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78.
A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain
any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in
language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational
content.
“I see that Mr. [Clint] Eastwood is up to his expansionist tricks again. Last time, when he
couldn’t get his way with the Carmel [California] Planning Commission, he got himself
elected mayor and fired the members of the commission. That’ll teach ’em to cross Dirty
Harry! And now he wants to build a development of huge estates for his rich and fancy
friends up in the hills, complete with a private and oh-so-exclusive golf course and all the
other luxury amenities that we non-movie stars can hardly imagine. Since Mr. Eastwood
already owns about half of Northern California, I hope somebody stops him before he turns
the bulk of his property into encampments for the rich.”
—Paraphrase of the remarks heard on a talk radio station
Answers will vary
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79.
A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain
any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in
language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational
content.
“The U.S. government (that’s you and me, by the way) is about to give away a resource
that’s worth more than any national park or national monument in the land. If the public
were to hear that Yosemite or Yellowstone National Park were to be handed over, at no
cost, to a major corporation, what do you think would happen? There’d be howls of
protest, of course. But an even bigger giveaway is in the works: the awarding of large
segments of the broadcast spectrum to the broadcasting systems. They’ll be able to turn
huge profits from the new resources. And how much comes back to the public? Not one
dime. Handouts like this raise the level of corporate welfare to mind-stretching new
heights!”
—Letter to a local newspaper
Answers will vary
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80.
A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain
any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in
language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational
content.
“Must the NFL—fat, sassy, the General Motors of professional sports—meet a similar
crisis [to the one the National Basketball Association went through in the eighties] before
it tries to solve its own plague of drugs?
For years, since Don Reese’s personal revelation and charges of league-wide drug
involvement, the NFL has lived under a cloud of suspicion. Initially, it seemed the front
offices, deeply concerned that their image remain pristine, chose to look the other way.
Now they’ve acknowledged the problem, and have chosen to push for testing; this year,
eight franchises asked their players to undergo post-season analysis, but each was
refused.”
—Tom Jackson,
Sacramento Bee
Answers will vary
81.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: dysphemism.
Answers will vary
82.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: loaded question.
Answers will vary
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83.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: proof surrogate.
Answers will vary
84.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: stereotype.
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85.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: euphemism.
Answers will vary
86.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: innuendo.
Answers will vary
87.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: hyperbole.
Answers will vary
88.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: horse
laugh/ridicule/sarcasm.
Answers will vary
89.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: misleading comparison.
Answers will vary
90.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
A new antilock rear brake system has reduced the distance required to stop from fifty
miles per hour by 11 percent.
We presume that the car stops 11 percent more quickly than the same car did without the
new brake system. It is possible that there’s some weaseling going on here if the context
leads one to believe that the car stops 11 percent faster than the competition.
91.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Clinton was a better president than the first Bush.
How so? In what way?
92.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
The county unemployment rate went up 40 percent during our opponent’s administration,
but since we took the reins, it has risen only 35 percent in the same length of time. Clearly,
we have done the better job.
Probably not, as a matter of fact. It’s wise to remember that events at the national level
affect the rate of unemployment at least as much as county administration. More to the
immediate point, if the number of unemployed at the beginning of the speaker’s
administration was the same as it was at the end of the opponent’s, the latter did the
better job. (Say that the number of jobless in the county was 5,000 at the beginning of the
opponent’s administration and 7,000 at the end of it—an increase of 40 percent. If the
number of jobless increased by 35 percent during the speaker’s administration, a total of
2,450 were added to the unemployment rolls during that time, whereas only 2,000 were
added during the opponent’s.)
93.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
The office has become more productive since we changed from independent workstations
to networked computers, although it took a while for the staff to learn how best to make
use of the change.
“Productive” is somewhat vague, although it can be made quite clear.
94.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
The increase in the number and support of conservative think tanks has been substantial
since the mid-1970s. The American Enterprise had twelve resident thinkers when Jimmy
Carter was elected; today it has forty-five. The Heritage Foundation has sprung from
nothing to command an annual budget of $11 million. The budget of the Center for
Strategic and International Studies has grown from $975,000 ten years ago to $8.6 million
today. Over a somewhat longer period, the endowment of the Hoover Institution has
increased from $2 million to $70 million.
—Adapted from Gregg Easterbrook, “Ideas Move Nations”
Although some of the language may sound vague—for example, “sprung from nothing”—
these are all straightforward comparisons with relatively well-identified times in the past.
