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Rhetoric In Thank You For Arguing By Jay Heinrichs

Decent Essays

Often times in daily life, a person will use rhetoric. Whether it’s arguing with a sibling or the sound of an alarm, rhetoric is in use. Rhetoric is effective persuasion and persuasion is swaying someone to do or believe in something. The reason rhetoric is important to be taught in school is because not only does it often show up in daily life but it can show up in the media as well.
In everyday life arguments happen quite frequently. In Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, the author tries to go a day without persuasion or arguing and fails miserably. “For the time being my detector has nothing to say. But my cat does. She jumps on the bed and sticks her nose in my armpit. As reliable as my watch and twice as annoying, the cat persuades remarkable well for ten dumb pounds of fur. Instead of words she uses gesture and tone of voice- potent ingredients of argument.” (Heinrichs page 7) If kids are experiencing and using the argument skill from day one, then it should be the teacher’s job to refine and expand upon the skill. If …show more content…

Almost everyone in high school has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Vine and large companies are taking advantage of that. “Another element of rhetoric that can be taken advantage of through social media is pathos. For example, many charitable campaigns are started through Facebook using emotional persuasion to gather more support. These campaigns draw on personal experiences with the cause, sympathy, and empathy to influence Facebook users to join the campaign and spread awareness through status updates.” (Peterson par 4) If students are shown how to recognize rhetorical strategies then they can know not to fall for the persuasion. Kids can stop being so influenced by the media and start thinking for themselves. If the new generation can learn to analyze commercials and advertisements then they can understand marketing ploys and the companies end

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