Exam 5: Planning and Forecasting

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: "Although you were not selected to receive the award, I congratulate you for your achievements at California State University, Chico." -Excerpt from a letter written by a university president and sent to an unsuccessful contender for a campus award.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: "The Soviet regime [once] promulgated a law providing fines for motorists who alter their lights or grills or otherwise make their cars distinguishable. A regime that makes it a crime to personalize a car is apt to make it a crime to transmit a cultural heritage." -George Will

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: Mitt Romney ran a more negative campaign in 2008 than did John McCain.

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: I'd much rather stay home and read a novel than go to a movie.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: If the governor is so dedicated to civil rights, why is it that the black citizens of this state are worse off now than when he took office?

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: We clearly can't trust the television networks, not when they've just spent two days interviewing young children on their feelings about the recent shootings at the elementary school. This attempt to wring every drop of human interest from the tragedy is either frighteningly cynical or criminally thoughtless regarding the damage that can be done both to the children interviewed and to children who see the interviews.

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content. "Britain has done all it can to sabotage the development of the European Community. For a while it was Margaret Thatcher, and after that her equally right-wing successor, John Major, who served as mouthpiece for the isolationist camp in Britain. It's clear to any intelligent listener that the people they're really speaking for are not the average people in the street, who would benefit from joining the rest of Europe, but a small number of the English super-rich who don't want to rock the boat. As long as Britain remains independent, they get to pull the strings-and make the profits. These money types are joined by a few nineteenth-century throwbacks who are arrogant enough to think that England has an empire to protect and exploit." -Editorial, Athens Courier

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: That the proposal before us is a good one is, surely, obvious.

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content. "Must the NFL-fat, sassy, the General Motors of professional sports-meet a similar crisis [to the one the National Basketball Association went through in the eighties] before it tries to solve its own plague of drugs? For years, since Don Reese's personal revelation and charges of league-wide drug involvement, the NFL has lived under a cloud of suspicion. Initially, it seemed the front offices, deeply concerned that their image remain pristine, chose to look the other way. Now they've acknowledged the problem, and have chosen to push for testing; this year, eight franchises asked their players to undergo post-season analysis, but each was refused." -Tom Jackson, Sacramento Bee

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: The county unemployment rate went up 40 percent during our opponent's administration, but since we took the reins, it has risen only 35 percent in the same length of time. Clearly, we have done the better job.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Miracle X-K3 battery additive extends the life of your battery by up to five years.

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content. "Citizens for a Clean Community caused quite a commotion the other day when it announced its campaign to end the sale or rent of so-called adult and X-rated videos and movies." "There immediately came the usual charges of censorship and free speech violations-as could have been predicted." "We certainly would be the first to defend someone's right to read or view whatever they please. But make no mistake, those who are offended by this smut have every right to express their frustration by protesting its distribution.... And this kind of material is completely debasing and has no redeeming value whatsoever...." -Cascade News

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content. "I see that Mr. [Clint] Eastwood is up to his expansionist tricks again. Last time, when he couldn't get his way with the Carmel [California] Planning Commission, he got himself elected mayor and fired the members of the commission. That'll teach 'em to cross Dirty Harry! And now he wants to build a development of huge estates for his rich and fancy friends up in the hills, complete with a private and oh-so-exclusive golf course and all the other luxury amenities that we non-movie stars can hardly imagine. Since Mr. Eastwood already owns about half of Northern California, I hope somebody stops him before he turns the bulk of his property into encampments for the rich." -Paraphrase of the remarks heard on a talk radio station

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content. "The executives responsible for the recent corporate catastrophes popularly known as Agent Orange, asbestos, and the Dalkon Shield are not in jail and will not go to jail. With the exception of informed victims, few of us describe these cases in the language of crime, even though in each case there is a wealth of evidence that victims were put at unacceptably high levels of risk of severe injury and death and that corporate executives knew of the risks, yet failed to take appropriate preventive action. Even Morton Mintz, the award-winning Washington Post investigative reporter and author of At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, and the Dalkon Shield, a powerful indictment of the A.H.Robins pharmaceutical company, does not use the word 'crime' in telling the sordid tale of the Dalkon Shield." -From Russell Mokhiber's "Criminals By Any Other Name," The Washington Monthly

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Maybe it's possible, after all, to sympathize with the Internal Revenue Service. The woes that have piled up in its Philadelphia office make the IRS look almost human.

Provide a critical assessment of the following quotation. Discuss rhetorical flourishes and slanting techniques, if any, including otherizing, demonizing, fear or hate mongering, and fostering xenophobia. Some passages may fit more than one category. "Dear Marriage Supporter, Since the age of the French Revolution, the phrase 'Let them eat cake' has been used as a symbol of out-of-touch, tyrannical elites or aristocracies. The phrase comes from a popular anecdote that a monarch (often identified as Marie Antoinette), when told that the peasants had no bread to eat and were starving, proposed this as the solution: 'Let them eat cake.' Well, ironically in our own day the phrase is once again a fitting symbol of an out-of-touch, tyrannical government: this time in the form of a Colorado Judge who ruled that a baker in Denver must provide wedding cakes to same-sex couples... or else pay the price." -Brian Brown, President NOM [National Organization of Marriage], http://www.nomblog.com/38615/

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Robert may be a pretty good gardener, all right, but you'll notice he lost nearly everything to the bugs this year.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Professor Jones, who normally confines his remarks to his own subject, ventured out on a high wire to comment on the commission's findings.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: "Within the context of total ignorance, you are absolutely correct." -Caption in a National Review cartoon

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: People are happier on Fridays than on Mondays.