research paper rhetorical questions

Rhetorical Questions in Essays: 5 Things you should Know

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

Rhetorical questions can be useful in writing. So, why shouldn’t you use rhetorical questions in essays?

In this article, I outline 5 key reasons that explain the problem with rhetorical questions in essays.

Despite the value of rhetorical questions for engaging audiences, they mean trouble in your university papers. Teachers tend to hate them.

There are endless debates among students as to why or why not to use rhetorical questions. But, I’m here to tell you that – despite your (and my) protestations – the jury’s in. Many, many teachers hate rhetorical questions.

You’re therefore not doing yourself any favors in using them in your essays.

Rhetorical Question Examples

A rhetorical question is a type of metacommentary . It is a question whose purpose is to add creative flair to your writing. It is a way of adding style to your essay.

Rhetorical questions usually either have obvious answers, or no answers, or do not require an answer . Here are some examples:

• Are you seriously wearing that?
• Do you think I’m that gullible?
• What is the meaning of life?
• What would the walls say if they could speak?

I understand why people like to use rhetorical questions in introductions . You probably enjoy writing. You probably find rhetorical questions engaging, and you want to draw your marker in, engage them, and wow them with your knowledge.

1. Rhetorical Questions in Academic Writing: They Don’t belong.

Rhetorical questions are awesome … for blogs, diaries, and creative writing. They engage the audience and ask them to predict answers.

But, sorry, they suck for essays. Academic writing is not supposed to be creative writing .

Here’s the difference between academic writing and creative writing:

• Supposed to be read for enjoyment first and foremost.
• Can be flamboyant, extravagant, and creative.
• Can leave the reader in suspense.
• Can involve twists, turns, and surprises.
• Can be in the third or first person.
• Readers of creative writing read texts from beginning to end – without spoilers.

Rhetorical questions are designed to create a sense of suspense and flair. They, therefore, belong as a rhetorical device within creative writing genres.

Now, let’s look at academic writing:

• Supposed to be read for information and analysis of real-life ideas.
• Focused on fact-based information.
• Clearly structured and orderly.
• Usually written in the third person language only.
• Readers of academic writing scan the texts for answers, not questions.

Academic writing should never, ever leave the reader in suspense. Therefore, rhetorical questions have no place in academic writing.

Academic writing should be in the third person – and rhetorical questions are not quite in the third person. The rhetorical question appears as if you are talking directly to the reader. It is almost like writing in the first person – an obvious fatal error in the academic writing genre.

Your marker will be reading your work looking for answers , not questions. They will be rushed, have many papers to mark, and have a lot of work to do. They don’t want to be entertained. They want answers.

Therefore, academic writing needs to be straight to the point, never leave your reader unsure or uncertain, and always signpost key ideas in advance.

Here’s an analogy:

• When you came onto this post, you probably did not read everything from start to end. You probably read each sub-heading first, then came back to the top and started reading again. You weren’t interested in suspense or style. You wanted to find something out quickly and easily. I’m not saying this article you’re reading is ‘academic writing’ (it isn’t). But, what I am saying is that this text – like your essay – is designed to efficiently provide information first and foremost. I’m not telling you a story. You, like your teacher, are here for answers to a question. You are not here for a suspenseful story. Therefore, rhetorical questions don’t fit here.

I’ll repeat: rhetorical questions just don’t fit within academic writing genres.

2. Rhetorical Questions can come across as Passive

It’s not your place to ask a question. It’s your place to show your command of the content. Rhetorical questions are by definition passive: they ask of your reader to do the thinking, reflecting, and questioning for you.

Questions of any kind tend to give away a sense that you’re not quite sure of yourself. Imagine if the five points for this blog post were:

• Are they unprofessional?
• Are they passive?
• Are they seen as padding?
• Are they cliché?
• Do teachers hate them?

If the sub-headings of this post were in question format, you’d probably – rightly – return straight back to google and look for the next piece of advice on the topic. That’s because questions don’t assist your reader. Instead, they demand something from your reader .

Questions – rhetorical or otherwise – a position you as passive, unsure of yourself, and skirting around the point. So, avoid them.

3. Rhetorical Questions are seen as Padding

When a teacher reads a rhetorical question, they’re likely to think that the sentence was inserted to fill a word count more than anything else.

>>>RELATED ARTICLE: HOW TO MAKE AN ESSAY LONGER >>>RELATED ARTICLE: HOW TO MAKE AN ESSAY SHORTER

Rhetorical questions have a tendency to be written by students who are struggling to come to terms with an essay question. They’re well below word count and need to find an extra 15, 20, or 30 words here and there to hit that much-needed word count.

In order to do this, they fill space with rhetorical questions.

It’s a bit like going into an interview for a job. The interviewer asks you a really tough question and you need a moment to think up an answer. You pause briefly and mull over the question. You say it out loud to yourself again, and again, and again.

You do this for every question you ask. You end up answering every question they ask you with that same question, and then a brief pause.

Sure, you might come up with a good answer to your rhetorical question later on, but in the meantime, you have given the impression that you just don’t quite have command over your topic.

4. Rhetorical Questions are hard to get right

As a literary device, the rhetorical question is pretty difficult to execute well. In other words, only the best can get away with it.

The vast majority of the time, the rhetorical question falls on deaf ears. Teachers scoff, roll their eyes, and sigh just a little every time an essay begins with a rhetorical question.

The rhetorical question feels … a little ‘middle school’ – cliché writing by someone who hasn’t quite got a handle on things.

Let your knowledge of the content win you marks, not your creative flair. If your rhetorical question isn’t as good as you think it is, your marks are going to drop – big time.

5. Teachers Hate Rhetorical Questions in Essays

This one supplants all other reasons.

The fact is that there are enough teachers out there who hate rhetorical questions in essays that using them is a very risky move.

Believe me, I’ve spent enough time in faculty lounges to tell you this with quite some confidence. My opinion here doesn’t matter. The sheer amount of teachers who can’t stand rhetorical questions in essays rule them out entirely.

Whether I (or you) like it or not, rhetorical questions will more than likely lose you marks in your paper.

Don’t shoot the messenger.

Some (possible) Exceptions

Personally, I would say don’t use rhetorical questions in academic writing – ever.

But, I’ll offer a few suggestions of when you might just get away with it if you really want to use a rhetorical question:

• As an essay title. I would suggest that most people who like rhetorical questions embrace them because they are there to ‘draw in the reader’ or get them on your side. I get that. I really do. So, I’d recommend that if you really want to include a rhetorical question to draw in the reader, use it as the essay title. Keep the actual essay itself to the genre style that your marker will expect: straight up the line, professional and informative text.

“97 percent of scientists argue climate change is real. Such compelling weight of scientific consensus places the 3 percent of scientists who dissent outside of the scientific mainstream.”

The takeaway point here is, if I haven’t convinced you not to use rhetorical questions in essays, I’d suggest that you please check with your teacher on their expectations before submission.

Don’t shoot the messenger. Have I said that enough times in this post?

I didn’t set the rules, but I sure as hell know what they are. And one big, shiny rule that is repeated over and again in faculty lounges is this: Don’t Use Rhetorical Questions in Essays . They are risky, appear out of place, and are despised by a good proportion of current university teachers.

To sum up, here are my top 5 reasons why you shouldn’t use rhetorical questions in your essays:

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 20 Montessori Toddler Bedrooms (Design Inspiration)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 21 Montessori Homeschool Setups
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 101 Hidden Talents Examples

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Rhetorical Questions: 30 Effective Examples and Definition

Oct 24, 2023

Rhetorical questions, in particular, possess the unique ability to captivate, engage, and provoke thought. Whether you’re a seasoned orator, a writer, or someone simply looking to enhance their persuasive skills, this article is your definitive guide to mastering this impactful technique. Delve into the world of rhetoric and discover how these 30 examples and expert tips can elevate your communication to new heights.

What Are Rhetorical Questions?

Rhetorical questions are a powerful tool in the realm of persuasive communication. They are a form of interrogative expression used to make a point or convey a message rather than to elicit a direct response. These questions are crafted with a specific intention, often to provoke thought, engage the audience, or emphasize a particular idea. Here’s a clear and easy-to-understand explanation of rhetorical questions:

Rhetorical questions are inquiries posed in conversation or writing that do not require or expect an actual answer. Instead, they serve as a persuasive or rhetorical device, designed to make a statement, emphasize a point, or provoke critical thinking in the audience.

The biggest difference between rhetorical questions and typical questions in that rhetorical questions are not used to gather information or seek a response from others. Rather, they function as a means of guiding the listener or reader’s thoughts in a particular direction. They are strategically employed to emphasize a message, create a sense of engagement, or encourage reflection.

Rhetorical questions are commonly used in persuasive speeches, essays, debates, and everyday communication to achieve various objectives. Here are a few key purposes:

Emphasis –  Rhetorical questions can draw attention to a specific idea or argument by framing it as a question. For example, “Do we want to continue down a path of destruction?” emphasizes the gravity of the situation.

Engagement –  These questions engage the audience by prompting them to consider the topic more deeply. For instance, “Have you ever wondered what the future holds?” encourages the audience to reflect on possibilities.

Affirmation –  Rhetorical questions often lead the audience to agree with the implied answer, reinforcing the speaker’s point. An example is, “Is it not our moral duty to help those in need?” which presupposes that helping others is a moral obligation.

Persuasion –  By framing an argument as a rhetorical question, the speaker can guide the audience to a specific conclusion. For instance, “Wouldn’t you agree that a healthier lifestyle leads to a happier life?” implies that the answer is yes.

30 Best Rhetorical Questions Examples

1. What’s not to love about a beautiful sunset? Rhetorical questions like this one evoke a sense of wonder and appreciation, inviting the audience to share the sentiment.

2. Are you going to let fear hold you back from your dreams? This question challenges the audience to confront their fears and consider the impact on their aspirations.

3. Do you think the world would be a better place without acts of kindness? By implying a positive response, this question emphasizes the importance of kindness in society.

4. Can you imagine a world without art and creativity? It highlights the significance of art and creativity in our lives, making the audience reflect on their value.

5. Is it possible to put a price on freedom? This question prompts reflection on the intangible value of freedom.

6. Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. Rhetorical questions like this can be motivational, emphasizing the importance of resilience.

7. Does anyone really believe in a perfect world? It invites contemplation about the idealistic notion of a perfect society.

8. What’s more important than the health and well-being of our children? This question highlights the paramount importance of children’s welfare.

9. Could we exist without the air we breathe? It emphasizes the fundamental nature of oxygen to human existence.

10. Is there a single recipe for happiness that suits everyone? This question suggests the subjectivity of happiness and personal fulfillment.

11. Is it fair to judge a book by its cover? This age-old question prompts reflection on the issue of prejudice and superficial judgments.

12. Can you really put a price on love? This question emphasizes the idea that love is priceless and beyond monetary value .

13. Who doesn’t want to be successful in life? This question assumes that everyone desires success, making the audience ponder their own aspirations.

14. Do you think anyone would willingly choose pain over pleasure? It underlines the universal preference for pleasure and avoidance of pain.

15. Is there anything more refreshing than a cold glass of water on a hot day? This question appeals to our shared experience of relief on a scorching day.

16. What could be more comforting than the embrace of a loved one? This rhetorical question highlights the emotional value of human connection.

17. Can we really call ourselves civilized when we still wage wars? This question provokes thought about the contradiction between civilization and conflict.

18. What’s stopping you from chasing your dreams? I t encourages self-reflection and motivation to overcome obstacles.

19. Is there anything better than the sound of laughter? This question celebrates the universal joy associated with laughter.

20. How can we expect change if we never take action? It underscores the necessity of taking the initiative to bring about change.

21. Do you think the world would be the same without great leaders? This question underscores the impact of influential leaders throughout history.

22. What would life be without a sense of humor? It highlights the role of humor in our lives, promoting its significance.

23. Is there any greater tragedy than the loss of a loved one? This question evokes empathy and reflection on the depth of human emotion.

24. Can you really put a limit on human potential? It challenges the idea of constraining human capabilities.

25. What could be more fundamental than the pursuit of knowledge? This rhetorical question emphasizes the inherent human curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

26. Can you imagine a world without hope? It prompts reflection on the importance of hope in people’s lives.

27. Is there any greater bond than the love between a parent and child? This question celebrates the profound connection between parents and their children.

28. What would life be without challenges to overcome? It highlights the role of adversity in personal growth and development.

29. Is there a more powerful force than the unity of a community? This question emphasizes the strength of community and solidarity .

30. Who would trade the beauty of nature for a concrete jungle? It encourages reflection on the value of preserving natural environments

Why People Use Rhetorical Questions?

Rhetorical questions serve various compelling purposes. Foremost among these is their ability to engage the audience or reader. They break the monotony of one-way communication and encourage active participation, thereby infusing the conversation or written text with dynamism and interactivity. Rhetorical questions also double as persuasive tools since they often imply a specific answer or point of view, subtly guiding the audience to consider the speaker or writer’s perspective.

Moreover, rhetorical questions can stimulate thought and critical thinking, encouraging individuals to ponder complex issues or view a subject from multiple angles. They possess the remarkable capacity to evoke emotions, eliciting empathy, curiosity, or reflection by framing an issue in a relatable manner. Additionally, rhetorical questions can be effectively employed to emphasize key points, rendering them memorable, and drawing attention to the essential aspects of a message.

Tips On How to Make Good Rhetorical Questions

• Consider your audience’s interests, values, and knowledge. Pattern your questions to resonate with their experiences and perspectives.
• Ensure your question is clear and concise . A complex question may confuse your audience and weaken the impact of your message.
• Rhetorical questions should stimulate thought. Make questions that encourage your audience to reflect on the subject matter.
• Rhetorical questions often imply an answer . Ensure that this answer connects with your intended message or argument.
• Use rhetorical questions to evoke emotions . Appeal to your audience’s feelings to make your message more impactful.
• Ensure that your rhetorical question is directly related to the topic at hand. Irrelevant questions can disrupt the flow of your communication.
• Don’t overuse rhetorical questions. Use them strategically to emphasize key points or engage your audience when necessary.
• While rhetorical questions can be powerful, using too many can lessen their impact. Use them sparingly for maximum effect.
• Some questions can be more complex, but be mindful of your audience’s ability to engage with the topic. Balance between simple and hard questions as needed.
• Crafting effective rhetorical questions is a skill that improves with Seeking feedback from peers or mentors to refine your use of rhetorical questions in your communication.

Upon discussing the key points about rhetorical questions, we learned that: the art of using rhetorical questions is a powerful tool in communication. As we’ve explored in this discussion, rhetorical questions can captivate your audience, prompt reflection, and enhance the impact of your message. By understanding your audience, tailoring your questions, and using them strategically, you can become a more persuasive and engaging communicator. Whether you’re delivering a speech, writing an essay, or simply engaging in a meaningful conversation, the use of rhetorical questions can elevate your communication to a new level. So, the next time you seek to make a point, inspire, or provoke thought, consider the art of the rhetorical question, and watch the power of your words come to life.

Read More: 10 Biggest Philosophical Dilemmas Examples

Read also: 30 Effective Guiding Questions Examples

The Most Popular on BitGlint

• Top 20 Sovereignty Examples and Definition

Sovereignty is one of those big ideas that shape how countries, governments, and even individuals operate in the...

Top 30 Deception Examples & Meaning

Deception, a complex and multifaceted concept, plays a pivotal role in both historical events and everyday...

• 20 Animal Sacrifice Examples & Definition

Animal sacrifice has been a practice in many cultures and religions throughout history. It involves offering animals...

Gene-Editing Babies: 20 Pros and Cons to Consider

The topic of gene-editing babies is one that stirs a lot of discussion and debate. It's about scientists using...

