Clubs

June 26, 2015

Quezada
Rhetoric Definition
Rhetoric is understood to have many definitions. Rhetoric in our belief is a
persuasive interpretation of an idea relayed to an audience. This could be by an intended
audience, secondary, or unintended audience using verbal or written speech. Rhetoric
creates an understanding of the topic that is being discussed. Rhetoric enhances a specific
belief in what is being sent to the audience.
In further detail, rhetoric is composed of different factors such as: persuasion,
dilemma or questions, belief or value system in both the receiver and the sender, and
knowledge. The most important facets of rhetoric to us are persuasion, knowledge, and
belief or value system from both the receiver and the sender. Furthermore, persuasion has
to be strictly involved in rhetoric. The reason why rhetoric has to be persuasive is because
it is more than the concept of persuasion depending on the specific topic. In other words,
when someone is talking to you about a topic, they are persuading you to accept the
theme.
Another factor that we included was the belief or value system in both the
receiver and the sender. For example, in order to be effective both the receiver and sender
have to have the same impression. The sender has to prove the point to the receiver using
knowledge and persuasion to weaken or strengthen a belief. The sender does not have to
make them do something in agreement but at least get the idea into their mind. In this
way the sender will either strengthen or weaken the receivers theory because the
rhetorical process makes it cross their mind. As long as the audience understands the
process of the idea then it is rhetoric. Importantly, there are three types of audiences:
intended, secondary, and unintended. For example, when there is a commercial on TV

Joanna Casillas 7/1/15 11:53 AM

Comment [1]: Rephrase last part of this,
even if its not persuasive explicitly it is
implicitly

Clubs
June 26, 2015
Quezada
about politics, the intended audience would be U.S. citizens or residents that are able to
vote. For secondary audiences an example would be a professor or teacher. For example,
the teacher is the one to give the lesson, the secondary audience will be the teenage
students because they are the ones to be educated. The last example would be the
unintended audience. For instance, when there is a commercial about alcohol, most of
these commercials are meant for legal drinkers, twenty-one and over, but at that moment
the unintended audience are children and under age individuals.
Another element that we decided to also include is knowledge. We decided to
include this because based on the Harpine article that we read knowledge is more about
what is persuaded of our beliefs. By this, we mean in what each as an individual
personally believes in, for example, a person can believe in one thing while the other
believes in another, but both are persuading and justifying to what they believe in. In this
article, it is also mentioned that rhetoric is the study of what is persuasive. Another
important factor that is said in this article is that, rhetoric means creating knowledge.
Also, rhetoric is a creator of what is known by humankind from both technical and social
knowledge, which is why t knowledge is included into our definition of rhetoric.
The last few elements that remain are the ones we excluded. We excluded
dilemma or question. Not all dilemmas or questions are going to be rhetoric. Most
questions that are interpreted in a certain way, arent always going to be actual questions
but more of a rhetorical question. A rhetorical question does not have to be expected to
be answered but makes a point. Dilemmas usually have two practices were neither are
practically acceptable. In conclusion, we believe that the definition for the term rhetoric

Joanna Casillas 7/1/15 12:04 PM

Comment [2]: Unclear

Clubs
June 26, 2015
Quezada
is a persuasive interpretation of an idea to an audience. Which included the support of
persuasion, knowledge, and the belief or value system in both the receiver and sender.