Question 1

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
We clearly can't trust the television networks, not when they've just spent two days interviewing young children on their feelings about the recent shootings at the elementary school. This attempt to wring every drop of human interest from the tragedy is either frighteningly cynical or criminally thoughtless regarding the damage that can be done both to the children interviewed and to children who see the interviews.

Accepted Answer

"We clearly can't" acts as a potential proof surrogate. "Wring every drop" is an exaggeration; the adverbs "frighteningly" and "criminally" approach hyperbole, especially the latter.

Question 2

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Perhaps the "religious leaders" who testified at the state board of education's public hearing on textbooks think they speak for all Christians, but they do not.

Accepted Answer

Note especially how quotation marks around "religious leaders" serves to question the credentials of those individuals.

Question 3

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Within the context of total ignorance, you are absolutely correct."
-Caption in a National Review cartoon

Accepted Answer

This is the height of downplaying, as it were; although the remark is clearly designed more to amuse than to persuade.

Question 4

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"To Chico's wholesalers and retailers of pornography: do you honestly believe that pornography has no effect on the behavior of people?"
-From an ad in the Chico Enterprise-Record

Accepted Answer