30 Archaic Traditions Examples & Explanation

Archaic traditions are the ancient customs and rituals that shaped the lives of early human societies. These...

Top 20 Dualism Examples & Definition

Dualism, a concept deeply rooted in philosophy, theology, and psychology, refers to the existence of two distinct,...

Top 20 Polygamy Examples & Definition

Polygamy is a practice that has existed for thousands of years across various cultures and societies. It involves...

Get Inspired with BitGlint

AI-powered Personalization & All You Need to Know About It

Top 30 Imperfect Things That Are Beautiful

30 Examples of Perspective: Diverse Viewpoints Explored

UK Citizenship: A Comprehensive Guide How To Get It

Top 20 Benefits of Having a Mentor in Your Life

Top 30 Self-Care Morning Rituals

Top 20 Disadvantages of Credit Cards

30 Best Examples How Can Nature Inspire Us

Top 30 Authoritarianism Examples: Definition & Guide

Guide to Growing Organic Vegetables at Home - 10 Tips

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Recent Articles

• Top 30 Leadership Examples & Definition
• 100 Best Social Norms Examples Worldwide
• 10 Famous Examples of Polygamists

• How It Works
• Prices & Discounts

How to Use Rhetorical Questions in Essay Writing Effectively

Table of contents

Share this article

Achieve Academic Success with Expert Assistance!

Crafted from Scratch for You.

Ensuring Your Work’s Originality.

Transform Your Draft into Excellence.

Perfecting Your Paper’s Grammar, Style, and Format (APA, MLA, etc.).

Calculate the cost of your paper

Get ideas for your essay

Chapter 9: The Research Process

9.1 Developing a Research Question

Emilie Zickel

“I write out of ignorance. I write about the things I don’t have any resolutions for, and when I’m finished, I think I know a little bit more about it. I don’t write out of what I know. It’s what I don’t know that stimulates me .” – Toni Morrison , author and Northeast Ohio native

Think of a research paper as an opportunity to deepen (or create!) knowledge about a topic that matters to you. Just as Toni Morrison states that she is stimulated by what she doesn’t yet know, a research paper assignment can be interesting and meaningful if it allows you to explore what you don’t know.

Research, at its best, is an act of knowledge creation, not just an extended book report. This knowledge creation is the essence of any great educational experience. Instead of being lectured at, you get to design the learning project that will ultimately result in you experiencing and then expressing your own intellectual growth. You get to read what you choose, and you get to become an expert on your topic.

That sounds, perhaps, like a lofty goal. But by spending some quality time brainstorming, reading, thinking or otherwise tuning into what matters to you, you can end up with a workable research topic that will lead you on an enjoyable research journey.

The best research topics are meaningful to you

• Choose a topic that you want to understand better.
• Choose a topic that you want to read about and devote time to
• Choose a topic that is perhaps a bit out of your comfort zone
• Choose a topic that allows you to understand others’ opinions and how those opinions are shaped.
• Choose something that is relevant to you, personally or professionally.
• Do not choose a topic because you think it will be “easy” – those can end up being even quite challenging

The video below offers ideas on choosing not only a topic that you are drawn to, but a topic that is realistic and manageable for a college writing class.

“Choosing a Manageable Research Topic” by PfaulLibrary is licensed under CC BY

Brainstorming Ideas for a Research Topic

Which question(s) below interest you? Which question(s) below spark a desire to respond? A good topic is one that moves you to think, to do, to want to know more, to want to say more. 

There are many ways to come up with a good topic. The best thing to do is to give yourself time to think about what you really want to commit days and weeks to reading, thinking, researching, more reading, writing, more researching, reading and writing on.

• What news stories do you often see, but want to know more about?
• What (socio-political) argument do you often have with others that you would love to work on strengthening?
• What would you love to become an expert on?
• What are you passionate about?
• What are you scared of?
• What problem in the world needs to be solved?
• What are the key controversies or current debates in the field of work that you want to go into?
• What is a problem that you see at work that needs to be better publicized or understood?
• What is the biggest issue facing [specific group of people: by age, by race, by gender, by ethnicity, by nationality, by geography, by economic standing? choose a group]
• If you could interview anyone in the world, who would it be? Can identifying that person lead you to a research topic that would be meaningful to you?
• What area/landmark/piece of history in your home community are you interested in?
• What in the world makes you angry?
• What global problem do you want to better understand?
• What local problem do you want to better understand?
• Is there some element of the career that you would like to have one day that you want to better understand?
• Consider researching the significance of a song, or an artist, or a musician, or a novel/film/short story/comic, or an art form on some aspect of the broader culture.
• Think about something that has happened to (or is happening to) a friend or family member. Do you want to know more about this?
• Go to a news source ( New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, etc)  and skim the titles of news stories. Does any story interest you?

From Topic to Research Question

Once you have decided on a research topic, an area for academic exploration that matters to you, it is time to start thinking about what you want to learn about that topic.

The goal of college-level research assignments is never going to be to simply “go find sources” on your topic. Instead, think of sources as helping you to answer a research question or a series of research questions about your topic. These should not be simple questions with simple answers, but rather complex questions about which there is no easy or obvious answer.

A compelling research question is one that may involve controversy, or may have a variety of answers, or may not have any single, clear answer. All of that is okay and even desirable. If the answer is an easy and obvious one, then there is little need for argument or research.

Make sure that your research question is clear, specific, researchable, and limited (but not too limited). Most of all, make sure that you are curious about your own research question. If it does not matter to you, researching it will feel incredibly boring and tedious.

The video below includes a deeper explanation of what a good research question is as well as examples of strong research questions:

“Creating a Good Research Question” by CII GSU

1st Edition: A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing (No Longer Updated) by Emilie Zickel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Feedback/Errata

Comments are closed.

Presentations made painless

• Get Premium

120 Rhetoric Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion through language, and writing a rhetoric essay can help you improve your skills in crafting compelling arguments. To help you get started, here are 120 rhetoric essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your next assignment:

• The role of rhetoric in political speeches
• Analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech
• The use of ethos, pathos, and logos in advertising
• How social media has changed rhetoric in modern society
• The impact of language on shaping public opinion
• The ethics of persuasion in rhetoric
• The power of storytelling in persuasive communication
• The role of rhetoric in shaping cultural norms
• Rhetorical strategies in persuasive writing
• The use of rhetorical devices in famous literature
• The influence of rhetoric on public policy
• The art of persuasion in debate
• The use of rhetoric in historical speeches
• The role of rhetoric in legal arguments
• How rhetoric is used in marketing and branding
• The impact of visual rhetoric in media messages
• The use of rhetoric in public speaking
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public perception of social issues
• The influence of rhetoric on popular culture
• The effectiveness of rhetorical appeals in argumentative writing
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public discourse
• The use of rhetoric in political campaigns
• The influence of rhetoric on consumer behavior
• The power of rhetoric in influencing public opinion
• The use of rhetorical devices in persuasive essays
• How rhetoric is used in propaganda
• The impact of rhetorical devices on the reader's emotions
• The role of rhetoric in shaping personal identity
• The ethics of persuasive communication in rhetoric
• The use of rhetorical questions in argumentative writing
• The influence of rhetoric on interpersonal relationships
• The power of rhetoric in changing minds and hearts
• The role of rhetoric in shaping cultural values
• The use of rhetorical appeals in ethical arguments
• The impact of rhetoric on social justice movements
• The effectiveness of rhetorical devices in political speeches
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public policy debates
• The ethics of persuasion in rhetorical communication
• The power of storytelling in persuasive speeches
• The use of rhetoric in shaping public perception of scientific issues
• The influence of rhetoric on environmental activism
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public opinion on healthcare
• The impact of rhetorical devices on the reader's beliefs
• The use of rhetorical questions in persuasive writing
• The power of rhetoric in influencing decision-making
• The role of rhetoric in shaping personal values
• The influence of rhetoric on public speaking skills
• The effectiveness of rhetorical appeals in argumentative essays
• The use of rhetoric in social media activism
• The role of rhetoric in shaping cultural narratives
• The use of rhetoric in political satire
• The power of storytelling in persuasive arguments
• The influence of rhetoric on public perception of historical events
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public discourse on race relations
• The effectiveness of rhetorical devices in feminist writing
• The use of rhetorical questions in persuasive speeches
• The impact of rhetoric on educational policy debates
• The power of rhetoric in changing public attitudes towards mental health
• The use of rhetorical appeals in environmental advocacy
• The influence of rhetoric on social justice movements
• The effectiveness of rhetorical devices in political debates
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public policy on immigration
• The use of rhetoric in shaping public opinion on gun control
• The power of rhetoric in influencing public health campaigns
• The influence of rhetoric on personal relationships
• The effectiveness of rhetorical appeals in persuasive essays
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public perception of climate change
• The influence of rhetoric on public perception of gender equality
• The effectiveness of rhetorical devices in anti-racism writing
• The use of rhetorical questions in persuasive arguments
• The effectiveness of rhetorical appeals in feminist writing
• The influence of rhetoric on public perception of economic inequality
• The effectiveness of rhetorical devices in environmental advocacy
• The use of rhetorical questions in argumentative essays
• The power of rhetoric in changing public attitudes towards democracy
• The effectiveness of rhetorical appeals in persuasive writing
• The use of rhetoric in shaping public opinion on healthcare
• The role of rhetoric in political campaigns
• The role of rhetoric in shaping public opinion on climate change
• The impact of rhetoric on social media activism
• The power of rhetoric in influencing public opinion on gun control

These are just a few examples of the many rhetoric essay topics you can explore. Whether you are interested in politics, advertising, social issues, or literature, there is a wealth of material to analyze and discuss. So pick a topic that interests you, do some research, and start crafting your persuasive arguments. Happy writing!

Want to research companies faster?

Instantly access industry insights

Let PitchGrade do this for me

Leverage powerful AI research capabilities

We will create your text and designs for you. Sit back and relax while we do the work.

Explore More Content

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service

© 2024 Pitchgrade

• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 1)

Researchers use critical/rhetorical methods to ask questions about how a particular symbolic action constructs social reality. The questions posed by rhetorical criticism are as varied as the messages analyzed. Although a research question may not be stated explicitly, the central argument advanced by the research is. Unlike quantitative and qualitative research methods, there are no specific pre-defined step-by-step procedures in critical/rhetorical methods that can be replicated.

Researchers use critical/rhetorical methods when they want to understand and analyze what an act of communication does. Learning methods of rhetorical criticism enables you to critique communicators' use of verbal and nonverbal symbols in a specific context so that you can understand how communication constructs a specific understanding of the world. The more adept you become at analyzing others' messages, the more skilled you become at constructing your own. In the end, the quality of a critical/rhetorical study depends on the quality of the argument the researcher presents.

In Part I of this chapter, we explain of the importance of symbolic action to the critical/rhetorical approach and describe key concepts central to doing critical/rhetorical research. In Part II, we provide specific direction on how to do critical/rhetorical research, charting a path for you regarding how critical/rhetorical work can be accomplished.

• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: Understanding the distinctions among research methods
• Chapter Three: Ethical research, writing, and creative work
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 2 - Doing Your Study)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 3 - Making Sense of Your Study)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Data (Part 2)
• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 2)
• Chapter Seven: Presenting Your Results

Rhetoric is Symbolic Action

Rhetoric  is  the use of symbolic action by human beings to work together to make decisions about matters of common concern and to construct social reality . For communication studies scholars, rhetoric is the means by which people make meaning of, and affect, the world in which they live. Central to this definition is the concept of  symbolic action , which is a little more complex than might first appear. So, we will unpack it, defining  symbolic , then defining  action , and then providing an few example of symbolic action.

By  symbolic , we mean that rhetoric is composed of symbols, including language-based symbols (like words) and visual symbols (like photographs, flags and icons). With this, we do not mean to imply visual and verbal symbols are mutually exclusive. In fact, most symbolic actions include both visual and verbal components. They work interdependently to create meaning.

For example, the power of a speech is never just its words, but also is the body from which it is delivered and the place where it is delivered. When Mary Fisher (artist and daughter of a major Republican fundraiser) delivered a  speech  on AIDS at the 1992 Republican National Convention, it was powerful because she proclaimed from her Republican, white, attractive, non-drug using, heterosexual, economically privileged, married when infected, HIV+ body: "You are at risk" (par. 18). If the same words had been spoken by a different body, they would not have been as powerful.

Often people think of their communication as something that just happens, as if it is separate from purposeful actions, such as driving a car recklessly or opening a door for another person. But when one habitually says "hi," she/he is exhibiting an action of politeness, or when one says "you are forgiven," the act of forgiveness has begun. All communication, intentional or not, is an action. People do something when they communicate.

The emphasis on rhetoric as symbolic  action  is heavily influenced by rhetorician Kenneth Burke. Burke profoundly influenced the disciplines of rhetoric and communication studies by arguing that words are actions and that the best way to understand human relations and motives is through an analysis of symbolic action (Burke, "Dramatism" 447). Understanding rhetoric as symbolic action is the first step in recognizing the way in which the human world is socially constructed.

A core assumption of rhetorical criticism is that symbolic action is more than a means to transmit information, but actually constructs social reality, or people's understanding of the world. When we say "rhetoric is symbolic action," we mean that rhetoric is the use of symbols to act in and on the world.

Rhetoric is Symbolic Action: Example

Linguist George  Lakoff  explores the how use of the phrase "tax relief," a phrase that has become commonly used in political debates since the early 2000s, implies a very particular understanding of what taxes are and how they function. The phrase "tax relief" is a symbolic action that structures the way people understand taxes. The phrase "tax relief" has embedded within it a metaphor – it uses the idea of burden to explain what taxes are. According to Lakoff,  relief  implies that one is carrying some burden; in this case taxes are a burden from which one needs to be relieved. This metaphor did not arise spontaneously, but was chosen by human beings to frame how people understand taxes. If you accept that taxes are best understood as a burden, then you also begin to think that the person who relieves another of a burden is a "hero," while anyone who would impose taxes is a "villain."

Leakoff describes how fiscal conservatives have worked for decades and spent billions of dollars funding think tanks to develop language to represent their ideas, and "tax relief" is an example of that language. Lakoff explains, "It has taken them awhile to establish the metaphors of taxation as a burden, an affliction and unfair punishment – all of which require "relief'" ("Framing" par. 7).

Taxes could be thought of differently, not as a "burden," but as a "civic duty" for living in the United States and reaping the benefits of its extensive road, water, electricity, and Internet infrastructures. In contrast to taxes as a burden, here is how Lakoff describes them (a description that contains its own political perspective as well):

As [early 1900s Supreme Court Justice] Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, ["]taxes are the price of civilization.["] They are what you pay to live in America -- your dues -- to have democracy, opportunity and access to all the infrastructure that previous taxpayers have built up and made available to you: highways, the Internet, weather reports, parks, the stock market, scientific research, Social Security, rural electrification, communications satellites, and on and on. (Lakoff, "Framing" par. 8)

Looking at taxes as "dues" frames the way people think about taxes differently than thinking about taxes as a burden (Lakoff,  Moral  189-192), illustrating the power of words chosen to describe a concept that could be viewed as positive or negative. The predominant way of describing something like taxes, when used over and over again in a society, helps build the "reality" for people about that concept – showing the power of rhetoric to create people's belief systems.

People invest significant time and money in finding the right words to express their positions. Conservative pollster and republican strategist Frank I. Luntz has made a profession of it, with his group  The Word Doctors  that advertises: "Got words? We make them better." His  webpage  identifies a series of phrases he has researched in order to find the words that best identify conservative ideas, including: "estate tax" vs. "death tax," "drilling for oil" vs. "exploring for energy," "global warming" vs. "climate change," "school choice" vs. "parental choice." In each case the second phrasing shifts people's attention to see the world from a perspective more consistent with conservative ideals.

