"An argument rests on what the audience believes. Not on what is true." (P. 74)

People are always thinking about choice that would be convenient to them. Because of this, a person who seems to be interested in others' wellbeing instead of his/her own, stands out and will probably earn more support than one who seeks his/her own wellbeing. It is hard to have no opinion at all concerning a certain situation. So, although your thoughts and decisions will obviously be biased, pretend they're not. For example, the young lady in the picture above seems very concerned with helping the older woman. However, what if this worry is just an act and she is only helping her so that the old lady will give her something in return? Doesn't really look like it, but that's the point: Make your act as believable as possible. 

Jay Heinrichs mentions three tricks in order for your audience believe that you are completely impartial and just pursuing their own interests:

1. "Seem to deal reluctantly with something you are eager to prove." (P. 73)

2. "Act as if the choice you advocate hurts you personally." (P. 74)

3. "Make it seem you have no tricks." (P. 75)

When you act as if you arrived at a decision after giving it much thought, the audience is much more likely to follow your path than if you show that you automatically made a decision. Looking at the choices as if you were unsure of what to decide, and then walking through your thoughts until you reached your final decision is just like leading your audience to your final choice and will most likely work on them.

It is one thing to have the audience believe your decision will not benefit you in any way, but to have them believe it may harm you will make them believe in it even more. In addition, not only will this most likely have them choose your choice, but it may also improve the image they have of you. You are portraying yourself as a completely selfless person, who only cares about the wellbeing of others. Due to this, they may begin to trust you with other decisions. 

Above all, it is imperative that nobody realizes what you're trying to do. Seeming reluctant and acting as if a choice harms you, will most likely hide your motives from your audience. But there is actually a technique that will minimize the notoriousness of your ulterior motives: Act nervous. If the audience thinks you are vulnerable, the idea of you trying to fool them won't even cross their minds. They will also be to busy worried for you and rooting for your success. Just like this, you have set a link in which the audience supports you. 

All of these techniques work. Each one is better under certain circumstances, so by having the three of them, you have the key to success in about every situation. By using them adequately, you'll be soon able to manipulate people and no one will even realize so. 

"That's practical wisdom: Flexibly wise leadership. All great heroes have it." (P. 68)

From a young age, school has taught us all about facts. It doesn't really teach us how to solve real-life problems but rather those in books. Thanks to school, we know all about what happened in World War II, how to replace "x" with a number, etc. This is called being book smart. To be honest, anybody can be book smart. It's simply about knowing facts. However, it is not very often that solving for "x" saves your life. This is where being street smart comes along. Not everybody is street smart, but it may be even more important than being book smart.

Being street smart is being able to make practical decisions. All the knowledge on science, mathematics, history, etc. won't stop you from getting mugged. However, being street smart will help you know that it is better to wear inconspicuous clothing and to keep your phone hidden from sight when walking through a dangerous street. So while being book smart may help you get a job, being street smart will help you live.

Teachers continually say that if you don't get good grades, you won't do very well in life. But there is so much more to life than grades. My uncle, for example, graduated from CNG with the second lowest ICFES score in the grade (the lowest one being his best friend's). With that, one might infer that he went on to become a low-payed employee, because, who would hire someone who got a low ICFES score, right? Well, he went on to become one of the most important architects in Boston. He was nice to people and knew what to do in certain situations, which made them like him and hire him, despite the fact that he didn't have the best grades in school.So there's more to life than factual knowledge.

It is no wonder then that being street smart classifies as part of ethos in rhetoric. Since not everyone can be street smart, people look up to those who can. They trust them, because they seem smarter when it comes to life. Being street smart and rhetoric, I believe, actually go hand in hand. If you're street smart, you can have those who are book smart do what you want them to. And this is rhetoric. So just by acting as if you know how to solve a problem, you'll become a leader, and people will be behind you for guidance, right there where you want them to be.

