Rhetorical Analysis Terms

Persuasion through appeals to the audience's emotions. 

• Logos
• Pathos
• Immediate Audience
• Inductive Reasoning

Persuasion by means of logic or reasoning. 

• Allusion
• Logos
• Arrangement
• Pathos

Persuasion through convincing the audience of one's moral character. 

• Arrangement
• Ethos
• Tone
• Syllogism

A comparison between two items in using the words like or as. 

• Metaphor
• Logos
• Simile
• Form

What the speaker wants the audience to feel while listening; what he/she wants the audience to do after listening. 

• Purpose
• Form
• Tone
• Analysis

The writer's attitude toward his/her subject. 

• Form
• Tone
• Ethos
• Claim

Repetition of initial consonant letters (or sounds) in two or more different words across successive sentences, clauses, or phrases [ example: "Somewhere at this very moment a child is being born in America. Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family, and a hopeful future." 

• Polysyndeton
• Alliteration 
• Anaphora
• Non sequitur

Repetition of the same group of words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or paragraphs [example: "We are a people in quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community." 

• Polysyndeton
• Ad hominem
• Anaphora
• Hyperbole

Short and amusing or interesting account depicting a real incident or person used to support a speaker's argument. 

• Anecdote 
• Parallelism
• Paradox
• Concession

Ethos:

• Refers to emotions

• Refers to credibility, character, and ethics

• Refers to logic