Assessing Symbolic Action

Given rhetoric is an action, researchers can assess it from a variety of perspectives: the effects of the action, the aesthetics of the action, and the ethics of the action.  Effects  refers to the identifiable influence a rhetorical act may have had upon an audience.  Aesthetics  refers to the artistic techniques used in a rhetorical action – the artistry of the act.  Ethics  refers to the morality of both the techniques used and the ends sought by the symbolic action.

Simply identifying a speech or advertisement as effective is only part of the critical process (and usually determining a cause-effect relationship is best done through controlled quantitative methods). In fact, determining an effect happened (or not) is more likely the starting point of criticism, not the end goal. You first might find a text that seemed to have a strong effect (or none at all). Then, you ask the more interesting question for rhetoric: What was it about the symbolic action that enabled or induced the effect? One can easily determine that Mary Fisher's speech had an effect on her audience. The Republican Convention hall was filled with tear-stained faces who had been struck silent by  Fisher's speech  (usually, during speeches by people other than the candidates, the floor of the convention is quite noisy as people talk to each other and rarely listen to the speakers). People stopped, and listened, to Fisher. Why?

Fisher's speech was aesthetically elegant and powerful. In her speech, Fisher skillfully wove together powerful metaphors, comparing AIDS to the invading armies of Hitler, declaring: "HIV marches resolutely toward AIDS in more than a million American homes, littering its pathway with the bodies of the young" (par. 13). She used herself as proof of her argument that all are at risk, that the disease "does not care whether you are Democrat or Republican; it does not ask whether you are black or white, male or female, gay or straight, young or old" (par. 3). She also personalized the impact of AIDS. Although  she looked in perfect health , she made real what AIDS meant to her as she closed her speech by making clear she would die, and then each of her sons would "take the measure of his mother" and "sort through his memories" (par. 16). These linguistic and nonverbal choices functioned to create a stronger empathic response from multiple audiences. Fisher's speech also was ethical in its means and goals. She did not lie, she did not treat human beings as a means to an end, she used inclusive language, and she sought to invoke a humane response in her audience to treat all people as members of the human family.

Given rhetoric is an action, this means it is an action for which people can be held accountable. Although a person may not intend to do something with a rhetorical action, she or he can be held accountable for its effects, and should consider the effects of their actions whenever they communicate. In other words, all people need to be more self- reflexive about their rhetorical action in order to be ethical communicators. Thus, rhetorical criticism explores not only if or why a text was effective, but also whether it is ethical.

Examining the concept of  ethics  is particularly central in critical/rhetorical analyses. Native Canadian author Jeanette Armstrong outlines a powerful language ethic, making clear each person is responsible for the words she or he uses:

Thus, whenever one talks about rhetorical or symbolic action, one necessarily is also talking about ethics. Communication ethics thus involves not just your intent when using words as a tool, but also the action involved in using words to construct social reality whether consciously intended or not.

The point of learning methods of rhetorical criticism is to be able to critique the use of symbolic action by communicators so that you can understand how a particular symbolic action constructs a particular understanding of the world by framing a concept in one way rather than another.

Components of Rhetoric

For any rhetorical action, you will need to analyze the central components of the action: the text, the audience, and the rhetor (the originator of the message). These three core components have structured the analysis of rhetoric since Aristotle, who systematized the study of rhetoric in his 4th century BCE treatise,  On Rhetoric . As we discuss these components, we will use the example of President Barack Obama's speech at Cairo University on June 4, 2009, to illustrate each component.

The concept of  text  is central to critical/rhetorical study. Text is the focus of one's study, the artifact the researcher examines. In Communication Studies,  text  not only refers to something composed of words, but also of images and sound. Examples of texts/artifacts include: speeches, advertisements, photos, monuments, films, songs, bodies, documentaries, and newspaper articles. Although the historical focus of rhetorical criticism was speeches, in a multi-mediated age, rhetoric happens in a variety of forms, both visual and verbal. People now often hear/see fragments of texts rather than complete texts.

Although you might at first think identifying the artifact for study is easy, it can be more complicated. Is the text only the speech in its entirety, as transcribed, or is the text something a little different? The reality is presidential speeches are rarely listened to in their entirety but instead appear as sound bites on television news. When President Barack Obama spoke at Cairo University, his  speech  was over 6000 words long. However, when the NBC nightly news aired a story about the speech, it replayed less than 300 words ("Highlights"), which is considerably more than average. In a quantitative analysis of political campaign coverage, communication researchers Erik P. Bucy and Maria Elizabeth Grabe found that from 1992 to 2004, the average length of a presidential campaign sound bite on network newscasts went down from 8.52 seconds to 7.73 seconds (664). Interestingly, as the length of time you could hear a candidate speaking declined, the amount of time you could see a candidate's image increased from 22.99 seconds to 25.83 seconds, demonstrating the need to remember that symbolic action involves words  and  images. So, your text could be just the speech transcript, or it could be the fragments aired on the nightly news, or it could be a videotape of the speech, or a videotape of the news segments in which President Obama was shown speaking. Once you have the text identified, you should not stop there. The text is not just the words and images, but also the deeper social meanings attached to them.

In order to analyze this speech, you could pick a variety of texts or artifacts: the words of the speech itself, the interplay between the image of Obama as president and the words of the speech, the speech sound bites as played on the evening news, the speech parts reprinted in print outlets, or the media coverage of the speech. Depending on the text/artifact chosen, different constructions of reality may be presented. For example, the way MSNBC covered the speech is probably different from how Fox News covered the speech.

When studying a text, one looks not only at the surface meaning of the text, but also the deeper, culturally influenced meaning. One way to explain how a text may mean different things to different people can be found in the study of what U.S. philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce called  semiotics . Peirce rejects the idea that each symbol refers or corresponds to only one thing in the world. Instead, he identified three aspects to symbols or "signs": the symbol/sign itself, the referent (what the sign refers to), and the connotative meaning of the symbol/sign (a person's individual meaning for the symbol/sign).

Semiotics enables people to distinguish between a word's denotative and connotative meanings.  Denotation  refers to the literal, commonsense or semantic meaning of a sign; it is ostensibly value-free and objective. For example,  estate tax  and  death tax  have the same denotative meaning; they refer to the exact same part of the tax code.

Connotation  refers to the emotional or cultural meanings attached to a term. Connotations often are usage-specific and emerge when the sign's denotative meaning is not sufficient to enable complete communication of a concept. So, even though the thing referenced by  estate tax  and  death tax  is identical, the change in the symbol/sign used influences your thoughts about what is being referenced.  Estate tax  likely induces a neutral or positive valuation, while  death tax  induces a negative valuation. Thus, while words' (signs') denotations may be easily decoded, their connotations require a more complex form of decoding.

Although people often think of audience as composed of those who hear a speech (or see a movie, or listen to a song), in actuality, multiple audiences may exist, and not all of them may be present for the delivery of a speech.  Audience  can mean: any person who hears, reads or sees a symbolic action; the group targeted by a message, even if it is not present; or the group capable of acting in response to the message. Additionally, for any given symbolic action, multiple audiences may exist.

Commentators noted President Obama addressed multiple audiences in his attempt to respond to the problems that arose in U.S.-Muslim relations in the wake of 9/11; not all of those audiences were present at the speech. NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd explained during the NBC  Nightly News : "The president used this speech to talk to three or four different audiences, including explaining Islam to Americans, explaining America to Muslims, and trying to jumpstart a conversation between Israelis and the Arab world" ("Highlights"). The speech was not simply a single message to a homogenous audience, but was a complex set of messages directed to heterogeneous audiences. Americans, Muslims, Israelis and Arabs operate from diverse cultural orientations, participate in distinct ideologies, and possess a range of different values, beliefs and attitudes. To speak effectively to all these audiences, President Obama had to consider all of this, which is why he reportedly began working on the speech even before he was elected to office ("Highlights").

By rhetor, we mean the person, institution, group, or entity that originated the text. In the above example, President Obama is the rhetor (he delivered the speech). However, in other cases, multiple rhetors or an institution may the originator of the text. For example, during a medical crisis, hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control, or even the state government may produce messages.

Multiple rhetors (or authors) may exist for a single text. For example, is a movie director the author of a movie? Or is the screenplay writer the author? Or the producer? And, especially if the movie is one in which actors are encouraged to improvise, who is the author then? The focus of rhetorical criticism, then, is not finding out the authors' (whoever they may be) intent (whatever it may be), but is instead examining and trying to understand the rhetorical (verbal and nonverbal) action or interplay among contexts and audiences, as will be explained next. One uses the rhetorical/critical approach to ask questions regarding how a text functions to construct social meaning, to persuade, and to create a connection between the rhetor and the audience. The ability to reveal the practical and theoretical functions of a text is a distinct characteristic of this method.

In the case of President Obama's speech, you could treat him as the rhetor, or you could also consider the fact that presidents use staffs of speechwriters (Ritter and Medhurst). If you choose to study the news fragments, then the news producers and anchors also become part of consideration of the rhetor.

So, how might you decide which method to use to study Obama's 2009 speech to Cairo University. If you wanted to know what the diverse audiences (from the United States, or Muslims in the Middle East, or both) thought about the speech, then that question would lead you to use quantitative methods (like surveys) or qualitative methods (like interviews). But, if you had a question about why the speech was praised so widely, or how through the speech the President sought to reposition the United States in the post 9/11 world, or how Obama as a president of African-American descent who had spent time in a Muslim country could speak to multiple audiences, or how media coverage of the speech framed it, then a rhetorical criticism examining the verbal and nonverbal symbolic actions is your method of choice.

Key Concepts: A Heuristic Vocabulary

How does one then study all the ways a message could influence perceptions of reality? Instead of the rigid methods prescribed for quantitative research, rhetorical criticism offers what communication scholars William L. Nothstine, Carole Blair, and Gary A. Copeland refer to as "conceptual heuristics or vocabularies" (40). A heuristic enables you to learn and discover through the process of trial and error. Thus, a heuristic vocabulary is a collection of terms you can use to discover things about your artifact. What follows is a description of heuristic vocabulary terms that can be helpful in a rhetorical criticism.

Identification

Identification  occurs when people are unified on the basis of common interests or characteristics. Identification does not automatically occur, but instead is created by a rhetor between her or himself and the audience. Thus, questions asked by rhetorical criticism often focus on how symbolic actions create a sense of identification between the rhetor and audience. Although attention to persuasion long dominated studies of rhetoric, identification now functions as rhetoric's key term. With identification, the focus is less on how one person can intend to create symbolic action to persuade other people, and more on how symbolic actions "spontaneously, intuitively, and often unconsciously act upon" people to create a sense of collective identity between them (Burke,  Development  27-8). Identification does not automatically exist, but is created through symbolic action.

For example, in the speech by Mary Fisher described earlier, she seeks to create identification on multiple levels. On one level, she creates identification between herself and others with HIV/AIDS. She declares:

On another level, she creates identification between herself and the delegates at the convention when she says to them: "My call to you, my Party, is to take a public stand . . ." (par. 7). She identifies herself as a member of the Republican Party. Here is one of the deft moves in her speech, as she creates identification between Republican delegates and those with HIV/AIDS. Think of it this way: If black infant/lonely gay man = Mary Fisher = Republican Party member, then black infant/lonely gay man = Republican Party member. Fisher sought to make HIV/AIDS a human issue, not a gay man's issue as was commonly assumed in the U.S. at the time.

Another way of analyzing Fisher's speech is to examine it from a dramatistic perspective. Burke argues that within every rhetorical act resides a drama, a story – thus, his commonly cited approach is called "dramatism." When doing a dramatistic analysis, one would apply Burke's pentad of dramatistic terms to the text.

According to Burke, each person's symbolic action identifies, and constructs within it, relationships between a  pentad  of terms: the agent of action, the act, the agency, the purpose, and the scene (Burke,  Grammar  xv). According to Burke:

• agent  refers to the "person or kind of person who performed the act
• act  refers to "what took place, in thought or deed"
• agency  refers to the means by which the act was accomplished
• purpose  refers to the justification for the act
• scene  refers to "the background of the act, the situation in which it occurred"

(Burke,  Grammar xv )

Whenever a human being describes an event or situation, all these elements are present, offering a drama for consideration. Which aspects of the drama are emphasized in the telling of the story affect the audience's interpretation of the narrative told. In the case of Mary Fisher's speech, she filled out the pentad in the following way:

• agent: HIV and AIDS – "this killer stalking your children" and "It is a present danger."
• act: "stalking," "marches"
• agency: a militaristic attack – "HIV marches resolutely toward AIDS in more than a million American homes, littering its pathway with the bodies of the young" enabled by people's belief they are safe – "If you believe you are safe, you are at risk" and "We have killed each other with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence."
• purpose: AIDS purpose is to destroy indiscriminately -- "the AIDS virus is not a political creature"
• scene: everywhere in the United States and world – "There is no family or community, no race or religion, no place left in America that is safe" and "The reality of AIDS is brutally clear. Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying. A million more are infected. Worldwide, forty million, sixty million, or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years."

Note: Fisher is  not  the agent, the scene is  not  the convention hall, the act is  not  the speech. Instead, pentadic criticism has you look at how rhetors describe why they think is the agent, how rhetors describe the scene, etc.

Although many were deeply moved by Fisher's speech, not everyone agreed with Fisher's description of AIDS and the government's responsibility to combat it as it would an invading force. A Minnesotan delegate, Ruth Hatton, rejected Fisher's basic premise that ignorance was a primary cause of the spread of AIDS, saying "It's promiscuity" (qtd. in DeFrancisco and Jensen 269). She completed the pentad in a way distinct from Fisher's. As Burke explains, "Men [and women] may violently disagree about the purposes behind a given act, or about the character of the person who did it, or how he [or she] did it, or in what kind of situation he [or she] acted; or they may even insist upon totally different words to name the act itself" (Burke,  Grammar  xv.). Thus, critical/rhetorical questions can focus on the stories told within a symbolic action, the way in which the elements of the story are characterized, and the multiple attributions and interpretations rendered.

Another example illustrates the way different people can describe the exact same event in radically different ways, in fact naming the event in such a way that it becomes two different things. The event happened in 1876 in southern Montana along the Little Bighorn River. Is it "The Custer Massacre," "Custer's Last Stand," or "The Battle of Little Bighorn"? Two different dramatic narratives give very different accounts of the event. A news story appearing in the Bismark (ND)  Tribune  days after the event offered the "First account of the Custer Massacre." An eyewitness account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse described "The Battle of Little Bighorn."

With headlines declaring "MASSACRE," the  Tribune  story called "Gen. Custer and 261 men the victims" and declared "Squaws Mutilate and Rob the Dead." This constructed a very particular perspective or drama. In the news story, Custer was centered as the agent of action: "Custer with his usual vigor pushed on . . . and attacked the village" (1). In the act of their attack, Custer and his men used the agency of "desperate hand to hand combat" in order to fight back the "red devils." Custer and his men were portrayed as "gallant defenders" of the hill; "of those who went into battle with Custer none are living." The scene was a battlefield, in which soldiers were "massacred" by a mindless horde.

In contrast to the desperate defensive fighting of the soldiers, the story portrays Indians as mindless enemies. In other words, the Indians' purpose was  not  to defend their village, but was to kill for killing's sake. The story explains: "The Sioux dashed up beside the soldiers, in some instances knocking them from their horses and killing them at their pleasure." Lt. McIntosh "was pulled from his horse, tortured and finally murdered at the pleasure of the red devils." The Indians were not described as human, but instead were labeled "screeching fiends." The Indians did not mount a concerted defense of their village, but "literally swarmed the hillsides and on the plains." Swarming is something that insects, not humans, do. The end result of this description is that Custer and his men were portrayed as heroes who, in service to their country, were massacred by red devils. The first real difference in the two stories comes in how the event was labeled. Chief Red Horse refers to a battle, not a massacre. This is an important distinction. Technically, a massacre occurs when a group of people is indiscriminately killed by an organized force.

