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Chapter 5
Rhetoric, the Art of Persuasion
Chapter Recap
Things to remember from this chapter:
• Persuasion attempts to win someone to one’s own point of view.
• Rhetoric seeks to persuade through the rhetorical force of language and other devices.
• Although it can exert a profound psychological influence, rhetoric has no logical force or
probative value.
• There are a multitude of rhetorical devices in common use; they include:
Euphemisms: seek to mute the disagreeable aspects of something or to emphasize its
agreeable aspects
Dysphemisms: seek to emphasize the disagreeable aspects of something
Weaselers: seek to protect a claim by weakening it
Downplayers: seek to tone down the importance of something
Stereotypes: a cultural belief about a social group’s attributes, usually simplified or
exaggerated
• These devices can affect our thinking in subtle ways, even when we believe we are being
objective.
• Although photographs and other images are not claims or arguments, they can enter into
critical thinking by offering information bearing on an issue. They can also affect us
psychologically in the same way that emotional language affects us, and often even more
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powerfully.
Answers to Text Exercises
Exercise 5-1
1. ▲Downplayer
2. Weaseler
12. Downplayer
13. ▲Euphemism
14. Weaseler
15. Weaseler
Exercise 5-3
1. ▲Stereotype
7. ▲Loaded question
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8. Innuendo
9. Innuendo; loaded questions
10. ▲Innuendo
11. No stereotypes, innuendo, or loaded questions are present.
12. Stereotype
Exercise 5-4
1. ▲Rhetorical analogy
2. Rhetorical analogy
3. Rhetorical definition
12. Rhetorical analogy
Exercise 5-6
1. ▲Twenty percent more than what? Are there products with fake dairy butter?
2. Does “average concert musician” include the many amateurs and semi-professional
musicians who play in small town and informal orchestras? What about university
orchestras? The phrase is too vague to give the claim much importance.
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10. ▲Ridicule/sarcasm
Exercise 5-10
1. ▲Otherizing
9. This could be seen as mild demonizing; it contains elements of otherizing as well.
10. ▲This passage does not fit any of the categories.
11. This passage contains elements especially of otherizing.
12. Fear mongering
13. ▲Primarily otherizing and fostering xenophobia
Exercise 5-11
1. ▲c (probably the main theme here)
2. c
3. b, with elements of a and d
4. ▲c
11. a
12. c
13. ▲a
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Education.
▲Exercise 5-12
1. Hyperbole
2. Dysphemism
▲Exercise 5-13
1. Dysphemism
2. Dysphemism
Exercise 5-14
1. Stereotype
2. Downplayer
▲Exercise 5-15
1. Whether the tax rate on carried-interest is a good thing is the issue being addressed.
2. That it is not a good thing.
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1. ▲“Shamelessly” is a downplayer and also is innuendo; “make sure Americans everywhere
know” is hyperbole and ridicule; the rest of the passage is also hyperbole and ridicule.
2. “Japan, Inc.” is a dysphemism, might also be called a stereotype.
3. No slanter
10. ▲Hyperbole
11. Ridicule; dysphemism
12. Otherizing; demonizing
19. ▲Dysphemism; innuendo (“still isn’t right”); proof surrogate
20. Rhetorical analogy
21. Downplayer
22. ▲“There is every reason to believe that this trend is going to continue,” is a proof
surrogate. There may be such reasons, but none is given or cited in the passage.
Exercise 5-27
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Copyright ©2017 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill
Education.
that only some blondes have more fun? Maybe only good-looking blondes have more fun?
But mightn’t nice-looking brunettes have more fun than homely blondes? This claim is too
vague be taken seriously.
3. We’d have to know how “smarter” was measured before we knew what to make of this.
4. ▲Fine, but don’t infer that they both grade the same. Maybe Smith gives 10 percent A’s
and 10 percent F’s, 20 percent B’s and 20 percent D’s, and 40 percent C’s, whereas Jones
gives everyone a C. Who do you think is the more discriminating grader, given this
breakdown?
5. Without breaking down into categories of crime, this kind of statistic is of little use. In
recent years, violent crime has gone down, although this has not been true of minor
property crimes.
6. More talented in what way? It may be that many classical musicians are unable to
improvise, because they play from written music. (We don’t know this for a fact, of
course.) And lumping all classical and rock musicians together makes the claim useless.
Are we comparing a drummer in an orchestra with a pianist in a popular band?
7. ▲Well, first of all, what is “long–distance”? Second, and more important, how is
endurance measured? People do debate such issues, but the best way to begin a debate on
this point would be by spelling out what you mean by “requires more endurance.”
Exercise 5-28
1. ▲Smarter in what way? This is too vague.
2. One hears this a lot in conversations among faculty. But some idea of how motivation is
measured is required to make much sense of the claim.
3. How will the level of religiousness be measured—by church attendance or by voting for
religious candidates? More religious quantitatively or qualitatively—and either of these
terms would have to be spelled out.