95.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
You’d be better off if you got more sleep.
Unclear terms of comparison: better off than what? Also, the comparison itself is obscure:
in what way better off—looks, health, attitude, or something else? The terms of the
second comparison are clearer, but it’s still pretty unclear how much additional sleep
counts as more.
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96.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Reading novels is a more productive use of one’s time than going to movies.
Just any old novel? More productive in what sense? Just any movie?
97.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
I’d much rather stay home and read a novel than go to a movie.
This kind of remark is different. The speaker is describing a preference that is clear
enough for nearly any context in which the claim might be made.
98.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Doctor Mohanty is younger than me.
Clear comparison unless the context is unusual.
99.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
The best American film of the 2000s so far is
No Country For Old Men
.
Best in what way?
100.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
In 1985, more people were killed by handguns in the United States than in Great Britain.
Clear comparison. (The score, for the record: United States, 10,728; Great Britain, 8.)
101.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Beer drinkers are 23.2 times more likely than teetotalers to have unhappy marriages.
What’s a beer drinker? Anybody who ever drinks a beer? How are unhappy marriages
distinguished from happy ones (or so-so ones)? Could such a comparison really be
accurate to a decimal place? This isn’t a very helpful statistic.
102.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
“The answer to the question, ‘How are blacks doing in America?’ is ‘Better than ever
before.'”
—Ronald Reagan, on the first national observation of the birthday of Martin Luther King,
Jr.
In what way better? Income? (The median family income for black families was higher
when Reagan made his comment than it was in 1968, the year Martin Luther King, Jr., was
killed. It was also further behind the median family income for whites than in 1968.)
103.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
NCAA rules for recruiting athletes are broken more frequently by Division 1 schools than
by Division 2 schools.
This could mean either that the typical Division 1 school breaks rules more frequently than
the typical Division 2 school or that the aggregate of Division 1 violations is greater than
the aggregate of Division 2 violations.
104.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Mitt Romney ran a more negative campaign in 2008 than did John McCain.
“Negative campaign” is vague.
105.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Chrysanthemums that have been pinched back produce bigger blooms than those that
have not.
This seems clear and reasonable. Most people who would be interested in the claim would
know what “pinched back” means.
106.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
The North Koreans still have a stronger military force than the South Koreans.
“Stronger” could mean either bigger in terms of more troops, or better armed, or both, or
maybe something else yet.
107.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Compact discs produce a clearer sound than do vinyl records.
We don’t have any trouble with this, although what counts as a “clearer sound” may be
different for different listeners. (Some music critics find vinyl records “warmer” than CDs.
We don’t know what that means either.)
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108.
Provide a critical assessment of the following quotation. Discuss rhetorical flourishes and
slanting techniques, if any, including otherizing, demonizing, fear or hate mongering, and
fostering xenophobia. Some passages may fit more than one category.
“I think President Obama is the most radical president this nation’s ever seen. And in
particular, I think he is a true believer in government control of the economy and of our
everyday lives. In my judgment, we are facing what I consider to be the epic battle of our
generation, quite literally the battle over whether we remain a free market nation.”
—Ted Cruz, found at Brainy quotes
Answers will vary
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109.
Provide a critical assessment of the following quotation. Discuss rhetorical flourishes and
slanting techniques, if any, including otherizing, demonizing, fear or hate mongering, and
fostering xenophobia. Some passages may fit more than one category.
“Dear Marriage Supporter,
Since the age of the French Revolution, the phrase ‘Let them eat cake’ has been used as a
symbol of out-of-touch, tyrannical elites or aristocracies. The phrase comes from a
popular anecdote that a monarch (often identified as Marie Antoinette), when told that the
peasants had no bread to eat and were starving, proposed this as the solution: ‘Let them
eat cake.’
Well, ironically in our own day the phrase is once again a fitting symbol of an out-of-touch,
tyrannical government: this time in the form of a Colorado Judge who ruled that a baker in
Denver must provide wedding cakes to same-sex couples… or else pay the price.”
—Brian Brown, President NOM [National Organization of Marriage],
http://www.nomblog.com/38615/
Answers will vary
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110.
Provide a critical assessment of the following quotation. Discuss rhetorical flourishes and
slanting techniques, if any, including otherizing, demonizing, fear or hate mongering, and
fostering xenophobia. Some passages may fit more than one category.