Massacres do not happen when competing military forces meet. Those are battles. In addition, in Chief Red Horse's account, the scene is foregrounded differently. Although a battle took place, it was not the primary scene. Instead, the scene was a peaceful village composed of many native nations and where women were digging wild turnips. Into this scene, "soldiers were charging into the camp" and women and children had to "mount horses and go, meaning to get out of the way" (par. 3).

In his account, Chief Red Horse distinguishes between the soldiers and their levels of bravery. He does not refer to them as "white devils," but instead provides individual accounts of their actions. One officer was described as "the bravest man they had ever fought" (par. 4) while others were described as "foolish" when they asked to be taken prisoners (par. 9). In this drama, the invasion of a village led to a defensive battle in which the superior force of Indian warriors bested US soldiers.

As these quick summaries demonstrate, the very same event can be presented in very different ways. From the newspaper's perspective, Custer bravely led soldiers into a battle where they were overwhelmed by a mindless force of red devils who massacred the soldiers for no purpose other than to kill. From Chief Red Cloud's perspective, Indian warriors defended their village from an attack by soldiers. Indian warriors killed soldiers for the purpose of defending their village.

Thus, questions asked by rhetorical criticism often focus on how symbolic actions name the elements of the dramas they describe in distinctive ways. This approach to symbolic action also influences the aesthetic study of film. In their book Film Art, film scholars David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson note how one productive way to study film is through an analysis of "narrative form" (74). They define narrative as  "a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring through time and space"  (75). How you understand that story "depends on [y]our understanding of the pattern of change and stability, cause and effect, time and space" (75). To draw a connection to Burke, your ability to understand the narrative depends on your unique interpretation, and your ability to see relationships between agent and act, act and scene, purpose and agency, etc., and also to see the relationships between the various acts.

Public Vocabulary Repertoire

The power of rhetoric extends beyond its impact on an immediate audience. It constructs and maintains a public vocabulary that structures people's everyday lives. In other words, rhetoric carries not just the short-term effects of a single message, but also long-term effects as it maintains and/or alters the way people talk about the world. Communication scholar Celeste Condit argues that the "process of convincing" involves more than just acceptance of a particular policy or idea; it also requires "that a given vocabulary (or set of understandings) be integrated into the  public repertoire " (6). The public repertoire refers to a collection of words, a vocabulary, with which to discuss public issues.

Rhetorical critics John L. Lucaites and Celeste M. Condit describe this  public vocabulary  as the "culturally established and sanctioned" terms that compose people's taken-for-granted understanding of the world. However, this vocabulary is not just a neutral naming of things and ideas, it is a means through which people come to understand themselves as individuals, as members of communities, and as members of publics and cultures. Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer clarifies how "language is not only an object in our hands, it is the reservoir of tradition and the medium in and through which we exist and perceive our world" (29). Ideology is embedded in language.

A public vocabulary is how an ideology is enacted on a day-to-day basis in human interaction. Daily, people in a community call upon this vocabulary to justify their actions. But, when they want to bring about social change, language is also a tool to affect the way a society values an issue. However, when conditions call for social change, "the public vocabulary needs to be managed and reconstituted in ways that require" rhetorical skill (Lucaites and Condit 8). Rhetors can try to "rearrange and revivify" the existing vocabulary or they can introduce new vocabulary (Lucaites and Condit 8). Metaphors, narratives and characterizations, and ideographs are key elements of the public vocabulary that frame perception and can be used to change perceptions.

Metaphor . A  metaphor  is a figure of speech in which two dissimilar things are presented as similar. This comparison of unlike things offers a new perspective. In the introduction to this chapter, the metaphor of  burden  is meant to provide a perspective on taxes, while  dues  provides a different perspective. Burke believes metaphor provides "perspective," because it is "a device for seeing something  in terms  of something else. It brings out the thisness of a that, or the thatness of a this. . . . metaphor tells us something about one character as considered from the point of view of another character" ( A Grammar  503-4). Because of their ability to provide perspective, metaphors play a central role in the public vocabulary.

People make decisions about what to do not only on the basis of arguments supported by empirical data, but also on the basis of the metaphors used in the arguments. Finnish political scientist Riikka Kuusisto explains "Divergent interpretations are the rule in human interaction and, in order to gain wider approval, each version of a case has to be supported by careful argumentation in which convincing metaphors are integral" (52).

Because public arguments occur in language that has embedded within it judgments, a close analysis of rhetoric would include a consideration of the metaphors used. Thus, a rhetorical criticism could focus on the role of metaphor in order to really unpack the perspective on reality contained within a message.

In her rhetorical criticism of Western leaders' rhetoric on the war, Kuusisto identifies the ways former U.S. President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and French President Jacques Chirac created particular perspectives on the NATO military intervention in Kosovo through their use of the metaphors of heroic fairy tale, athletic game, and business deal. These metaphors played a role in the arguments over the conflict as they structured people's perspective on the conflict: "they made participation in the conflict chivalrous and reassuring (heroic tales), exciting and fun (games), and profitable and rational (trading)" (Kuusisto 62). The perspective created by the metaphors "brought the complicated and destructive conflict into the sphere of the well-known and harmless" (62). In the process, the metaphors downplayed "the misery, pain, and turbulence often associated with deadly quarrels" (62). The metaphors enabled people living outside of the conflict zone, and who had no direct experience of the horrors of war, to understand the war; but the metaphors provided a very particular understanding, one that "tied the progression of the events to a logic of responding and accepting the challenge, a logic that could not easily be reversed into negotiating or giving the enemy a second chance" (62).

Characterizations and Narratives: Characterizations  are the labels and descriptions attached to the parts of a story. Those parts include: act, agency, agent, scene and purpose – the elements of drama Burke identifies, as discussed previously. These labels "integrate cultural connotations and denotations while ascribing a typical and pervasive nature to the entity described" (Lucaites and Condit 7). In other words, the language used in the telling of story is never neutral or purely denotation, but also contains within it judgments about the people in the story, their actions and motives, the means used to achieve their purposes, and even the scene in which the acts occurred. The connotations attached to the characterizations will direct your judgment of the people and their actions. The earlier example of the competing stories of the Battle of Little Bighorn provide one example. A speech event for U.S. Senator John Kerry and the "Don't tase me, bro!"  video  that went viral on YouTube in September of 2007 provides another.

During an address by U.S. Senator John Kerry at a Constitution Day Forum at the University of Florida, Andrew Meyer, a senior telecommunication major, asked Kerry why he had conceded the 2004 presidential election and whether he was a member of Yale secret society Skull and Bones. Meyer's questions exceeded the time allowed, and university police officers attempted to escort Meyer out of the lecture hall. Meyer declared he had done nothing wrong and asserted his right to stay in front of the microphone, which was turned off after which the officers forcibly escorted him outside. Meyer resisted, and the officers used a taser. In response, Meyer screamed: "Don't tase me, bro!"

If you critically analyze the media coverage of this event, you would likely discover that the initial stories seriously questioned what appeared to be an excessive use of force against a college student. Media stories characterized the tasing (the act) as an unwarranted use of force and the officers (the agents) as acting wrongly. However, as more details about Meyer emerged, they created a characterization of him. He became the agent whose purpose was attention seeking. One day after the incident,  CNN  reported Meyer had his friend videotape him with his own camera ("Cops on Leave"). The  International Herald Tribune  and ABC's  Good Morning America  both noted Meyer was known for "practical jokes" ("Florida Student" and "Taser Attack"). The characterization of Meyer as a practical joker also characterized his act not as the exercise of free speech, but as just a joke. Thus, the officers were not interfering with a constitutional right, but with the immature acts of an attention-seeking college student.

Narratives , or stories, are everywhere. Leading moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, in  After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory , describes the human being as "a story-telling animal" (216). Thus, it should be unsurprising that narratives form part of the public vocabulary. Communication scholar Walter Fisher identifies the way narratives offer good reasons in public deliberation and help people make sense of the world. Thus, rhetorical criticisms can focus on the narratives, and the way agent, act, agency, purpose and scene are characterized in those narratives.

For example, if you were interested in how meaning was created about the May 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, and the ensuing oil spill caused by the ongoing leak, you could analyze a variety of texts: statements by BP officials, statements by President Obama and administration officials, and/or media coverage of the incident. Debates over fault and responsibility ultimately are debates over who is the agent: who is the person or group responsible for what happened, and fixing it. Also, the degree of responsibility is affected by characterizations of purpose. Was BP's purpose to discover oil in domestic waters in order to lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, and, thus, the accident was just that – an accidental byproduct of a good act? Or, was BP's purpose to make money and did they ignore safety requirements and take shortcuts – thus this was no accident but an act of negligence?

Ideograph . The rhetorical critic's goal is to develop a better sense of the ideology in the symbolic action. What are the core assumptions of the rhetor, and what assumptions does the rhetor want the audience to make as well? Communication scholar Michael Calvin McGee recognized the intimate connection between language and ideology. He developed the term  ideograph  to describe

Ideographs are examples of single words, or short phrases, that have embedded within them the ideology of a group, nation, or culture.

For example, if you log onto the Tea Party Patriots  website , you are immediately faced with a pop-up window asking you to "Join the fight for liberty."  Liberty  is being used as an ideograph here. Its meaning is more than its denotation of being free from constraints or being able to do something. If you went around your classroom, and asked each person to define  liberty , you likely would hear as many definitions as there were people in your class. The interesting question is: what is  liberty ? So, you could analyze the main documents of the Tea Party Patriots movement to try and track down what they mean when they say  liberty . Their " Mission Statement and Core Values " mentions liberty in the following passages:

• Fiscal Responsibility: . . . A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. . . Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.
• Constitutionally Limited Government: . . . As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.
• Free Markets: A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government's interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. (Tea Party)

In these passages, liberty is something bestowed by a higher power in the form of a "blessing." The greatest threat to liberty is taxation, and economic liberty is the type most often mentioned. Liberty is possessed by the individual, as a form of "personal liberty." Thus, the best way to protect liberty is to protect the economic assets of an individual.

For the Tea Party Patriots, liberty functions as a powerful ideograph.  Liberty  is an abstraction that represents the group's "collective commitment to a particular but equivocal and ill-defined normative goal" (McGee 15). The reality of the goal being ill- defined was made clear when some Floridians and Texans aligned with the Tea Party in protests against supposed cuts in government spending on NASA's space shuttle program because it might adversely impact jobs in their state (Davidson, "Tea Party"). Typically, government spending is viewed as an infringement on liberty (because it relies on taxing the individual). Yet, in this case, members of the Tea Party protested cuts in government spending, making clear how liberty can be ill-defined.

The Tea Party's understanding of liberty is a very particular one. A rhetorical critic focusing on ideographs might say the Tea Party's focus on economic rights as freedom from taxation is quite narrow, especially when one compares it to the rights articulated in the  United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights , Article 3 of which recognizes "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person" (United Nations).

As this example should make clear, it is easy to invoke agreement and identification on the basis of ideographs. All are likely to say: "Yes, I support liberty." Yet, when you ask a person what that means, she or he may come up with quite different answers.

Understanding rhetoric rests on many postmodern assumptions. To understand postmodernism, is might help to understand what it is post to. Modernism (emerging in the Age of Enlightenment in 18th century Europe and America) emphasizes the certainty of the scientific and technological progress of humanity and the modern emphasis on scientific objectivity, often demonstrated by the systematization and categorization of knowledge. In contrast, postmodernism questions the fixedness of categories, recognizes texts have multiple interpretations, argues authors are not sole determinants of texts' meanings, and recognizes many contemporary texts are fragments. Because postmodernism is suspicious of the possibility of objective truth or global narratives, it tends to emphasize the role of language and symbols in the creation of meaning. For postmodernists, truths do not exist outside of the human ability to symbolize those supposed truths.

Postmodern rhetorical criticism does not seek to find  the  meaning of a text, but rather to unpack the multiple meanings in a text. Carole Blair, Marsha S. Jeppeson, and Enrico Pucci's rhetorical study of the  Vietnam Veterans Memorial  illustrates the utility of such an approach. After the Vietnam War, the public was deeply divided over its meaning, so divided it took years before a monument to the fallen soldiers was commissioned. Even after Maya Lin's wall was selected from among 1,421 proposals in 1981, controversy continued. Not until an agreement was reached to add a flagpole and  Frederick Hart's Three Serviceman statue  did construction proceed, with the wall being unveiled in 1982 and the statue in 1984. Blair, Jeppeson and Pucci point out the tensions over the monument "designates the domestic conflict over the war itself" (277). Lin's wall questions whether the war was an event worthy of admiration, while Hart's statue resoundingly affirms it was. The complex meanings of the war and the monuments induce a range of reaction in visitors. Some who visit the memorial scream in anguish, while others cry, and others form friendships with strangers.

What accounts for these different responses, these different meanings in the text? Blair et al. argue the Memorial is "a prototype of postmodern memorializing" (264). Because it was born of debate over the meaning of the Vietnam War, and Hart's statue was added as an answer to Lin's wall, the monument carries multiple meanings. Thus, the rhetorical critic's "goal is not to locate  the  message but the multiple, frequently conflicting messages. To attempt a unified, centered reading, thus, is to miss the point" (269).

The thing that is so interesting about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is not that it has one clear meaning, but that it has so many conflicting meanings. In this way, the monument with its multiple meanings is a more complete representation of public views toward this conflicted historic period in U.S. history.

Rhetorical scholar Barry Brummet summarizes the implications of postmodernism for rhetorical criticism methods and the questions scholars ask. Postmodern rhetorical scholars operate from the assumption that truth is  intersubjective : human beings construct social reality through their symbolic actions. Meaning is not totally subjective; otherwise communication would be impossible. Nor is it totally objective and fixed by some external reality. From where does meaning come? Brummet says "people get meanings from other people through communication" (29). Meaning is not only taken from a person's experiences, but meaning is also taken from a person's communication about it with others. Brummet acknowledges the fact that there is the constraint of sensory data, using the example that one cannot simply imagine a tree and have it appear. However, he says, "experience is sensation plus  meaning . Sensation alone is  meaningless " (28). Thus, it would be senseless to ask whether a rhetor speaks  the  truth. Instead, critics should explore what truth is assumed and advanced by a rhetorical text.

Ideology & Hegemony

A question that consumes much of rhetorical scholars' interests is how some interpretations of truth become predominant in a culture and other interpretations do not, and what impact this can have on society. In the case of the oppositional titles describing the historic battle between General Custer's military and Chief Red Horse's Sioux braves, from the predominant White perspective, it has been portrayed as "the Custer Massacre," versus the less known, native people's title, "The Battle of Little Bighorn."

Rhetorical action occurs in a world whose meanings operate within ideologies. In some cases, an ideology becomes the dominant one and maintains its power through hegemony.

Ideology . In  Making Sense of Political Ideology , communication scholars Bernard L. Brock, Mark E. Huglen, James F. Klumpp, and Sharon Howell define ideology as "typical ways of thinking about the world [that] help shape human action" (39). Ideology shapes human action because it normalizes "day-to-day social, political, economic, and cultural structures" by making them appear natural and inevitable (Brock et al. 39). In short, ideology is the belief system that makes sense of a society.

Kenneth Burke offers a metaphorical description of how words operate together to constitute an ideology, and how that ideology induces people to act in certain ways: "An "ideology' is like a spirit taking up its abode in a body: it makes that body hop around in certain ways; and that same body would have hopped around in different ways had a different ideology [or set of terms] happened to inhabit it" ( Language 6 ). An ideology guides the way one evaluates (attaches meaning and valuations to) the world. Ideology consists of the shared beliefs, attitudes, and values of an audience.

