Rhetorical Strategies Used In Ian Leslie's Curious

George Orwell’s “desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after” can also be seen through Ian Leslie’s strategies in his book, Curious. In the book, Leslie demonstrates excellent use of rhetorical strategies to convince his reader of his thesis that knowledge is the force which powers beneficial curiosity. Leslie even goes as far as to say that curiosity without any previous knowledge can be dangerous. Throughout the book, Ian Leslie attempts to push the world in the direction of his thoughts, and convince them that knowledge truly is the key to positive curiosity. The use of real world examples and statistics give credibility to Leslie's argument, and demonstrate other viewpoints. Cause and effect, as well as compare and contrast show how one moment of

Leslie provides the statistic that “there were 122 unintentional firearm deaths of children in America in 2007,” after describing a real world situation in which a boy accidentally shot a firearm (5). Examples such as these gain the reader's’ trust, as he or she is provided with a statistical fact and then shown a demonstration it in reality. This example supports Leslie’s thesis, in that the boy’s lack of knowledge led to potentially harmful curiosity. Leslie extends his argument to the other side of the spectrum as well by providing the example of Steve Jobs, a very wealthy businessman. Ian Leslie states that Jobs’s “intellectual fascination with the creative process” made him take on projects such as Apple and Pixar (138). It was not without prior knowledge of technological development that Jobs became increasingly curious in these new possible