"You don't even have to do what your heart knows is right; you simple must be seen to have the 'right' values..." (P. 57)

People commonly ask us not to judge, but truth is, we're judging others all the time. When we see someone, we judge him/her and automatically decide whether we like that person or not. Some people are more attracted to poised and elegant - looking people, while others bash these and prefer someone who appears more down to earth and simple.

Whenever we speak to a new person or audience, they are immediately judging us. They might be evaluating the shoes we're wearing, how our hair looks, whether we're "pretty" or "ugly,"the sound of our voice, our gestures... everything -not to make you nervous, just making my point clear. So it is important to appeal to them the instant you walk into the room. That's why it's so crucial to know your audience: You'll know what it is they like, and this way, make it hard for them to dislike you. This is decorum.

However, putting all your efforts on your looks won't do. People might like you after judging your appearance... but they will not trust you that easily. In order for your audience to be approachable, to be focused on what you're saying, and to like and believe in you, you must keep three concepts in mind: Selflessness, practical wisdom, and virtue. Selflessness makes the audience believe that everything you do, you do it for them, and this way, they'll develop a liking towards you. If "you appear to know the right thing to do on every occasion" (P. 56), they'll admire you and be attentive to what you're saying. These are both not that difficult to manage, but then there's values. You have to know your audience and uphold their values. You can't approach a group of nuns and begin talking about your wild Friday night... they won't like it, and they won't like you. Similarly, you can't approach a group of scientists and talk to them about how much you love God. They'll lose all interest in you and won't like you very much. So talk to people about what they like and approve of and you'll earn their attention and respect. It doesn't matter if you don't exactly believe in what your audience does, "this kind of persuasive virtue does not require purity of soul and universal goodness." (P. 57) So my advice to you is (unless you're a really bad liar), if you are completely against your audience's values, just fake it until you're fooling even yourself.

The Final One

At 8:00 PM the third and final Presidential Debate began. Both candidates sat in front of the camera and just by looking at them, I was sure that they would be using rhetoric from then on. President Obama and Romney both appealed to ethos just through appearance. Both of them wore American flag-shaped pins and in addition, Obama wore a blue tie while Romney wore one that was mostly red. To any spectator, this would just be another tie they're wearing on another day of their very public lives. On the contrary: Since they're always watched and analyzed by more people than they're aware of (I doubt they even imagine they're being examined by around thirty Colombian sixteen - year olds), they must strive to maintain the best reputation possible. So anything they do or choose is far from arbitrary. And so I realized, the color of their ties represents their political party: Red stands for Republican and Blue for Democrat. So right there, even before they began talking, both of them are already using ethos.

 Obama also uses ethos when he says that that "as commander in chief" he "must keep the Americans safe." By beginning this sentence this way, he is subtly yet powerfully stating that he is no other than the one with the power right now, which gives him credibility and authority. In addition, with the last part of this sentence, he is appealing to pathos. By saying he will protect Americans, he is establishing a sort of paternal relationship with his audience, this way making them trust him and feel safe with him.

There's also plenty of logos in this debate. To go against Romney when he defended raising the military budget, Obama used facts and stated that the US currently spends more on the military than the combined military expenditures of the ten countries that follow the United States. This credible fact obviously shocks the audience and makes them lean a little closer towards Obama. However, Romney also succeeds in using logos. After explaining that education is crucial in order to have entrepreneurship and a successful economy in the future, he utilizes logos and adds that Massachusetts, the state he governed, ranked first out of all fifty states in terms of science and math education grades four through eight.

Although both ethos and logos are used by Obama and Romney, they both use pathos the most. Romney makes use of it while he arguments why terrorist should be killed: He makes allusion to many terrorist attacks including 9/11, which I consider to be America's soft spot. Just by mentioning the terrible even of September 11, 2001, thousands of victims or sympathetic individuals are leaning towards Romney. Also, when Romney says that the US "can't kill [its] ways out of this mess,"he appeals to pathos, as people rethink the situation and begin to believe (whether it's actually true or not) that the solution isn't murder.