Hegemony/Polysemy . Ideologies become resistant to change when they become hegemonic.  Hegemony  occurs when the predominant ideology uses non-coercive legal and political power to induce the dominated to consent to social and political control (Gramsci). Philosopher Rosemary Hennessy explains that hegemony is not a form of power that controls through overt violence, but rather subtly controls by determining what makes sense, or what could be called the "status quo": "Hegemony is the process whereby the interests of a ruling group come to dominate by establishing the common sense, that is, those values, beliefs, and knowledges that go without saying" (145-6). People participate in the status quo culture because of the sense of order it provides, even though the predominant cultural ideology may control (or strongly influence) their values, beliefs, and attitudes, many times without them even realizing it.

Although many forms of power exist, such as economic power, analyses of hegemony focus on the power of symbols. Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci argues that social control is primarily accomplished through the control of ideas. Economic structures (or control over the means of production) do not determine hegemony, but cultural and rhetorical structures establish it. People are encouraged to accept an idea as common sense, even if it conflicts with their own experiences. Even though Native Americans may question the way predominant U.S. history portrayed "Custer's last stand" and the many other battles with the White foreigners, history has been controlled by white scholars in the U.S. and so that perspective have long framed people's understanding of the westward expansion as exploration and discovery, rather than as invasion and colonization.

Scholarly debate proceeds over how much ability audience members have to resist hegemonic messages. Some scholars argue people are merely a sponge while others see audience members as free-thinking members of the society who can interpret messages in distinct ways while others argue audience members have varying abilities to read messages critically. Media studies is one area where substantial scholarly debate on this issue occurs. The debate revolves around whether mediated messages exert hegemonic control over audiences, or whether mediated messages are open to a range of audience interpretations and uses. Thus, critical/rhetorical methods are useful for studying media influences.

Hegemony in Mass Media . Those who identify media as highly hegemonic see the audience as passively receptive, and believe media have extensive power to create the audience's view of what is real. Scholar Theodor Adorno argues that commercial mass media are hegemonic insofar as they produce products that keep audiences passive and, hence, maintain the present ideological system. Within this theory of media hegemony, the audience has limited agency, is passively receptive, and commercial media have extensive power.

Media scholar John Fiske takes the opposing position. He argues texts' meanings are open to multiple interpretations by audiences, and audiences are able to create their own meanings and not just be passive recipients (Fiske,  Television ). Fiske believes people actively and creatively engage with media using a range of tactics to make the media meet their needs. Fiske believes diverse readings are possible because media messages are polysemous ( poly  meaning  many  and  sem  referring to  sign  or  symbol ), with multiple meanings attached to them (Fiske, "Television").

This discussion of polysemy again calls into question the role of the author. In this perspective, meaning is not determined by the media providers or culture industry, but is created individually by each person (Fiske, "Television"). The meaning of a text is not determined by its author, but is co-created by the author and the audience. This explains why different audience members might come away from the same rhetorical event with radically different interpretations of what the event meant.

Mediated messages do not occur in a vacuum, but in a particular place, at a particular time, and to particular audiences. As Communication scholar Celeste Condit explains, using a rhetorical approach to study mass media reminds the researcher that "[a]udiences are not free to make meanings at will from mass mediated texts" because "the ability of audiences to shape their own readings . . . is constrained by a variety of factors in any given rhetorical situation" including "access to oppositional codes . . . the repertoire of available texts" and the historical context (103-4).

For this reason, media scholar Stuart Hall identifies three positions from which audiences can decode (make sense of) a text: 1) dominant or preferred (hegemonic) meaning, 2) negotiated reading, and 3) oppositional (counter-hegemonic) reading (98-102).

When a reader (or viewer) takes the "connoted meaning from . . . a television newscast . . . full and straight . . . we might say that the viewer  is operating inside the dominant code " The viewer does not challenge the ideology behind the newscast or the way in which it maintains hegemonic power. For example, the viewer takes the newscast's report on the rising stock market as good news, accepting the connotative meaning that what is good for Wall Street is good for everyone. When engaging in a negotiated reading, the viewer accepts some of the hegemonic meanings, but also recognizes some exceptions (Hall 102). Here the denotational meanings are understood, but some of the connotational meanings are challenged. In this case, the viewer might take the rising stock market as good news, but might also realize that it is good news mainly for corporate executives and those with large stock holdings. In an oppositional reading, the viewer decodes the denotational and connotational meanings of a text in the way intended by the creator, but challenges it from an oppositional perspective. This viewer might understand the rising stock market as it relates to corporate cost-cutting; that is, this viewer decodes "good news" on Wall Street as bad news for the thousands who lost their jobs as production was outsourced to low-wage nations.

The media, like other rhetorical symbolic actions, influence how one sees the world. In his now classic book,  Ways of Seeing , media critic John Berger advanced a series of claims that have influenced media scholarship ever since. First, he argues that the invention of the camera drastically changed how human beings see. It "destroyed the idea that images were timeless" and challenged the viewer's belief that he (and Berger means  he ) was the center of the universe, a perspective created by paintings up until that time (18). Berger argues that in European art, from the Renaissance onward, men were the presumed viewer (64). He develops this argument in one of the book's most quoted passages:

[M]en act  and  women appear . Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight. (Berger 47)

The presumed sex of the viewer is male, and even when the viewer is female, she views herself through men's eyes. Thus, when women assess their bodies, they do so not from the perspective of another woman, but from the perspective of a man. In this case, the  hegemonic ideology of patriarchy  positioned all viewers as male, such that women participated in their own subordination by always looking at themselves through men's eyes. Berger's point is that the way the body is positioned, whether in paintings or advertisements, employs a series of codes that audiences are induced to read in a particular way, even though they may not be conscious that they are decoding in this way. In other words, the male gaze is one way a hegemonic reading is induced, rather than an oppositional or negotiated read as Hall previously suggested.

At about the same time as Berger's work, media theorist Laura Mulvey published what would become one of the most cited essays in media studies. Using psychoanalytic theory, Mulvey posits that cinema not only highlights woman's to-be-looked-at-ness, but actually builds the way woman is to be looked at into the film itself. The way the camera, the audience, and the male character (with whom all spectators -- male and female -- identify) look at women reinforces the male as active and the female as passive. For Mulvey, the cinematic gaze is male. Mulvey's criticism applies to all mainstream cinema, and she believes the only way to avoid the dominance of the male gaze was through  avant garde  film that undermines the system of representation. She developed an oppositional gaze.

Mulvey's theory is criticized because she identified a single, universal gaze: she assumed there was only one White male gaze, and that no possibility for a female or non-White gaze existed. However, negotiated and oppositional reads of dominant ideology films exist, as do films that challenge the hegemony of the male gaze. Communication scholar Brenda Cooper critically analyzed  Thelma & Louise , the 1991 Academy Award winner for best original screenplay. She argues that one can find a rejection of the dominant male gaze even in mainstream Hollywood films insofar as  Thelma & Louise  encourages viewers to identify not with the males on the screen, but with the female figures who actively mocked and challenged patriarchal conventions ("Chick Flicks"). Cooper's analysis is bolstered by her earlier study of spectator responses that found men and women saw the film differently ("Relevancy"). Men tended to see the film as an example of unjustified male bashing (perhaps because they identified with the men in the film, few of whom were sympathetic) and women tended to see it as a commentary on women's marginalized social position (because they identified with the women in the film).

The goal of rhetorical criticism is not to find the meaning of a text, but rather to unpack the multiple meanings in a text. Carole Blair, Marsha S. Jeppeson, and Enrico Pucci's rhetorical study of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial illustrates the utility of doing rhetorical criticism with this goal in mind.

At the heart of rhetorical criticism is an understanding of the ability of rhetoric to act – to construct social reality. Rhetoric studies communication from the perspective that an act of communication is never just a transmission of information, but is an intervention in the world and how others see it. Symbolic action construct reality, and rhetorical criticism analyzes how that construction is accomplished and what it means.

Although a range of rhetorical approaches exists to study texts and artifacts, we have emphasized an approach that sees rhetorical method as a heuristic vocabulary that enables you to see things in a text you otherwise may not (because you did not have the language to describe what you saw). We have not outlined a step-by-step approach, but instead encourage you to invent methods appropriate to the text you study. We describe how you go about that inventional process in the next chapter.

Adorno, Theodor W.  The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture . London: Routledge, 1991.

Andermahr, Sonya, Terry Lovell, and Carol Wolkowitz.  A Glossary of Feminist Theory . New York: Oxford U P, 2000.

Andrews, Edmund L. "Death Tax? Double Tax? For Most, It's No Tax."  The New York Times  14 Aug. 2005. Web. 20 May 2010.

Aristotle.  On Rhetoric . Trans. George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford U P, 1991. Print.

Armstrong, Jeannette. "Words."  Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures . Ed. The Telling It Book Collective. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1990. 23-30. Print.

Berger, John.  Ways of Seeing . London: Penguin Books, 1972.

Blair, Carole, Marsha S. Jeppeson, and Enrico Pucci. "Public Memorializing in Postmodernity: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial as Prototype."  Quarterly Journal of Speech  77.3 (1991): 263-288.

Brock, Bernard L., Mark E. Huglen, James F. Klumpp, and Sharon Howell.  Making Sense of Political Ideology: The Power of Language in Democracy . New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005.

Brummet, Barry. "Some Implications of "Process' or "Intersubjectivity': Postmodern rhetoric."  Philosophy & Rhetoric  9.1 (1976): 21-53.

Blakesley David. "Introduction: Kenneth Burke, Word-Man." Late Poems, 1968-1993:  Attitudinizing Verse-wise, While Fending For One's Selph, And In A Style Somewhat Artificially Colloquial . Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina P, 2005. Print.

Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008.

Brockriede, Wayne. "Rhetorical Criticism as Argument."  Quarterly Journal of Speech  60 (April 1974): 165-174.

Bucy, Erik P. and Maria Elizabeth Grabe. "Taking Television Seriously: A Sound and Image Bite Analysis of Presidential Campaign Coverage, 1992–2004."  Journal of Communication  57 (2007): 652–675. Print.

Burke, Kenneth.  Development and Design . Worcester, MA: Clark University Press, 1972), 27-28. Burke, Kenneth. "Dramatism."  International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences , vol. 7. Ed. David L. Sills. New York: Macmillan Company & The Free Press, 1968. 445- 452. Print.

Burke, Kenneth.  Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method  Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. Print.

Burke, Kenneth.  A Grammar of Motives . Berkeley: U of California P, 1969.

Burke, Kenneth.  A Rhetoric of Motives . Berkeley: U of California P, 1969.

Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs.  T he Rhetorical Act. 2nd ed. Belmont. CA: Wadsworth, 1996.

Chief Red Cloud. "The Battle of the Little Bighorn: An Eyewitness Account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse." Recorded in Pictographs and text at the Cheyenne River Reservation.  New Perspectives on the West . PBS. 1881. Web. 3 Apr. 2008.

Cloud, Dana L. ""To Veil the Threat of Terror': Afghan Women and the in the Imagery of the U.S. War on Terrorism."  Quarterly Journal of Speech  90.3 (2004): 285-306.

Condit, Celeste M.  Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change  Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1990. Print.

Condit, Celeste Michelle. "The Rhetorical Limits of Polysemy."  Critical Studies in Mass Communication  6.2 (June 1989): 103-122. Print.

Cooper, Brenda. ""Chick Flicks' as Feminist Texts: The Appropriation of the Male Gaze in  Thelma & Louise ."  Women's Studies in Communication  23.3 (Fall 2000): 277-306. Cooper, Brenda. "The Relevancy and Gender Identity in Spectators' Interpretations of Thelma and Louise." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 16.1 (March 1999): 20-41.

"Cops on Leave after Taser Incident, Student's Behavior under Scrutiny."  CNN.com/US , 18 Sept 2007. Web. 17 Feb 2009.

Davidson, Bruce. "Despite Calls for Fiscal Responsibility, Pork Still Smells Good." Editorial.  San Antonio Express-News  (29 Apr 2010): 7B. Web.

DeFrancisco, Victoria L. and Marvin D. Jensen.  Women's Voices in Our Time: Statements by American Leaders . Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1993.

Dow, Bonnie J.  Prime-time Feminism . Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1996.

"Highlights of Obama's Speech to Muslim World." NBC Nightly News 6:30 PM EST,  NBC News Transcripts . 4 June 2009. LexisNexis. 5 June 2009.

"First account of the Custer Massacre."  Tribune  (Bismark, ND) Extra. 6 July 1876. Print.

Fisher, Mary. "1992 Republication National Convention Address: A Whisper of AIDS," (Houston, TX),  American Rhetoric  19 Aug. 1992. < https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/maryfisher1992rnc.html > . 15 Jan. 2004.

Fisher, Walter. "Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument."  Communication Monographs  51.1 (1984): 1-22

Fiske, John.  Television Culture . New York: Methuen, 1987.

Fiske, John. "Television: Polysemy and Popularity."  Critical Studies in Mass Communication  3 (1986): 391-408.

"Florida Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Forum Has a Penchant for Practical Jokes." International Herald Tribune . 17 Sept 2007. Web. 17 Feb 2009.

Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?" in Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson, Rethinking Popular Culture  (Berkeley: University of California Press) pp. 446-46

Gadamer, Hans-Georg.  Philosophical Hermeneutics . Berkeley: U of California P, 1976.

Golding, Peter, and Graham Murdock, "Culture, Communications, and Political Economy."  Mass Media and Society . Eds. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. London: Edward Arnold, 1991. 15-32.

Gramsci, Antonio, Raymond Rosenthal, and Frank Rosengarten  Letters From Prison  New York: Columbia U P, 1993.

Hall, Stuart. "Encoding, Decoding."  The Cultural Studies Reader . Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 1993. 90-103.

Hariman, Robert and John Louis Lucaites. "Dissent and Emotional Management in a Liberal-Democratic Society: The Kent State Iconic Photograph."  RSQ: Rhetoric Society Quarterly  31.3 (2001): 5-31.

Hennessy, Rosemary. "Subjects, Knowledges, . . . . and all the rest: Speaking For What."  Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity . Ed. Judith Roof and Robyn Weigman Urbana: The U of Illinois P, 1995. 137-150.

King, Tim. "'Ten Days Later' - Kent State... What about Jackson State's Tragedy?"  Salem-News . 10 May 2010. . 20 May 2010.

Kuusisto, Riikka. "Heroic Tale, Game, and Business Deal? Western Metaphors in Action in Kosovo."  Quarterly Journal of Speech  88.1 (2002): 50-68.

Lakoff, George. "Framing the Dems."  The American Prospect  14.8 (1 Sept. 2003). Web. 3 Aug. 2004.

Lakoff, George.  Moral Politics . 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002. Print.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson.  Metaphors We Live By . Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.

Lucaites, John Louis and Celeste Michelle Condit. "Reconstructing : Culturetypal and Counter-Cultural Rhetorics in the Martyred Black Vision,"  Communication Monographs  57 (March 1990): 5-24. Print.

MacIntyre, Alasdair.  After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory . 3rd ed. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P, 2007).

McGee, Michael Calvin. "The "Ideograph': A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology."  Quarterly Journal of Speech  66 (1980): 1-16.

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema."  Screen  16.3 (1975): 6-18.

Nothstine, William L., Carole Blair, and Gary A. Copeland.  Critical Questions: Invention, Creativity, and the Criticism of Discourse and Media . New York: St. Martin's P, 1994. Print.

Obama, Barack. "A New Beginning: Speech at Cairo University." 4 June 2009. < http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamacairouniv ersity.htm >. 9 June 2009.

