Rhetoric

I used to think that rhetoric was clearly communicating ideas that a writer has, but after working on the paper all semester, I have a new interpretation of rhetoric that is more specific than that which i formerly held. Rhetoric is tailoring information and arguments to a target audience in order to make them receptive to the information being presented, which has also been tailored to ensure that it appeals to the selected audience in a way that convinces them of the issue being presented. Gathering relevant information about a topic is no longer the main challenge in writing like it was in high school. The challenge is selecting the appropriate audience, the appropriate selection of information for that audience, and the appropriate language to address that audience. This new form of rhetoric that I have employed is a higher-thinking version of my basic definition, the applied usage of an over-arching paradigm. Originally, when I just started writing my research paper, I was nervous that it would have had to have been a 30 page paper due to all the relevant information, statistics, studies, journals, etc I found about my topic, but that was before I took into account the adapted definition of rhetoric that I was supposed to use for the first time on this assignment. It's obvious to me now how selective I have to be when arguing a point or even just presenting an idea to a group of people. The way the world is nowadays, using the words that are not appropriately selected for your audience will not only ensure that they aren't convinced by your ideas, it will also probably emotionally wound them beyond all rational thought, and allow them to harbor ill will towards you and your ideas forever. While this soft attitude is a thorn in the side of society, it is also a "survival of the fittest" situation. Whoever practices rhetoric the best and can communicate facts or, God forbid, their opinions will continue to be able to do so, and those who are tactless in speech and writing will be shunned along with all their ideas. Fight club prepared us well to present viewpoints on controversial issues. Even though there wasn't a great risk of truly offending anyone in class as the different sides of the arguments were usually assigned, some of the debaters' true sentiments shined through their arguments, which is an important aspect of rhetoric that should never be forgotten. An appeal to emotion is the most difficult tool in rhetoric to use the right way. Use a lackluster emotional appeal, and the audience will be largely unimpressed. On the other hand, regardless of the side you are arguing for, and emotional appeal that is too overstated will result in a breakdown of logic in the audience, causing them to actually be less receptive to the ideas you're presenting them with.