Obama also counters Romney's arguments with pathos several times. He stated that Gaddafi "had more American blood on his hands than any individual other than Osama bin Laden." By saying this, he is again earning the hearts of tons of Americans who suffered due to Gaddafi's actions and seek justice. He also uses pathos when he says he pictured himself as one of the relatives of those who were attacked. This way, he is sympathizing with his audience and portraying himself as a down to earth man who cares about those who suffer.

So when it comes to speaking about themselves, they are both very eloquent. However, they were not as effective when it came to interacting with the opponent. They constantly interrupted each other, made faces of disapproval  and even got to the point of laughing at the other's argument. The both used forensic language in order to blame the other and bring him down. Obama blamed Romney several times of having a mistaken idea and blames him of contradicting himself on opinions and issues. Romney also blames Obama of not keeping his promises from the past election.

It's difficult, knowing how much good things to say about oneself and how much to blame the opponent. It must be just the exact amount: Not too much to have the audience realize what you're doing, but not so little that you have valuable opportunities go to waste. It's a hard decision, but rhetoric definitely makes it easier.

"Keep your argument in the right tense." (p. 37)

Our life basically consists of words. We're either thinking, talking, or dreaming, and all of those usually include language. So it's unbelievable, after being so used to words and basing my life around them, to realize that they can be a lie. By using rhetoric we can completely alter our words, and then everything becomes a lie.

It's not only by being subtle that we are able to manipulate people with our words, but also by changing our verb-tense. If we use past-tense rhetorically, it's called forensic and its purpose is to place blame. When we use present-tense, it's called demonstrative and it's used to discuss values. And finally, when we use future-tense, it's denominated as deliberative and is utilized when referring to choices.

So evidently, when trying to change somebody's mind, it is best not to use forensic. Sentences as simple as "Where you the one who left the light on?"  not to mention "You left the light on," automatically make their audiences raise their guard. Subconsciously, with sentences like these, people feel victimized and become pretty defensive. So the best way to reach an agreement is definitely not through blame.

Sentences in present-tense, though not as anger-awakening, are not the best way to reach an agreement either. They simply either state or question somebody's morals. "Do you approve of abortion?" or "You approve of abortion,"are just phrases about somebody's values and beliefs. It's not trying to convince them of anything, so it will do barely any good when it comes to persuasion.

However, there's deliberative, and that one is they key to have someone do things your way. Instead of focusing on the past or the present, this technique allows you to focus on the short and long-term benefits your choice would bring. "You would be able to carry out a much safer lifestyle and spend more time with your family." Don't you think this statement in the future-tense does a lot more to convince someone to move than these would: "I don't understand why you chose to live under such dangerous situations," or "Are you comfortable living this way?" With the first one, the person will obviously feel blamed and will not feel inclined to agree with you. With the second one, if the person answers "no", then s/he will start rethinking and consider your choice, but if s/he answers "yes,"it automatically put an abrupt stop to your argument.

Just by knowing that conviction is easier with the help of the use of deliberative rhetoric, everything becomes so much easier. It simply consists on implying that as long as your choice is supported, the future will be better. If I knew this before, this could have helped me with so many conviction situations I failed at. It could have aided me in getting my parents to buy me toys when I was younger, as Nanda explains in her own blog entry, or even to persuade my parents to let my go to certain places or do things they're reluctant to allow me to do in Bogota (like walking through the streets). But now, after learning this shot and simple, yet very beneficial trick, I'll be sure to use it and do my best until I get it to work.

"The happy ones argued. The unhappy ones fought." (P. 16)

I bet we all know our share of people who "win" arguments by simply talking louder than their opponent or by intimidating them. However, if this is the method they use, it can't be called and argument: it's a fight. And they are not even actually winning. As Jay Heinrichs puts it in his book Thank You for Arguing, "aggressive loudmouths often win temporary victories through intimidation or simply by talking us to exhaustion; but the more subtle, eloquent approaches lead to long term commitment." So it's not having the wittiest comebacks or having the other person shut up what makes you a winner: It's manipulating your opponent without them even realizing so.