Plassmann, Hilke, John O'Doherty, Baba Shiv, and Antonio Rangel. "Marketing Actions Can Modulate Neural Representations of Experienced Pleasantness."  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  105.3 (22 Jan. 2008): 1050-1054. doi:10.1073/pnas.0706929105.

Ritter, Kurt and Martin J. Medhurst, eds.  Presidential Speechwriting: From the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution and Beyond . College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2003.

Schrader, Ann. "Silent Flag Protest Raises Outcry."  Denver Post  7 Dec. 2007. Web. 20 May 2010.

"Taser Attack; Is Taser Use Out Of Control?"  ABC Good Morning America . 19 Sept 2007. Web. 11 Mar 2009.

Tea Party Patriots. "Tea Party Patriots Mission Statement and Core Values."  Teapartypatriots.org . 2009. Web. 29 May 2010.

"Tea Party Protesters Criticize Obama's Space Plan." National Public Radio. 15 Apr 2010. Web.

United Nations.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights . 10 Dec 1948. Web. 29 May 2010. "University of Florida Student Tasered at Kerry Forum."  YouTube.com . 15 Nov 2007. Web. 27 Jan 2009.

Young, Neil. "Ohio." Neil Young Lyrics analysis. Web. 7 March 2009.

Zettl, Herbert.  Sight, Sound, Motion . 6th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011.

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

What Is a Rhetorical Question?

• 3-minute read
• 4th April 2023

Rhetorical questions can be an effective tool for writers and speakers to connect with their audience and convey their message more effectively. In this article, we’ll discuss rhetorical questions, how to use them, and some examples.

Definition of a Rhetorical Question

A rhetorical question is a question that isn’t meant to be answered. It’s asked to make a point or create an effect rather than to elicit an actual response. Here are a few examples:

·   Are you kidding me? ‒ Used to express disbelief or shock

·   Do you think I was born yesterday? ‒ Used to express suspicion or doubt

·   Why not? – Used to express willingness to try something

How to Use a Rhetorical Question

Rhetorical questions are rhetorical devices often used in writing and speech to engage the audience, emphasize a point, or provoke thought. They can be used to introduce a topic, make a statement, or open an argument.

Conversational Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions are used in everyday speech and conversations. For example:

·   Who knows? ‒ Indicates that no one knows the answer

·   Isn’t that the truth? ‒ Used to express agreement with something

Introducing a Topic

Rhetorical questions are a common strategy in essay writing to introduce a topic or persuade the reader . Here are some essay questions with rhetorical questions you could use to introduce the topic:

Essay Question: Why should we care about climate change?

Rhetorical Question Introduction: Would you like to live on a dying planet?

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

Essay Question: Are dress codes a good idea for school?

Rhetorical Question Introduction: Wouldn’t you like the freedom to choose what you want to wear?

Famous Examples of Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions are a powerful and effective device to use in speech and writing, which is why you can find countless examples, from past and present figures, using them. Here are a few examples:

Here, Obama is using rhetorical questions to emphasize a point to his audience about what type of nation America is. The questions demonstrate his stance on immigration in America.

Dr. King used a variety of literary devices in his writing and speeches to inspire and invoke change and action in his audience. Here, he poses the rhetorical question, “Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history?” to get his audience thinking. There’s no obvious answer here. He’s setting up his response to this seemingly unanswerable question.

Here, Sojourner Truth is speaking at the 1851 Women’s Convention to persuade the audience that women should have the right to vote like men. She’s emphasizing that she can do everything a man can do and more (childbirth), but she can’t vote like a man because she’s a woman.

Rhetorical questions are statements pretending to be a question. They’re not to be answered, as their answer should be obvious or there isn’t an obvious answer.

You can use rhetorical questions to emphasize a point, introduce a topic, or encourage your audience to think critically about an issue. If you’re looking to enhance your speaking or writing, check out our Literary Devices page to learn more.

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

6-minute read

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Custom Essay, Term Paper & Research paper writing services

• testimonials

Toll Free: +1 (888) 354-4744

Email: [email protected]

Writing custom essays & research papers since 2008

200 rhetorical analysis topics for students in 2023.

The first thing to note when writing anything on rhetorical analysis is that the essay requires you having a wide and in-depth knowledge about the specific topic you’ll be basing your essay on. A good mastery of rhetorical essay topics entails the ability to write effectively.

Sometimes, the challenge looks like not knowing where to begin. But, understanding that a rhetorical analysis essay requires the writer to deeply and accurately analyze a piece of work and make a plausible argument with supporting evidence about it will give you an edge when crafting and choosing a topic.

However, rhetorical analysis topics are majorly predominant in topics associated with the arts but are also not limited to it. Topics can be based on literature, movies, billboards, popular culture, ads, speeches, and even ordinary human conversations.

Aside from understanding what rhetorical topics are, having ample information about any selected topic is crucial as it helps to develop sound rhetorical analysis ideas. Here are some topics you can base your rhetorical analysis essay topics on.

Rhetorical Essay Topics to Choose From

In any rhetorical essay, what the writer does is highlight a problem, carry out extensive analysis on the listed problem to make a strong-base argument on the subject matter.

A rhetorical essay isn’t complete without sound backup evidence to the highlighted problem. Carrying out an essay writing of this form requires you to have done thorough research on whatever you will be writing on.

Knowing how to choose smart topics for rhetorical analysis isn’t enough to write the essay, there must be the existence of extensively done research as this enables the writing to come fully alive. Rhetorical analysis topics list can look like.

• Do social media encourage low productivity in young adults?
• Rhetorical Analysis of Shonda Rhimes’s How to Get Away with Murder
• Obama’s first presidential speech
• A textual analysis of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life
• Analysis of Dove ’s beauty Ads over the last 5 years
• A Feminist look at Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
• Importance of complex themes in American TV shows and Movies
• Analysis of the Instagram aesthetics and what it entails
• The role of symbolism in Literature and art piece
• The work of representation in Popular Culture
• TV shows: That’s what I Like and Here’s Why you should too
• The implication of Horror movies on middle and preschoolers
• Do Smartphones encourage low productivity in Young Adults or not?
• The impact of Diversity representation in Hollywood
• A cultural exploration of Beyoncé’s Lemonade
• Madam CJ Walker, Diversity beauty-representation
• Explicit sexual exploration: the Hip Hop culture
• Purity culture an offspring of Rape culture
• Social exploration of the movie adaptation of Les Misérables
• Does Social media obscure reality or not?
• Rhetorical analysis: Mom blogs and the role they play within the society
• The Hidden Reality of Foodbanks in the American system
• Welfare mom, bad mom?
• Analyze the political implications of George Orwell’s Animal Farm
• The unsettling effect of Dan Fogelman’s This Life
• Homeschooling, the bane of many high school students.
• The impacts of gaming on preschoolers
• How PBS for Kids has changed the Parenting game
• The Role of the Erotica: The poems by E. E Cummings
• The absurdity of the Afterlife

More Topics on Rhetorical Analysis

There are varieties of different kinds of rhetorical analysis topics that it is unlikely that one can run out of ways to craft rhetorical analysis topics for any essay at all.

Since the majority of these rhetoric topics are mostly within the arts, there’s a wide range of sources and inspiration to draw your essay topic from. This is because art is an interesting field that keeps on giving.

These topics can be relevant for high school and for college students. Here are a handful of rhetorical analysis example topics to consider for rhetorical analysis.

• A comparative analysis of non-fictional novels and fictional novels
• Analysis: Obama’s Farewell speech
• Rhetorical analysis of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
• The Failure of Charity, Classism, Victorian era, the folly of Individualism: Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist .
• Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson : an Anthropological exploration
• The realism of 11th century Scotland and how it’s portrayed in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
• The Surrealism of the 20th-century art and Literary explorations with that era
• F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and how it’s an indictment to the “American Dream”
• Rhetorical Analysis of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and Another Country
• Why Movie adaptations can never measure up to Books
• The social and economic implications of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
• The story of Leonardo da Vinci and the Monalisa painting
• Painting, Artistry and how Paul Cézanne’s art interrogates the subject of late-blooming
• What the use of mostly women for domestic Ads suggests
• How new Hollywood producers and showrunners address the issue of inclusivity and diversity in TV.
• What the use of the omniscient narrator in books suggests
• The Monalisa painting: Why is it Talked about so much?
• The rhetorical device in D.H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover
• This is why best-seller books are called best-sellers
• Why kids avoid watching the news at all cost
• How the presence of social media impacts mental illness negatively
• The Role of Tv and Popular in promoting Misogyny and Misogynoir
• A call to Love: the recurring theme within James Baldwin’s works
• How reality Tv shows obscure actual reality
• How racism permeates Langston Hughes I, Too
• What is the distinction between Symbolism and Imagery
• The recurring effect of Misogyny in Malala Yousafzai’s real-life experiences
• Why documentaries on Minimalism should be encouraged
• Minimalism: a direct response to Late Capitalism
• The wide distinction between Liberalism and NeoLiberalism

Rhetorical Situation Essay Topics for 2023

Before embarking on choosing any essay topic in a rhetorical situation, you must first understand the role of rhetoric in writing. Good rhetorical analysis essay topics aim to compel action through oral, written, visual, and sound forms. Rhetorical analysis compels the reader or the present audience to reassess their perspectives based on what you are saying or have written.

A good rhetorical analysis essay topic primarily seeks to capture the base attention of the reader or audience. One of the most common situations where rhetorics come in handy is in the political field.

However, rhetorical situation essays are impassioned, affective and are intended to capture the emotion of the reader or the audience; luring emotion is its basic and most tactical style for a call to action.

• How the legislation on Birth Control pills has resulted in the untimely death of Women in rural areas
• The rise of inflation and its resulting consequences in low-income homes
• Was capitalism not okay enough? How the pandemic has displaced even more households
• How does Popular Culture contribute to the continuous subjugation of women
• Rape, teen pregnancy and the delegitimization of birth control pills: How they all conjure to control women’s bodies
• Television is helping us understand the complexities of human lives
• How the epidemic of drug abuse and its prevalence affects the lives of young Americans in the Deep South
• Gun Control: Why we should pay attention to guns rather than women’s bodies
• How lack of access and poverty is affecting homeschooling for young Americans
• Paying low-income workers below minimum wage is a late capitalist concept
• Gentrification: how it’s displacing people from their communities and homes
• Capitalism is the main reason why millennials can’t afford to buy a house
• The capitalist undertones of the “black to office” maximum
• The Vernacular of Fatphobia in American Popular Culture
• This is why America isn’t Post-racial
• Myth: The Post-racial American Society
• Why the rhetoric “The Future of Remote Work is Lonely” is a Myth
• The Fatphobia of the American Wellness Culture
• How Homeschooling is Demoralizing Teachers
• Navigating various identities: the reality of the immigrant household
• The Big lessons from Covid era: the diminishing returns of Hyper-productivity
• What it means to be displaced within a Pandemic
• Rhetorical Analysis of the Work Culture
• The Unrealized myth of Self-care culture
• The US Women as Social safety nets
• Analysis of how Email became Work
• What the Pandemic has taught workers about Unionism
• The insidious nature of work culture and how it contributes to Burnouts
• How Publishing is promoting Diversity and Inclusivity
• Want it means to live within a pandemic as a low-income worker

30 Rhetorical Analysis Example Topics

The challenge that students often face when asked to write a rhetorical essay is the problem of how to craft a topic that best conveys their thoughts as well as that which they can grasp easily and have adequate available and accessible information on.

There are so many researchable ideas to write on; the hitch is often crafting your topic into something capable of inciting attention and encouraging conversations.

This is because, in rhetorics and persuasive writing, the rhetorical analysis topics for essay are also of crucial importance as much as the content. Here are some easy rhetorical analysis topics.

• Why is Disneyland referred to as the Happiest Place on the Planet Earth
• Why free Sanitary items is essential in every public space
• The impact of Hip Hop in growing the Feminist Consciousness
• Ted Talk: How it gives and encourages voices
• Why Some blogs become Influential within a short period
• The Myth of Consistency is Key
• How Access is Key
• How Shame culture emerged from Respectability Culture
• Calling Survivors of Abuse Victims is Derogatory
• How Speaking up exposes Survivors to more Harm
• Analysis of Cancel Culture and Social Media Justice
• The Importance of Commercials on Tv
• How Commercials promote Falsehood
• The impacts of Colorism and the Issue of Color Complex
• A Room of One’s Own : The coming of Virginia Woolf before her time
• A Rhetorical Analysis of Reality Tv
• This is how Commercials can be more Relatable
• How Relatability Tv impacts us
• The importance of Inclusivity, Diversity, and Representation in Popular Culture
• The Therapeutic effect of Representation
• The Therapeutic effect of Yoga and Meditation
• Why Low-income Workers should be exempted from Tax
• The Ripple Effect of the Internet on Young Adults
• Where the realistic depiction of Tv begins and ends
• An Existential analytical approach to the works of Sylvia Path
• The Rhetorical strategy in Frederick Douglas’ Memoir
• Rhetoric as style in Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream
• Why the Bob Dylan Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 was deserving
• Award Culture is slowly Killing Creativity
• A Historical approach to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

Ideas on Rhetoric Research Paper Topics

Every writing within academia hinges on the effective use of rhetorical situation essay topics; this is because the basis of everything done within academia is to impact ideas through the use of language and this language is usually persuasive in nature even while it seeks to educate.

For university students, it’s most likely very rare that you can run away from rhetoric research paper topics during your school year, in fact, it’s a prerequisite while in school.

It comes in the form of assignments, research, and term papers. If you are looking for topics, there are a variety of good topics to write a rhetorical analysis on. Below is a list of rhetorical analysis assignment ideas.

• An Analysis of the Rhetorical Device implored in Beowulf
• A Case study of Contemporary Popular Culture
• The political and social implications of 90’s Hip Hop
• A Comparative Analysis of Tv shows and Movies
• The Futility of the American Dream as explored in F.S Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
• The Symbolic exploration of “The Green Light” in The Great Gatsby
• The Impact of Technological Innovation on American Student’s attention span
• The Misogyny of the American Entertainment Industry
• Structural Racism: The Mother of Gentrification
• The Growing Concern of the Broken American Childcare System
• The Triumph and the Bold Rhetorics employed in Diversity Tv
• Restructuring: Why Diversity, Inclusivity, and Representation should be Championed
• Purity Culture: A social construct that seeks to control women’s body
• The representation distinction in the movie adaptation of Push and the book
• A Comparative Analysis of Digital Literature and Traditional Literature
• Innovation: The growing effects of Technological advancement
• Late Capitalism: Self-care culture as a tool
• The need for Inclusivity in the discussion of Beauty Culture
• American Gun Culture and how it perpetuates greater harm
• Domestic Violence, Abuse: The Battered Woman Syndrome
• Affirmative Action: A Tool for Subjugation and Intellectual Relegation of the Minority Communities
• Race Relations: The future of the American System
• The Intrinsic effect of the exploration and promotion of interracial marriage on American popular Culture
• Obesity: The distinction between Fatphobia and a need for Medical Attention
• The Evolution of Identity Politics within the American System
• Diversity Higher: Why America Needs a quick Racial intervention
• A Comparative Study of 90s Hip Hop Culture and early 2010s Hip Hop
• Rape Culture, Victim Blaming: The need to listen to Survivors
• The Explicit Way American Hip Hop Explores Abuse and Misogyny
• The Institutional Bias of the American System

Rhetorical Argument Essay Topics

When writing an argumentative essay, rhetoric is employed as the tool to not just convey thoughts and opinions but also to capture the interest of the audience or reader(s).

In any rhetorical argument essay, the writer must employ ethos, pathos, and logos as this enables the writer to navigate the topic better. For every form of rhetorical argumentative essay, there has to be a thoroughly carried out research, an understanding of the audience, a solid thesis statement, and the use of a writing style that captures attention.

