My Understanding of Rhetoric

Rhetoric has a multitude of definitions and different people view rhetoric differently. After reading “What Is Rhetoric? “A Choose Your Own Adventure” Primer by William Duffy and “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking” by Janet Boyd I have gathered my own understanding of what rhetoric is and what it entails.Duffy describes rhetoric as the practice of persuasion and what is used to achieve said persuasion. While Boyd describes rhetoric as something that allows you to write things in particular ways for specific things.My understanding of rhetoric aligns very closely with Boyd’s understanding.I believe rhetoric is the societal understanding of what’s expected in certain events and that the practice of persuasion is one example of rhetoric.I specifically like the examples given by Boyd as they display logos, ethos, and pathos in common scenarios people either experience or witness on television. Her displays also showed different components to rhetoric like jargon, genre, context and tone.These different components were mainly highlighted to me because of the context of what the event was. One example was a eulogy, and I was able to recognize the different components. The jargon was the euphemisms that used to describe death, the genre was the eulogy, and the tone was respectful and personal. All of this connects back to the societal understanding of what is expected in a eulogy.