“We couldn’t get the truth to the American people.
You and I know that that’s extremely difficult to do where our newspapers are owned by
out-of-state interests. Newspapers which are run and operated by left-wing liberals,
Communist sympathizers, and members of the Americans for Democratic Action and other
Communist front organizations with high sounding names.
However, we will not be intimidated by the vultures of the liberal left-wing press. We will
not be deceived by their lies and distortions of truth. We will not be swayed by their brutal
attacks upon the character and reputation of any honest citizen who dares stand up and
fight for liberty.
memory of their predecessors—such men of character as Henry Grady, Joel Chandler
Harris, and Clarke Howell, men who made the name of the Atlanta Constitution familiar in
every household throughout the South. They are not worthy to shine the shoes of those
great men.”
—George Wallace, The Civil Rights Movement fraud, sham and hoax speech July 4, 1964,
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964WALLACE.html
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111.
Provide a critical assessment of the following quotation. Discuss rhetorical flourishes and
slanting techniques, if any, including otherizing, demonizing, fear or hate mongering, and
fostering xenophobia. Some passages may fit more than one category.
“Rogues’ gallery: Snowden joins long list of notorious, gutless traitors fleeing to Russia
If fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden were to request and receive asylum from
Russia, he would find himself in dubious company.
Refuge in Russia would put Snowden on a shameful list that includes notorious assassin
Lee Harvey Oswald, who aimed a rifle out of a Dallas book depository building and
assassinated President Kennedy as his motorcade passed by in 1963.”
—Leonard Greene, June 24, 2013. Headline and article in the New York Post.
http://nypost.com/2013/06/24/rogues-gallery-snowden-joins-long-list-of-notorious-
gutless-traitors-fleeing-to-russia/
Answers will vary
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112.
Provide a critical assessment of the following quotation. Discuss rhetorical flourishes and
slanting techniques, if any, including otherizing, demonizing, fear or hate mongering, and
fostering xenophobia. Some passages may fit more than one category.
“…In this 8-year period, gigantic genocide was carried out over the Bulgarian nation. At
the insistence of foreign, hostile-to-Bulgaria factors, the population of our people is
projected to remain 3.5 to 4 million residents. This is Bulgarophobe’s plan, and this plan is
realized in front of us. If someone asks how, I will show him: when the right of the
Bulgarians to be masters in their own country became stolen, when they will be left to die
in misery and lack of medicines and medical services, by being subjected to terror by
Gypsy bands, who everyday disrupt, rob, rape, and maltreat the Bulgarian nation, after
which nobody deliberately seeks out the crimes committed by them, because this is the
directive outside, not to investigate the crimes of these minority groups. The goal is for the
Bulgarians to live in fear, to be discouraged, crushed, and submissive. Hundreds of
thousands of chronically ill are dying right now because mob companies of the previous
cabinet make dirty deals with the life and health of the Bulgarians. Because relatives of
the previous Minister of Environment are trading with medicaments for cancer, and
therefore there are not any medicaments, and hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians with
cancer face a slow, excruciating agony.”
—Volen Nikolov Siderov, July 11th, 2005, Bulgaria.
quoted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volen_Siderov
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114.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: downplayers.
Answers will vary
115.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: rhetorical definition.
Answers will vary
116.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: rhetorical explanation.
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117.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: repetition.
Answers will vary
118.
Construct eight sentences, each illustrating a use of this slanter: significant mention.
Answers will vary
119.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Adolescents face more problems than adults.
What problems? Health issues? Socializing problems? This is vague.
120.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Piranhas are more dangerous than sharks could ever be!
More dangerous in what sense? More dangerous to whom? What is considered
dangerous?
121.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Men are less efficient than women.
What is “efficient?” In what domain? There is ambiguity in this comparison.
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122.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Soccer players are more athletic than basketball players.
What is “more athletic?” This comparison is vague.
123.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
People who listen to classical music are more productive.
More productive than whom? Does classical music increase productivity?
124.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
I cook better than my friends.
What is considered “better cooking?”
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125.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
Food tastes better with butter than with margarine.
What is considered “better taste?” This statement is ambiguous.
126.
Provide a critical assessment of the following comparative general claim:
People are happier on Fridays than on Mondays.
This is subjective. Happiness can have many connotations. This statement is vague.