The basis of an argumentative essay is that it must contain persuasive elements, without that, the argument isn’t complete. Here are some rhetorical argument essay topics to look into while writing your essay.

• Can Drug Abuse be Contained by Legalizing and Regulating certain Drugs?
• High-end and Fast fashion, how does it contribute to the Unhealthy lifestyle in our environment
• Does a Democratic system have any significant drawbacks?
• Why working moms and nursing moms should be given more workplace privilege
• Why Maternal paid leave should be legalized
• Is Cyberbullying capable of affecting mental health?
• Should Diversity Higher, Affirmative Action and Inclusivity be made mandatory?
• Does Feminism obscure the need for women to lash out at their fellow women?
• Is Religion really the Opium of the Masses as Suggested by Karl Max?
• Are there significant drawbacks to marrying off of a Dating App?
• How Social Media Fame negatively impacts one’s real-life experiences
• Is the presence of Artificial Intelligence going to lead to human extinction?
• How hyperactivity on Social media plays out in impacting loneliness
• Is there a possibility of Electronic money wiping out paper money?
• Can human society experience growth without the presence of technology?
• Is the consistent attachment to cell phones contributing to depression and anxiety?
• Do public cameras infringe on individual privacy?
• Is sustainable living capable of helping us reverse Climate Change?
• Limiting Children’s screen time, does it contribute to their academic growth?
• Should people be encouraged to use Marijuana now its health benefits have been dictated?
• Are Academic Stress and excessive academic workload a form of psychological torture?
• Has homeschooling improved the nature and operation of the school system?
• Does beauty pageantry influence the concept and idea of beauty in society?
• Is it Ethical to demand maternity leave for fathers?
• Is Killing a Murderer a Punishable offense?
• Should High school children be introduced to sex education in school?
• How does the knowledge of sex education impact high schoolers?
• Lecturer-Student friendship: is it an ethical practice?
• Are students supposed to bring school work back home?
• Impromptu test within the University system: Cancelled or Promoted?
• Does access to so much information lead to Misinformation?
• Does homeschooling contribute to students’ anti-socialism?
• Should College Education be made completely free?
• Will free education make or mar the performance of the academic institution?
• Is GPA a sound determinant of intelligence?

Visual Rhetoric Essay Topics

There are different means through which rhetoric can be employed as a communication feature. Rhetorics occur in oral form, in written format as well as in the visual display. Visual rhetoric essay topics detail effective communication that is attained through the use and analysis of visual images, this is what differentiates it from other forms of rhetorical essays.

Communication through visual presentation has been noted to be effective and visual rhetoric makes communication and understanding very easy. It occurs in movies, painting, commercials, and other forms of art exploration.

For college students, especially those majoring in media studies and visual arts, assignments usually fall under visual rhetoric essays and visual text analysis. Here are some of the topics to look at within this subject matter.

• Analyze the impact of TV Commercials and Ads on consumers
• A case study of a prominent Hollywood production and the visual arts involved
• Rhetorical analysis of the emotional appeals employed in web ads
• Dissecting the ad of a TV Commercial and its implications
• The emotional appeal within the movie The Help and permeates the entire Movie
• A critical exploration of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa Painting
• The use of Lighting and Effect in Movies and what they Signify
• The Cinematography of a Movie: A Language of its own
• How Visual Commercials influence us more than Written Commercials
• An exploration of the use of visuals in marketing
• Analysis of Yellow Journalism
• What is the most effective visual ad you’ve seen and how did it influence you towards a product?
• How Visual ads increase people’s purchasing power
• An in-depth analysis of effective visual campaigns
• How TV influences our understanding of and our relation to society

Having a Hard Time Thinking of Rhertorical Analysis Topics?

Writing a rhetorical essay can be quite tasking as it requires that you embark on extensive research, digging through myriad materials in order to have a substantial essay. What is required to achieve a sound essay can really be a lot of work especially if you’re already engulfed with other activities. Nevertheless, there is the presence of fast expert writers online that offer essay writing help to you in any situation. Our essay writing service isn’t just high quality but is also very cheap. You do not just get the value of a great job, but also the promise of high grades and a stress-free and reliable service.

What Is a Rhetorical Analysis and How to Write a Great One

By Helly Douglas

Do you have to write a rhetorical analysis essay? Fear not! We’re here to explain exactly what rhetorical analysis means, how you should structure your essay, and give you some essential “dos and don’ts.”

What is a Rhetorical Analysis Essay?

How do you write a rhetorical analysis, what are the three rhetorical strategies, what are the five rhetorical situations, how to plan a rhetorical analysis essay, creating a rhetorical analysis essay, examples of great rhetorical analysis essays, final thoughts.

A rhetorical analysis essay studies how writers and speakers have used words to influence their audience. Think less about the words the author has used and more about the techniques they employ, their goals, and the effect this has on the audience.

In your analysis essay, you break a piece of text (including cartoons, adverts, and speeches) into sections and explain how each part works to persuade, inform, or entertain. You’ll explore the effectiveness of the techniques used, how the argument has been constructed, and give examples from the text.

A strong rhetorical analysis evaluates a text rather than just describes the techniques used. You don’t include whether you personally agree or disagree with the argument.

Structure a rhetorical analysis in the same way as most other types of academic essays . You’ll have an introduction to present your thesis, a main body where you analyze the text, which then leads to a conclusion.

Think about how the writer (also known as a rhetor) considers the situation that frames their communication:

• Topic: the overall purpose of the rhetoric
• Audience: this includes primary, secondary, and tertiary audiences
• Purpose: there are often more than one to consider
• Context and culture: the wider situation within which the rhetoric is placed

Back in the 4th century BC, Aristotle was talking about how language can be used as a means of persuasion. He described three principal forms —Ethos, Logos, and Pathos—often referred to as the Rhetorical Triangle . These persuasive techniques are still used today.

Rhetorical Strategy 1: Ethos

Are you more likely to buy a car from an established company that’s been an important part of your community for 50 years, or someone new who just started their business?

Reputation matters. Ethos explores how the character, disposition, and fundamental values of the author create appeal, along with their expertise and knowledge in the subject area.

Aristotle breaks ethos down into three further categories:

• Phronesis: skills and practical wisdom
• Arete: virtue
• Eunoia: goodwill towards the audience

Ethos-driven speeches and text rely on the reputation of the author. In your analysis, you can look at how the writer establishes ethos through both direct and indirect means.

Rhetorical Strategy 2: Pathos

Pathos-driven rhetoric hooks into our emotions. You’ll often see it used in advertisements, particularly by charities wanting you to donate money towards an appeal.

Common use of pathos includes:

• Vivid description so the reader can imagine themselves in the situation
• Personal stories to create feelings of empathy
• Emotional vocabulary that evokes a response

By using pathos to make the audience feel a particular emotion, the author can persuade them that the argument they’re making is compelling.

Rhetorical Strategy 3: Logos

Logos uses logic or reason. It’s commonly used in academic writing when arguments are created using evidence and reasoning rather than an emotional response. It’s constructed in a step-by-step approach that builds methodically to create a powerful effect upon the reader.

Rhetoric can use any one of these three techniques, but effective arguments often appeal to all three elements.

The rhetorical situation explains the circumstances behind and around a piece of rhetoric. It helps you think about why a text exists, its purpose, and how it’s carried out.

The rhetorical situations are:

• 1) Purpose: Why is this being written? (It could be trying to inform, persuade, instruct, or entertain.)
• 2) Audience: Which groups or individuals will read and take action (or have done so in the past)?
• 3) Genre: What type of writing is this?
• 4) Stance: What is the tone of the text? What position are they taking?
• 5) Media/Visuals: What means of communication are used?

Understanding and analyzing the rhetorical situation is essential for building a strong essay. Also think about any rhetoric restraints on the text, such as beliefs, attitudes, and traditions that could affect the author's decisions.

Before leaping into your essay, it’s worth taking time to explore the text at a deeper level and considering the rhetorical situations we looked at before. Throw away your assumptions and use these simple questions to help you unpick how and why the text is having an effect on the audience.

1: What is the Rhetorical Situation?

• Why is there a need or opportunity for persuasion?
• How do words and references help you identify the time and location?
• What are the rhetoric restraints?
• What historical occasions would lead to this text being created?

2: Who is the Author?

• How do they position themselves as an expert worth listening to?
• What is their ethos?
• Do they have a reputation that gives them authority?
• What is their intention?
• What values or customs do they have?

3: Who is it Written For?

• Who is the intended audience?
• How is this appealing to this particular audience?
• Who are the possible secondary and tertiary audiences?

4: What is the Central Idea?

• Can you summarize the key point of this rhetoric?
• What arguments are used?
• How has it developed a line of reasoning?

5: How is it Structured?

• What structure is used?
• How is the content arranged within the structure?

6: What Form is Used?

• Does this follow a specific literary genre?
• What type of style and tone is used, and why is this?
• Does the form used complement the content?
• What effect could this form have on the audience?

7: Is the Rhetoric Effective?

• Does the content fulfil the author’s intentions?
• Does the message effectively fit the audience, location, and time period?

Once you’ve fully explored the text, you’ll have a better understanding of the impact it’s having on the audience and feel more confident about writing your essay outline.

A great essay starts with an interesting topic. Choose carefully so you’re personally invested in the subject and familiar with it rather than just following trending topics. There are lots of great ideas on this blog post by My Perfect Words if you need some inspiration. Take some time to do background research to ensure your topic offers good analysis opportunities.

Remember to check the information given to you by your professor so you follow their preferred style guidelines. This outline example gives you a general idea of a format to follow, but there will likely be specific requests about layout and content in your course handbook. It’s always worth asking your institution if you’re unsure.

Make notes for each section of your essay before you write. This makes it easy for you to write a well-structured text that flows naturally to a conclusion. You will develop each note into a paragraph. Look at this example by College Essay for useful ideas about the structure.

1: Introduction

This is a short, informative section that shows you understand the purpose of the text. It tempts the reader to find out more by mentioning what will come in the main body of your essay.

• Name the author of the text and the title of their work followed by the date in parentheses
• Use a verb to describe what the author does, e.g. “implies,” “asserts,” or “claims”
• Briefly summarize the text in your own words
• Mention the persuasive techniques used by the rhetor and its effect

Create a thesis statement to come at the end of your introduction.

After your introduction, move on to your critical analysis. This is the principal part of your essay.

• Explain the methods used by the author to inform, entertain, and/or persuade the audience using Aristotle's rhetorical triangle
• Use quotations to prove the statements you make
• Explain why the writer used this approach and how successful it is
• Consider how it makes the audience feel and react

Make each strategy a new paragraph rather than cramming them together, and always use proper citations. Check back to your course handbook if you’re unsure which citation style is preferred.

3: Conclusion

Your conclusion should summarize the points you’ve made in the main body of your essay. While you will draw the points together, this is not the place to introduce new information you’ve not previously mentioned.

Use your last sentence to share a powerful concluding statement that talks about the impact the text has on the audience(s) and wider society. How have its strategies helped to shape history?

Before You Submit

Poor spelling and grammatical errors ruin a great essay. Use ProWritingAid to check through your finished essay before you submit. It will pick up all the minor errors you’ve missed and help you give your essay a final polish. Look at this useful ProWritingAid webinar for further ideas to help you significantly improve your essays. Sign up for a free trial today and start editing your essays!

You’ll find countless examples of rhetorical analysis online, but they range widely in quality. Your institution may have example essays they can share with you to show you exactly what they’re looking for.

The following links should give you a good starting point if you’re looking for ideas:

Pearson Canada has a range of good examples. Look at how embedded quotations are used to prove the points being made. The end questions help you unpick how successful each essay is.

Excelsior College has an excellent sample essay complete with useful comments highlighting the techniques used.

Brighton Online has a selection of interesting essays to look at. In this specific example, consider how wider reading has deepened the exploration of the text.

Writing a rhetorical analysis essay can seem daunting, but spending significant time deeply analyzing the text before you write will make it far more achievable and result in a better-quality essay overall.

It can take some time to write a good essay. Aim to complete it well before the deadline so you don’t feel rushed. Use ProWritingAid’s comprehensive checks to find any errors and make changes to improve readability. Then you’ll be ready to submit your finished essay, knowing it’s as good as you can possibly make it.

Try ProWritingAid's Editor for Yourself

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Helly Douglas

Helly Douglas is a UK writer and teacher, specialising in education, children, and parenting. She loves making the complex seem simple through blogs, articles, and curriculum content. You can check out her work at hellydouglas.com or connect on Twitter @hellydouglas. When she’s not writing, you will find her in a classroom, being a mum or battling against the wilderness of her garden—the garden is winning!

Get started with ProWritingAid

Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via:

The prosody of rhetorical questions: A cross-linguistic view

• February 2022
• Linguistische Berichte (LB)

• Universität Konstanz

• This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.

Discover the world's research

• 25+ million members
• 160+ million publication pages
• 2.3+ billion citations

No full-text available

To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

• Tina Ghaemi
• Bettina Braun
• SECOND LANG RES

• Daniela Wochner

• BILING-LANG COGN
• J PHONETICS

• Manluolan Xu
• J EAST ASIAN LINGUIS

• Mathieu Avanzi

• Juan M. Sosa

• NORD J LINGUIST

• Gregory A. Bryant

• Julia Bergherr
• Susanne Huth
• Jessica Neuschulz
• W. Oppenrieder
• Einar Haugen

• Richard A. Hudson
• Akira Watanabe
• Maria Schubiger
• J PRAGMATICS

• Reiko Itani
• Yuen Ren Chao

• Randolph Quirk
• Sidney Greenbaum
• Geoffrey Leech
• Jan Svartvik
• Christine Bartels
• Chung-hye Han
• Pauline Welby

• Janet Breckenridge Pierrehumbert

• J ACOUST SOC AM
• Henry S. Cheang

• Kristján Árnason
• Robert L Cheng
• Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie
• Choi-Yeung-Chang Flynn
• Recruit researchers
• Join for free
• Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

• Customer Reviews
• Extended Essays
• IB Internal Assessment
• Theory of Knowledge
• Literature Review
• Dissertations
• Essay Writing
• Research Writing
• Assignment Help
• Capstone Projects
• College Application
• Online Class

Can I Use Rhetorical Questions in an Essay (Quick Answer)

by  Antony W

November 1, 2021

A rhetorical question is a powerful literary technique that lets you make a point or add a dramatic effect in an essay.

Unlike a standard question, being rhetoric doesn’t evoke direct response. Rather, it tends to be persuasive in form, and it helps an author shape the way his or her target readers look at an issue or think about a topic.

Given the diversity and flair they add in writing, and the extent to which the engage readers to consider and hypothesize what they just read, can you really use rhetorical questions in an essay or should you avoid them completely?

Can I Use Rhetorical Questions in an Essay?  

It’s not advisable to use rhetorical questions in an essay. While they are perfect for helping you come to grip with the essay topic in question, they’re not useful for the person reading the essay. 

You could include them in the essay as indirect questions, but the best approach is to rephrase the questions into statements or not use them at all. 

To understand why teachers hate rhetorical questions in essays, it’s important to look at the difference between creative and essay writing.

As you can see from the table above, rhetoric questions seek to spark excitement and suspense, which is the exact opposite of what academic writing is all about.

To take this even further, below are reasons why you shouldn’t use rhetorical question in academic writing.

1. Rhetorical Questions Add Unnecessary Words to an Essay 

You don’t have much writing real estate when writing an essay. With a tight word count limit, rhetorical equations are an obvious waste of resources.

Again, questions don’t tell a story, describe your claim, or defend your argument in an essay. And rightly so, they tend to leave readers with more questions than answers. 