Heinrichs supplies the reader with methods that seem really simple. There's a tactic composed of three steps:
1. "Stimulate your audience's emotions." (P. 22)
2. "Change its opinion." (P. 22)
3. "Get it to act." (P. 22)
It's pretty straightforward: Change your audience's mood so that the likelihood of it conceding will increase, then act and get it to think what you want it to, and then actually make it do what you want it to. Three simple steps that, if done correctly, will allow you to control the person.

Seems easy, doesn't it? But once I began thinking of how I would use these techniques, it got difficult. How exactly could I make my audience feel and think what I want them to, without them being aware of my manipulation? And even more difficult: How would I then have them do exactly what I want them to? If in the first place it wasn't their idea, if I make one mistake, they'll change their minds. You never actually say what you want from them. Instead, you must imply it with such subtlety that they'll end up believing they made up their minds on their own. I really want to learn how to do this, though. So for now I'll start with trivial situations and as I improve (hopefully I will) I'll allow myself to go on to more important, life-changing persuasions.

Heinrichs also provides another method to use once the argument is already taking place. It actually consists on "losing" the argument, as surprising and illogical as that may seem. It consists on "conceding your opponent's point to get what you want." (P. 20) That way, your opponents will feel they won and without being aware of it, they will let you win. This sounds easy as well, right? It is much simpler than the other method, but I still find it a bit complicated. Although it's easier than fooling someone into believing they came up with an idea (which, I must add, sounds a bit like the movie Inception) it is still difficult to hold in all your anger. You might be dying to prove the person wrong and you might have hundreds of comebacks lined-up in your head, but trying to beat the person won't make him/her be nicer to you. On the contrary, they'll become hostile and deny you what you want. So although you'll win for a moment, you won't in the long run. Due to this, you must keep all the banter to yourself and concede to their point. But it's hard for stubborn people (like me) to admit they are wrong... even if it will benefit them later. But that's something  we must get used to, I guess, and learn that by "suffering" a bit for a few seconds, you'll end up winning exactly what you wanted.

Although these methods are pretty complicated to me, it is obvious that Heinrichs masters them perfectly. It's the book's second chapter, so he's still proving the usefulness of rhetoric in order to make sure his audience is fully interested. I assumed he would use rhetoric to convince us, but I was shocked at how subtly he used it. I barely even realized it. He begins saying "Learn [rhetoric's] tools and you'll become the face to watch. The rising star." (P. 18) Although by then I was already interested in rhetoric, these sentences enthralled me. I continued reading: "You'll mold the minds of men and women to your will, and make any group yield to the dominion of your voice." (P. 18) I began thinking of how great this sounded. And then it hit me: He was using seduction! He was displaying his topic as irresistible as possible, and it was working perfectly. Even after realizing that he was using rhetoric on his audience, it still worked on me. That's how good he is, and I hope I'll be able to become this good later on.

"Believing we were Jewish offered me the possibility that my parents were still in hiding, that we were all in hiding, that all the underground emotional tunnels in our house were not just figments of my imagination (P. 22)."

Can you imagine your childhood and everything you thought you knew about your family turned out to be a lie? Helen Fremont (author of After Long Silence) lived more than thirty years without knowing who she truly was. She was raised a Catholic and was told her grandmother died in a bomb explosion, but turns out this is all a lie.

Fremont describes certain events of her childhood, this way setting a background and also giving hints as to what will happen further on in the story. However, she doesn't narrate what happens year by year, or else it would get pretty boring. Instead, she skips twenty years into the future, and starts recounting bits of when she was thirty and began uncovering information. She does this transition in time in a very smooth way. After giving many hints from her childhood she says: "It never occurred to me that someone in my family might actually be Jewish, until a few years ago, when I was already in my thirties and working as a public defender in Boston (P.20)." If it weren't for the fact that she's so much older, the skipping of time would even be imperceptible. It's interesting how she uses time in this memoir. She gives just the right amount of details and then skips forward, never boring the reader. This memoir is, so far, all in past-tense. By writing it this way, it never seems choppy, as it could sound if she were writing in present-tense with bits in past-tense.

