Nonfiction: Rhetoric and the Essay

This is Unit Twelve of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part one of two: nonfiction, rhetoric and the essay, the last of the prose units. Unit eleven closed fiction and said anaphora would return with a new job. Here is this unit's governing idea, and it pays off on a narrative published to end a trade: a story develops through events and an argument develops through claims and support, so the reading procedure does not change but the thing you track does. Ask what is asserted and what is offered to make it stick. Nonfiction is half the prose band, and the board's own sample set already uses a prose apostrophe. We begin with the anchor's eight chapters on the rhetorical modes, written to teach essay-writing and repurposed here, with that repurposing disclosed, as a reading tool, and with twelve terms the glossary never carries. Then rhetoric, thesis and the three appeals. Then the anchor's test of a sound argument, concession and refutation, and the seven modes as its chapters define them. Last, a way to name a mode from its burden, four devices in their rhetorical jobs, and Equiano, whose narrative is argument in its purpose. By the end you will be able to track claims and know why the chapters are repurposed. To find a thesis and sort the three appeals. To define the seven modes and the concession-refutation pair. And to name a mode from its burden and read Equiano as both narrative and argument.

Five entries to start: nonfiction's share of the band, what changes when a passage argues, the anchor's eight chapters and how this course uses them, and the twelve terms the glossary lacks.

Nonfiction is half the prose band.

AIL 1101 Nonfiction on This Exam

The prose band counts fiction and nonfiction together, so essays, letters, speeches and memoir all sit inside it. The board's own sample set includes a prose apostrophe to Vanity. Nonfiction is not a smaller relative of fiction here; it is half the band's material, and the sample set already uses one.

Track claims, not events.

AIL 1102 What Changes When a Passage Argues

A story develops through events; an argument develops through claims and support. The reading procedure does not change, but the thing you are tracking does. Ask what is being asserted and what is offered to make it stick, rather than what happens next; the procedure holds and the object changes.

Eight chapters, written for writers.

AIL 1103 The Anchor's Eight Chapters

The anchor devotes eight chapters to rhetorical modes: argument, cause and effect, compare and contrast, examples, extended definition, narrative, and process. That is generous coverage, and it was written to teach a student to produce essays rather than to read them, written to produce and not to analyse.

A writer's taxonomy, read backwards.

AIL 1104 Repurposing a Writing Taxonomy

The mode names still answer the useful question of what a passage is doing, so this course uses them as a reading tool. What it does not do is pretend the chapters were built for that. Knowing a source's purpose is part of using it honestly, and the repurposing is disclosed rather than hidden.

Twelve terms, none in the glossary.

AIL 1105 What the Glossary Does Not Carry

The glossary has no headword for rhetoric, essay, thesis, argument, ethos, pathos, logos, rhetorical question, anaphora, concession, refutation or syllogism. Twelve terms, and they are the working vocabulary of the band. This unit supplies them all in their standard senses, since the band's whole vocabulary is absent.

Five entries on the core vocabulary: rhetoric as a neutral craft, the thesis and where to look for it, the three appeals, and the one question that tells them apart.

The craft of persuasion, neutrally.

AIL 1106 Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion: the study of how language is arranged to move an audience. The word is neutral, naming a craft rather than a vice. Calling a passage rhetorical says it is designed to persuade, not that it is dishonest, so the word is not an accusation.

Find the central claim first.

AIL 1107 Thesis

A thesis is the central claim a piece of nonfiction sets out to establish. Finding it is the first move on any argumentative passage, because everything else in the extract is either supporting it, qualifying it, or answering an objection to it; everything else serves the thesis.

First sentence, last sentence, then the rest.

AIL 1108 Where a Thesis Sits

The anchor's argument chapter says the writer presents the thesis in the opening paragraph and then a series of body paragraphs supported by sources. In printed extracts the thesis is often in the first or last sentence, and reading both before the middle is the efficient order; the anchor puts it in the opening.

Credibility, feeling, reason.

AIL 1109 Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Persuasion draws on three appeals: ethos, the speaker's credibility; pathos, the audience's feeling; logos, reason and evidence. None is in the glossary. Most passages use all three, and a question usually asks which one a named sentence is working through, so ask which one a sentence uses.

What reason to believe is offered.

AIL 1110 Telling the Appeals Apart

Ask what the sentence offers as its reason to believe. If it is who the speaker is, that is ethos. If it is how the reader should feel, pathos. If it is a fact, a figure or a logical step, logos. One question, three outcomes, and one question sorts all three.

Nine entries on argument and the modes: the anchor's test of a sound argument, concession and refutation in order, and then argument, cause and effect, compare and contrast, examples, extended definition, narrative and process.

A sound argument answers its opponent.

AIL 1111 The Anchor on a Sound Argument

The argument chapter says a sound argument includes one more feature: it acknowledges the opposing point of view and refutes or rebuts it. It adds that the argument weakens if the reader sees a counter-argument the writer has not addressed. That is a claim about structure a reader can check.

Grant the point, then defeat it.