2. Rhetorical Questions Introduce Redundancy 

You might think for the moment that rhetorical questions are good for introducing a point. But isn’t it better to get to the point?

Besides, we don’t think that essay readers, from college admissions committee to professors who have dozens of argumentative essays to review even have the patience to read questions you present.

The issue here is rhetorical questions introduce redundancy in the essay, taking up the space that you have otherwise used to explain an idea or an issue better.

Instead of filling the essay with questions, which may leave the reader unsure, go straight to the point and make your ideas clear . 

3. Rhetorical Questions Accost Readers 

Academic writing isn’t your place to ask questions because they change the tone and perspective of an essay just as quickly.

They are passive in form. In other words, using them in academic writing means you’re asking your readers to do the thinking and reflection for you

When you change from answering readers’ most important questions on an issue to questioning them instead, you accost them. Readers don’t appreciate when you aggressively demand something from them.

4. Rhetorical Questions Make Lousy Assumption that a Reader Knows 

While you’re welcome to use rhetorical questions in improving your creative writing , you shouldn’t do in academic writing.

Often with rhetorical questions, writers tend to assume that the audience already know the answer, which may not exactly be the case.

Since we don’t know if a reader knows the answer to a question, it’s best to express the question as a statement or else you risk being misunderstood.

Think about it:

Your instructor gave you an essay assignment because they want to see how you answer the question. In other words, they’re looking for answers, evidence, and arguments to your claim (position). They neither want to be entertained nor left in suspense.

How to Ask Rhetorical Question in an Essay?  

While we generally don’t recommend using rhetoric questions in an essay, there’s one exception to this rule. You can use rhetorical questions:

In the Title of an Essay 

It’s tempting to use rhetorical questions in an essay because they draw in the attention of the reader.

However, they can’t be effective in the body section of the essay, and we’ve already told you why. 

So if you feel the urge to use rhetorical questions, use it as a title for the essay.

In the Introduction of an Essay 

You may use it in the introduction provided you answer the question in the argument.

Notice here that you have to answer the question, not leave the reader to answer it for you.

An effective way to implement this literary device would be to ask the question in the opening paragraph and then use the thesis statement to answer the question before you get to the body part of the essay .

In Argumentative Essays 

Rhetorical questions can be good for persuading a reader to think or act in a certain way. As such, you may use them in writing argumentative essays .

If used correctly, such a question can often strengthen the magnitude of a claim and solidify your position.

However, you really shouldn’t include this kind of writing in your argument or persuasive essay unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Even if you feel like the rhetorical question would sound a lot more readable or convincing, it would be best to rephrase them in complete statements.

Get Essay Writing Help 

With all that said, feel free to get in touch with  Help for Assessment writers  if you need assistance with your essay writing.

About the author 

Antony W is a professional writer and coach at Help for Assessment. He spends countless hours every day researching and writing great content filled with expert advice on how to write engaging essays, research papers, and assignments.

Can I Use Questions in a Research Paper

Quick Navigation

Questions in a Research Paper

The academic community is concerned with any kind of a research paper since it is the material for work. As a rule, the students’ academic branch is usually linked to such research papers as a master’s thesis, a term paper or a doctoral dissertation. Generally speaking, a research paper may be defined as an area of the academic origin which is concerned with its author’s quaint input to the analysis and interpretation of any subject matter in a particular field.

As far as a research paper, in general, is concerned, you will find information which is suitable for any kind of a research paper. Of course, the most worrying issue is the usage of different types of questions in a formal academic paper. This problem is developed from a variety of perspectives.

Furthermore, you will be able to find a bunch of useful information on writing a research paper. A responsible writer of a research paper has to pay attention to small but sufficient details while doing research. Therefore, there is a need to analyze the possibility of questions usage while relying on a research paper of any type. We will help you understand if you can use questions in research papers.

Can you use Questions in a research paper?

A research paper is the type of writing which demands deep analysis as well as thoroughly investigated phenomena of the subject matter. Overall this type of paper is highly codified writing in a rhetorical form. Rules are of the utmost importance; therefore, it is easier to plan the draft of the research paper in a questionnaire form rather than in a statement manner.

There is a necessity to address a specific research question. It is not a typical question that is easy to answer since the whole research paper is aimed at responding to it throughout the paper. Any information which is related to the research question is important for the paper; the other one is not.

Understandably, the research question is central whereas there may exist secondary but related questions. It would be easier to compose the draft of the work with them. It is worth noting that interrogative sentences are not advised to use in the research paper, they are better for the researcher’s understanding of how to organize the whole paper.

Alternatively, the research question possesses some key features which define that it is not a typical question of posterior importance. If you want to be logical and consequent in your research paper, pay attention to the research question specificity, novelty, originality, relevance. The paper has to be suitable for a broad scientific community.

Can you Start a Research paper with a question?

As far as we know the essence of a research paper, it is easier to predict how the structure of a research paper looks like. One may be constantly curious about the necessity of questions in the introduction part. If you want to know whether you can start a research paper with a question, there is the necessity to understand what type of a question is suitable for the beginning part.

Therefore, this issue is a bit controversial. Some of the students may be confused with the title of a research paper as well since it is an important driving force of the whole academic work. If you want to ask whether research paper titles can be questions, the answer is approving. However, it is much better to have a respond as a title of the research paper. The interrogative form is not typical for titles through the meaning of interrogation is preserved. We want you to get excellence in the academic field, so refer to the following ideas while starting your research paper .

• Do not ask the research question directly; give the reader a chance to take it in from a brief outline of the topic and your intention as a writer to develop this issue.
• Specify the topic and, simultaneously, identify the branch you are going to advance in the research paper.
• Do not try to shock the reader with the results of the investigation since they are the building material for the body as well as conclusion paragraphs.
• The reference to rhetorical questions is a bad idea as well while mentioning the introduction.
• The first sentences of the introduction are to address the question with a statement in a direct manner outlining the writer’s attitude towards the subject matter.
• Do not try to quote the question; you would better explain it within a few following sentences in an argumentative manner.
• The last part of the introduction is concerned with your outlining the method of the stated argument or the structure as it is.

Therefore, if you think you can start off a research paper with a question, be sure you understand what type of a question is meant and what the best position of it is.

Can you End a research paper with a question?

When it comes to the end of the research paper, each writer is willing to sound academic and broad-minded. Sometimes a very interesting thing happens when a writer is full of ideas, and he or she tries to put every new thought in the conclusion part of the research paper and use interesting things to write a research paper on.

It is the closing paragraph which is aimed at summarizing the main points in a research paper. The typical question about the conclusion usually sounds like the following: can I end a research paper with a question? The answer is: you would better avoid it. There are some reasons why not do this, so let’s refer to the following on how to avoid spoiling your close-to-perfection research paper.

1. Questions (as the most worrying issue)

As it has been previously mentioned, there is a necessity to differentiate among various kinds of questions. If we mention an ordinary, for instance, yes/ no or wh-question, they are not appropriate due to the fact that they develop new ideas which are banned in this very part of the research paper.

Therefore, do not tend to end a research paper with a question. Questions are of the utmost importance on the step of pre-work over the issue to analyze. When you, as a writer, try to compose the first draft of the paper, do it in a questionnaire form. This will help you to see what information is not relevant to your subject matter. Moreover, you will be able to see the further work from the introduction part until the end of a research paper.

2. Contradictions

All the doubts or following ideas are not typical to refer to in the conclusion body of a research paper. They are the fundamentals of the body part. Honestly, this is the largest part of a research paper and, definitely, it is easier to place this information in the body, rather than in conclusion. If you feel there is something contradictory while you approach the end of the research paper, you would better avoid showing hesitation at the end of the academic work.

It is not appropriate to offer opposing viewpoints or hesitations about the finding in conclusion. It will, undoubtedly, spoil the whole work and show you in bad light within an academic community. It is necessary to pay attention to contradictions on the step of pre-work with a research paper.

The choice of topic is meant here. It is difficult to predict whether the topic will soon offer a range of contradictions to work with. The only thing a careful writer has to do is to analyze the topic from different perspectives. If you, as a writer, work in a field of linguistics, do not try to limit yourself only within this sphere, try to find information on the aspects of developing the same topic within the branch of sociology. Doing this will assist you in overcoming a range of contradictions on the level of pre-work.

3. Brand new ideas

Presumably, the most frequent mistake of an average student is placing new ideas or findings at the end of the research paper. One may think that it creates the room for the reader to think about the issue. Honestly, it rather raises doubts concerning the practical use of your research as well as its novelty and completeness. Remember, no one starts a new idea in the end.

4. Extra evidence.

It is necessary for the academic writer to be logic and sound precise and convinced in what he or she writes and develops. Quotes, supporting statements or evidence are not appropriate for the conclusion since they are perceived as new ideas, to some extent. While referring to the structure of a research paper, it is necessary to know there is a reference part of this type of writing.

Therefore, all the used material has to be supported in the body part of the writing through referencing the sources in a proper manner (it depends what citation style is obligatory for personally your type of a research paper).

Graduates are those students who have already worked with a number of research papers. So, it is not a secret for them that each type of writing possesses a number of clichés. These are phrases which assist in defining the level of formality. For instance, some papers demand personal pronouns, some not – these are cliché, to some extent.

If you start working with a research paper, the first and foremost thing to do is to refer to the formal clichés concerning your type of a research paper. They will serve as linking words and phrases to bind all the ideas raised in the paper. Some clichés are used with a range of contractions or abbreviations.

Even though they are clichés, they are not to use in a formal type of writing such as a research paper. Therefore, as a writer, you have to pay attention to ‘don’t,’ ‘won’t,’ ‘hasn’t,’ try to use the full form. Some traditional phrases consist of colloquial vocabulary. Words and phrases which are constantly used in everyday spoken language are meant.

Be careful with them while using cliché phrases. Those who are appropriate for opinion essays are out-of-use for the master’s thesis. Moreover, if you want to develop your own style of writing, do not refer to the usage of idioms, while working with a research paper. Idiomatic phrases show the level of the language development, but the academic sphere is not the niche to show it.

Can you Use Rhetorical Questions in a Research Paper?

A rhetorical question is the specific type of interrogation which does not demand the urgent and precise answer; it rather leaves something to think over. Not all types of research papers are appropriate to be with a rhetorical question. A perfect example of the research paper which approves the usage of a rhetorical question is the one about social matters. You may ask a rhetorical question at the end if it meets the purpose of the paper.

The rhetorical question is usually bound with a research question; it may even be the same version of it. Remember, a research question is placed in the introduction part of a research. When you place the rhetorical question in the conclusion part, make sure your research paper reveals the evidence in the body for answering it.

The deductive manner is developed here which shows that your research paper is logically developed and used for the academic community. If it is allowed by the rules concerning your type of a research paper, you may briefly summarize the answer after the stated question. However, you have to be careful with rhetorical questions at the end of the research paper since they may be inappropriate. Readers are not that audience which is thoroughly chosen, and they do not usually demonstrate conversance in a particular topic of your research.

You do not have to take risks with rhetorical questions since you can be misunderstood and your academic work will leave a bad opinion. If you have strong will to place the question, do not perform it in the interrogative form, try to turn it in a way that it sounds formal and it is affirmative. It would serve as a hint for the reader.

The topicality will be evident since the reader feels the necessity to think over the issue. The practical relevance to the contemporary usage will become urgent. All the preceding information is of the utmost importance since it helps you, as a writer, to save precious time on the work itself omitting pitfalls and mistakes.

This article is useful for the academic writers due to the fact that it raises the most worrying aspect of a research paper – a question. As you may now understand, questions are possible to use in a research paper; everything depends on the type of a question, its mode, and place in the research paper. The only thing a research paper writer has to do is to be careful with addressing the reader with a question. Since the audience can be different, therefore, the academic paper has to be multi-perspective and topical.

Save Time On Research and Writing

Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free

It will be useful to read

It's possible to submit essay on time.

Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more: https://www.cambridge.org/universitypress/about-us/news-and-blogs/cambridge-university-press-publishing-update-following-technical-disruption

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings .

Login Alert

• > Journals
• > English Language & Linguistics
• > Volume 24 Issue 4
• > The prosody of rhetorical questions in English

Article contents

The prosody of rhetorical questions in english.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2019

This article contributes to our knowledge about the prosodic realisation of rhetorical questions (RQs) as compared to information-seeking questions (ISQs). It reports on a production experiment testing the prosody of English wh- and polar RQs and ISQs in a Canadian variety. In previous literature, the contribution of prosody to the distinction between the two illocution types has often been limited to the intonational realisation of the terminus of the utterance, i.e. whether it ends in a rise or a fall. Along with edge tones, we tested other phonological and phonetic parameters. Our results are as follows: (i) The intonational terminus was distinctive only for polar questions (rise vs plateau), not for wh -questions (low throughout). (ii) Moreover, the semantic difference between RQs and ISQs is signalled by pitch accents. It is reflected in nuclear pitch accent type for wh -questions, and accent type and position for polar questions. (iii) Phonetically, RQs are produced with longer constituent durations and – for wh -questions – a softer voice quality in the wh -word. Taken together, several intonational categories and phonetic parameters contribute to the distinction between RQs and ISQs. A simple distinction between rising and falling intonation is in any case insufficient.

Access options

We thank Angela James, Stephanie Gustedt and Clara Huttenlauch for help with the construction of the materials and data annotation, Anja Arnhold for data collection, and María Biezma for discussion. The research presented here was funded by the DFG as part of research unit ‘Questions at the Interfaces’ (FOR 2111, project P6), grant numbers DE 876/3-1 and BR 3428/4-1.

This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref .

• Google Scholar

View all Google Scholar citations for this article.

Save article to Kindle

To save this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle .

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

• Volume 24, Issue 4
• NICOLE DEHÉ (a1) and BETTINA BRAUN (a1)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674319000157

Save article to Dropbox

To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox .

Save article to Google Drive

To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive .

Reply to: Submit a response

- No HTML tags allowed - Web page URLs will display as text only - Lines and paragraphs break automatically - Attachments, images or tables are not permitted

Your details

Your email address will be used in order to notify you when your comment has been reviewed by the moderator and in case the author(s) of the article or the moderator need to contact you directly.

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests.

Please list any fees and grants from, employment by, consultancy for, shared ownership in or any close relationship with, at any time over the preceding 36 months, any organisation whose interests may be affected by the publication of the response. Please also list any non-financial associations or interests (personal, professional, political, institutional, religious or other) that a reasonable reader would want to know about in relation to the submitted work. This pertains to all the authors of the piece, their spouses or partners.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Academic writing

Avoid rhetorical questions

Published on November 26, 2014 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

An example of such a question is:

Who could disagree with the statement that our political system is effective?

What the questions suggests is that “No intelligent person can dispute that our political system is effective.”

There are a few problems here.

The main problem with this type of question is that almost always there is someone who will answer in a way you don’t anticipate. Another issue is that often such questions are used in place of careful argument, and they are a poor substitution.

Finally, they take up more space than it would take to simply state the point, and they lack the clarity and conviction of a good declarative statement.

Other interesting articles

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Begging the question fallacy
• Hasty generalization fallacy
• Equivocation fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

• Grammar Checker
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
• Plagiarism Checker
• Citation Generator

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Avoid rhetorical questions. Scribbr. Retrieved September 23, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/avoid-rhetorical-questions/

Is this article helpful?

Shane Bryson

Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

"I thought AI Proofreading was useless but.."

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

Rhetorical Questions

• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Social Poetry Follow Following
• Poetic Drama Follow Following
• Austro-Hungary Follow Following
• Ovidius Follow Following
• Orestes Follow Following
• Practical Criticism Follow Following
• Heloise Follow Following
• Glosa Follow Following
• Event Semantics Follow Following
• Event Structure Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Journals
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024