I really like the way Fremont writes. She doesn't just tell how someone looks, how something is done, etc. but actually describes it. In other words, she doesn't use "meaningless words" (term from and essay by George Orwell titled "Politics and the English Language." It refers to words that are relative and don't have the same meaning to everybody). There's a part in the memoir, for example, in which Helen is introduced to a woman. Instead of only saying she's "pretty" or "ugly," Fremont describes the woman as a "statuesque high-heeled, slim-hipped woman... When she laughed, her yellow hair seemed to break around her shoulders like waves on a beach (P. 21)." By describing her this way, Fremont is allowing the reader to make his/her own judgements of the woman. In my opinion, she's pretty. But there might be others who disagree, thanks to how the author's technique.

Later on, Helen is talking to her mom while the latter prepared Christmas dinner. Once again, instead of telling, Fremont shows. She could have just said that her mother was preparing the turkey, but she goes for a more vivid description as she writes: "My mother was hacking up the turkey now, twisting its legs with her bare hands. The bone and cartilage broke, and steam poured from the leg sockets (P.23)." With this graphic description, the reader is able to create a mental image of what everything looked like, and Fremont's neutral tone also allows the audience to build their own outlook on what is being described.

Once again, Helen Fremont ends a chapter with important and surprising information. Among the last paragraphs of the second chapter she writes: "My grandmother was Jewish. My grandmother, a woman named Helen Buchman under the Nazi occupation, was writing a postcard that would be read and stamped by the censor, writing for a shred of hope, the trappings of a Catholic cover (P. 28)." This is when Helen Fremont actually discovers and is sure that she is Jewish. The proof has been revealed, and now the best part begins - I hope: She will begin to dig back and discovers Holocaust secrets from her family's past.

"From the outside we looked like a typical happy family; it was an image we worked hard to achieve (P. 14)"

Whether a book is good or not does not only depend on what it is about, but how everything is narrated. This includes the types of words the author uses. Helen Fremont's diction is definitely informal. Her vocabulary isn't very complex, which makes the memoir easy to understand. However, there's something that sets this memoir apart from other books with informal diction: While she mostly uses regular vocabulary, Fremont adds a childish word or term here and there throughout the chapter. She probably does this to strengthen the reader's understanding that she was only a kid when all this happened.

Instead of saying that her friends told her her parents had a strange accent in English, she says they told her her "parents spoke funny English (P. 7)." If you're a grown-up, you won't describe the way somebody talks as "funny." But kids use this adjective to describe about anything, from the taste of food to a smell, and so this time she uses it to describe the way someone talks. Also, when Fremont is describing her dad, she says he was "twice as tall as other daddies (P. 9)." "Daddy" is a word most commonly used by little kids, so the fact that she's using it helps the reader understand that she's talking about when she was a little girl.

Throughout the first chapter, Helen Fremont narrates several experiences from her life. She doesn't directly give details about what will happen later on in the book, but gives hints instead. This way she gives just enough information to keep the reader intrigued. For example, as she talks about her house, she says, "We moved in just after I was born, after they'd [her parents] changed their names to Bocard and settled into their new American identity (P.10)."The reader has no idea why Helen's parents changed their identities, but now s/he has an idea of what will happen next and will keep on reading to find out the details.

Helen gives many hints throughout the first chapter. Just as I was beginning to feel afraid that she might keep doing this for long enough for it to get boring, she finished the chapter in what I consider the perfect way: "What I didn't realize was that all our names had been recently invented. My mother had survived the war using a false name and papers; she had escaped from the Nazis dressed as an Italian soldier, under yet another name and false papers. My parents had changed our family name upon applying for citizenship in the United States. To this day I don't even know what my mother's real name is (P. 18)." And just like that, the first chapter is over, leaving the reader hanging.

"Our Father which art in heaven.”

