Exam 5: Rhetoric,the Art of Persuasion

Construct eight sentences,each illustrating a use of this slanter:innuendo.

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: NCAA rules for recruiting athletes are broken more frequently by Division 1 schools than by Division 2 schools.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Soon after the mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe,California,Ted Turner-owner of the Atlanta Braves and vice chairman of Time Warner-said that he thought the suicides were "a nice way to get rid of a few nuts."

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: The office has become more productive since we changed from independent workstations to networked computers,although it took a while for the staff to learn how best to make use of the change.

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: The best American film of the 2000s so far is No Country For Old Men.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Surely you can't say that the American people have ever been behind Bill Clinton.After all,he got a mere 43 million votes in 1992,which is five million fewer than George Bush got when he beat Dukakis in 1988.

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: A new antilock rear brake system has reduced the distance required to stop from fifty miles per hour by 11 percent.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Jimmy Fallon? Yeah,he's about as funny as a terminal illness.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: Once you've made our Day Planner a part of your business life,there's a good chance you'll never miss or be late for another appointment.

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

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: "Smokers unite! The reason the antismoking crowd doesn't want you to smoke can be summed up in a single word:dictatorship." -From a newspaper call-in column

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: "...the basic right to life of an animal-which is the source of energy for many animal rights wackos-must be inferred from the anticruelty laws humans have written." -Rush Limbaugh

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. "Some of the ill will [at Dartmouth College] has been provoked by a student-run newspaper called The Dartmouth Review.Ten of the dirty dozen who destroyed the shanties [built on the Dartmouth campus as an antiapartheid protest] reportedly work for the six-year-old weekly,a New Right mouthpiece that is run independently of the college and has the support of such leading off-campus conservatives as William F.Buckley,Jr.Considered troublemakers by the administration and many faculty members,and disowned by former supporters such as Rep.Jack Kemp,the Review's editors traffic in outrage and offense." -Newsweek

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: What explains the mad dash to distribute free condoms in our public schools? The misguided and ridiculous notion that kids are going to have sex no matter what.

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: "to chico's wholesalers and retailers of pornography:do you honestly believe that pornography has no effect on the behavior of people?" -From an ad in the Chico Enterprise-Record

Provide a critical assessment of the following quotation.Discuss rhetorical flourishes and slanting techniques,if any,including otherizing,demonizing,fear or hate mongering,and forstering xenophobia.Some passages may fit more than one category. "We couldn't get the truth to the American people. You and I know that that's extremely difficult to do where our newspapers are owned by out-of-state interests.Newspapers which are run and operated by left-wing liberals,Communist sympathizers,and members of the Americans for Democratic Action and other Communist front organizations with high sounding names. However,we will not be intimidated by the vultures of the liberal left-wing press.We will not be deceived by their lies and distortions of truth.We will not be swayed by their brutal attacks upon the character and reputation of any honest citizen who dares stand up and fight for liberty. And,we are not going to be influenced by intellectually bankrupt editors of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution,one of whom has presided over the dissolution of the once great Atlanta Constitution. We can understand his bitterness in his bleak failure,but we need not tolerate his vituperative and venomous attacks upon the integrity and character of our people.These editors,like many other left-wingers in the liberal press,are not influenced by tradition.Theirs is a tradition of scalawags.Their mealy-mouthed platitudes disgrace the honored memory of their predecessors--such men of character as Henry Grady,Joel Chandler Harris,and Clarke Howell,men who made the name of the Atlanta Constitution familiar in every household throughout the South.They are not worthy to shine the shoes of those great men." -George Wallace,The Civil Rights Movement fraud,sham and hoax speech July 4,1964,http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964WALLACE.html

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. "What kind of crazy political system is it where a man who wants to run for president must begin by withdrawing from public life? It's become an American tradition,dating perhaps back to Richard Nixon in 1962.Gary Hart followed the pattern when he 'declared his "interest" in the presidency' (as the Washington Post chastely put it)by announcing that he won't run for reelection to the Senate this year.Good luck to Hart.I voted for him once before,and wouldn't mind voting for him again.But really.Is this necessary?" -"TRB from Washington," in The New Republic

Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim: The increase in the number and support of conservative think tanks has been substantial since the mid-1970s.The American Enterprise had twelve resident thinkers when Jimmy Carter was elected;today it has forty-five.The Heritage Foundation has sprung from nothing to command an annual budget of $11 million.The budget of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has grown from $975,000 ten years ago to $8.6 million today.Over a somewhat longer period the endowment of the Hoover Institution has increased from $2 million to $70 million. -Adapted from Gregg Easterbrook,"Ideas Move Nations"

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: "Sam Goldwyn once said that an oral agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on.We wonder what he would have said about the Pennzoil-Texaco case." -The Worcester,Mass. ,Evening Gazette

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage: With her keen instinct for political survival on full alert,Governor Whitman suddenly saw the wisdom of the proposal that she had opposed for so many years.