kills a slave named Demby, Douglass recalls “his mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood”(22). Douglass isn’t painting this life in a positive way because he wants others to grasp the alarming reality that was life as a slave. Although those involved in the enslavement of African Americans might’ve liked to believe it, there was nothing reasonable or justifiable about

Read More
753 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

Read More
552 Words | 3 Pages

No Nickels or Dimes To Spare In the book, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich writes the story, “Serving in Florida.” She describes her experience living as an undercover waitress when in reality she’s a journalist for culture and politics with a doctorate in biology. Ehrenreich experiences trying to survive on multiple low income jobs to understand what it is like to be in their shoes instead of being apart of the higher middle class.

Read More
1153 Words | 5 Pages

Proclaimed Christians supporting slavery through owning slaves and treating African-Americans as if they are not people continues the cycle of destruction by impairing family structures. And deteriorates a person’s body and spirits. Therefore, the method of pathos through Stowe speaking on Harris’s damaged family structure at a young age and descriptive use of language becomes critical for the audience to make a connection with him. It becomes deliberate in this scene so readers can come to terms that slavery is immoral instead of people focusing a person being African-American during that

Read More

More about Rhetorical Strategies In Freakonomics

Related Topics

Open Document