Since around third grade, English teachers have taught us how to write. Ever since, we have been graded not only on what we write but on how we write it. Should this be done, though? Should someone score you on whether or not they like how you're saying something? This is a debate which has been going on for a while. It is dealt with in the New York Times article, "Which Language Rules to Flout. Or Flaunt?"In this written debate, Robert Lane Greene and Bryan A. Garner exhibit their ideas and the arguments behind them.

It is interesting how although both of these men have the same purpose (to convince the audience of the veracity of their points), the ways in which they try do achieve it are completely different from each other. They do both use logos: Garner does so when quoting various men who have said native speakers can't make grammatical mistakes, and so does Lane when he uses writers as examples or explains "Our Father which art in heaven."  However, the rest is completely different. Garner criticizes Lane a lot. I guess he's trying to win the argument by putting Lane down. This is evident when he says: "...in your [Lane's] book, “You Are What You Speak,” you [Lane] tendentiously call prescriptivists “language cranks,” “oddballs,” “declinists,” “self-appointed language guardians,” and “scolds” who habitually fly into “spittle-flecked fury.” By saying this, he is simply pointing out Lane's mistakes while not saying anything to actually support his own argument. Garner also uses a derogatory tone towards Lane. He explains why what Lane says is wrong and then goes on to explain why he's right and adds "as you'd [Lane] surely notice if you took a moment to analyze it." By saying it this way, he is implying that Lane didn't actually even try to decipher what is being said, thus in a way insulting him (In the end, it turns out Lane is right, which makes this insulting sentence funny as it turns against him).

Lane is completely different. He starts off by complimenting Garner's book, which his opponent never does. In addition, instead of trying to prove his points by putting-down his opponent, he uses the "how to the what." He is not only saying that sentences can begin with "so," "but," "and," etc, but he is starting his own sentences this way as well. He does so expertly when he tells Garner, "You say that for a century the best prescriptivists (see Vocabulary below) have dismissed nonrules like “don’t begin a sentence with a conjunction,” “don’t split an infinitive” or “don’t end a sentence in a preposition,” and the next sentence, to make his point even more powerful, he begins with a "but."

After reading both of their arguments, although I must say the way Lane arguments is mucho more convincing, I am not solely descriptivist (see Vocabulary below) nor only a prescriptivist: I think it depends. It would be a huge generalization if I said all errors are either wrong or right. I believe it depends on the register. If you're talking or writing in a familiar register, it's fine to include slang wherever you want, and if it's informal, it's ok to do it every here and there. However, if it's formal or ceremonial, I believe slang or words such as "ain't" are inadequate. 

However, unless a teacher specifies that s/he expects a paper to have a formal or ceremonial register, s/he shouldn't mark a student down because she doesn't approve of the word s/he uses. That's the great thing about writing: Everybody has their own way and style. So, who is the teacher to force you to get rid of your style? I'm not only referring to slang, but also to simple style techniques people have. A teacher shouldn't lower students' grades because the start a sentence with a conjunction, or because they replace "I hope" with "I hope." These are all examples of how something is being said, and, on most occasions  teachers shouldn't interfere with this. 

However, there's a difference between not liking how something is being said and not being able to understand what is being said. When one is unable to comprehend what the writer is trying to say, it is no longer a matter of how it is said, but of what is being said. Although most words should be allowed, students should not be given enough liberty to decide whether to use punctuation or not, when it is obviously needed. Lane at one point implies that apostrophe's aren't that important. But apostrophe's are essential to understanding the writer (differentiate you're and your) , and so are comma's, periods, colons, etc.

So there is no way for me to choose a side. Language is too broad for there to be only one way to look at it and to have no exceptions to rules. So although I have stated my views on all of this, there will obviously be exceptions to what I have said. 


Vocabulary (for a better understanding of the article):
Descriptivist: describing"language as it is used."

Prescriptivist: focusing "on how language should be used."

Dogmatic: inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true.

Egalitarians: relating to the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

Maladroit:ineffective or bungling; clumsy.

Berating: scold or criticize (someone) angrily.