AIL 1112 Concession and Refutation

Conceding is granting something to the other side; refuting is showing why the other side fails. The glossary names neither. The anchor's uniform example concedes that uniforms stifle expression and cost money, then explains why those points are dubious. Concede, then refute, in that order; the order is the technique.

Presenting, or urging.

AIL 1113 The Argument Mode

The anchor defines the argumentative or persuasive essay as one attempting to convince readers that the writer's position is valid, logical and supported by research. It distinguishes argument, which presents evidence, from persuasion, which urges the reader to adopt the position; the anchor separates the two.

Backward to causes, forward to effects.

AIL 1114 Cause and Effect

The anchor defines the cause-effect essay as one delineating the reasons an event occurred and explaining its consequences. Two directions are available, backward to causes and forward to effects, and a passage may run either way or both, so check which direction the passage runs.

A comparison always argues something.

AIL 1115 Compare and Contrast

The anchor gives the compare-contrast essay as a common assignment setting two things against each other, naming two poems, two characters or two policies among its examples. On a reading paper the question is usually what the comparison is for, since a comparison always argues something; ask what the pairing is for.

Parallel paragraphs, not a sequence.

AIL 1116 Examples

The anchor says an examples essay supports and defends its thesis in a series of paragraphs, each illustrating one way the thesis can be supported. Recognising this shape tells you that the paragraphs are parallel rather than sequential, so their order carries little weight in this shape.

Establishing what a thing is.

AIL 1117 Extended Definition

The anchor defines this as a detailed account of a single term or concept central to a subject, giving what is a black hole and what is symbolism among its examples. A passage of this kind is establishing what something is, and its claims are about boundaries rather than causes.

Personal experience, with a lesson.

AIL 1118 The Narrative Essay

The anchor says a narrative essay recounts a personal experience, usually one that taught the author a lesson. This is the mode where nonfiction most resembles fiction, and unit ten's narration apparatus applies to it unchanged. Equiano's passage in part two is of this kind, and unit ten's apparatus applies.

Sequential, and the order is the content.

AIL 1119 The Process Essay

The anchor gives the process essay as one guiding readers through the stages of completing a task, and notes it is among the most common forms of written discourse. Its structure is sequential, so unlike the examples mode, the order of its paragraphs is the content, the opposite of the examples shape.

Six entries to close: naming a mode from its burden, anaphora and antithesis in their rhetorical jobs, the rhetorical question, the syllogism and its unstated premise, and Equiano introduced.

What must this passage establish.

AIL 1120 Naming a Mode While Reading

Ask what the passage would have to establish to succeed. If causes, it is cause and effect; if a boundary, extended definition; if a sequence, process. The mode follows from the burden the passage has taken on, and that burden is usually visible in its first sentences; the burden names the mode.

The same device, a different job.

AIL 1121 Anaphora as a Rhetorical Device

Anaphora, repeating the same words at the start of successive clauses, appeared in unit eleven describing Gradgrind. In nonfiction it does a different job: it binds a list of claims into one insistence and makes a passage sound spoken. The glossary names it nowhere; descriptive there, persuasive here.

Balance persuades before content does.

AIL 1122 Antithesis in Argument

Antithesis sets opposed ideas in parallel grammar, and unit seven introduced it. In an argument it does the work of a proof by making a contrast look structural rather than asserted. The balance persuades before the content has been examined, which is worth noticing; the structure is doing argument work.

The reader supplies the answer.

AIL 1123 The Rhetorical Question

A rhetorical question is asked for effect rather than for an answer, usually because the answer is meant to be obvious. The glossary has no headword for it. It recruits the reader into supplying the conclusion, which makes the conclusion feel like the reader's own, self-made rather than given.

Two premises, one conclusion.

AIL 1124 The Syllogism

A syllogism reasons from two premises to a conclusion: all of one thing is another, this is one thing, therefore it is the other. The glossary has no headword. Most arguments in prose leave a premise unstated, and finding the unstated one is often where an inference question is going.

Narrative in shape, argument in purpose.

AIL 1125 Equiano and the Testimony Mode

Equiano published his narrative in seventeen eighty-nine, an account of his capture, the crossing and his enslavement, written to be read by people who could end the trade. It is narrative in the anchor's sense and argument in its purpose, and both readings are correct at once; here the governing idea pays off.

That is nonfiction's share, the anchor repurposed, the twelve terms, the appeals, the seven modes and four devices, with the governing idea paid off on Equiano. You can say nonfiction is half the prose band, track claims rather than events, explain that the anchor's eight chapters were written for writers and are repurposed here with the repurposing disclosed, and name twelve terms the glossary lacks. You can define rhetoric as a neutral craft, find a thesis in the first and last sentences, and sort ethos, pathos and logos by asking what reason to believe a sentence offers. You can apply the anchor's test that a sound argument answers its opponent, concede then refute in that order, and define argument, cause and effect, compare and contrast, examples, extended definition, narrative and process from the chapters. And you can name a mode from the burden a passage takes on, use anaphora, antithesis, the rhetorical question and the syllogism in their rhetorical jobs, and read Equiano as narrative in shape and argument in purpose. Part two goes below the decks.