Basically, styles of communication can be broken down into three main styles: high (formal and serious), middle (clear and simple) and low (using humor and slang). It is word choice, tone and sentence structure that identify a writer's style. The spin or perspective that we as writers use to present our arguments reveals a lot about our beliefs, values and affiliations.
The chapter provides a lot of advice for making arguments more effective. Regarding sentence structure, it suggests varying the length of sentences to keep the audience from getting bored. A long sentence is introduced, containing lots of information and facts about a certain issue, then followed by a much shorter one that tops it all off with a concluding idea or a main claim to the argument. This is just one example.
Additionally, it reminds us to use transitions between sentences and paragraphs to link the ideas and maintain a smooth flow from one statement to the next. Varying the structure of sentences within a paragraph also help hold the audience's interest. Although I will always question whether or not my attempts to use these strategies are effective, I try to do a decent job of keeping my writing interesting.
Punctuation is another tool writers have at their disposal to enhance their style and write better arguments. Semicolons represent a pause that is stronger than a comma but shorter than a period; these can make a passage easier to read. A colon, on the other hand, can be used to introduce a list of similar items. For example, keep these other kinds of punctuation in mind when considering your rhetorical situation: pairs of dashes to highlight a word or phrase in a sentence, exclamation points and question marks to vary your tone, and ellipsis points...to indicate a pause or hesitation.
The next big section of the chapter deals with figurative language, which is divided into two main categories: tropes, which utilize changes in the normal or literal meanings of words or phrases; and schemes, which consist of unique arrangements of words.
The concept of tropes is broken down into some basic, familiar categories:
- Metaphor - equating one thing directly to another to enhance an argument. For example, "I can't hang out with the guys because the ole ball 'n' chain keeps me tied down."
- Simile - comparing things using "like" or "as" - "My son is cute as a button." (I don't know who decided that buttons are cute, but hey, it's a figure of speech!)
- Analogy - comparing two things to show similarity - "Having kids is like living in a college dorm with messy roommates. No matter how much effort you put into cleaning the house, they will always put twice as much into making it messy."
The less familiar (at least to me) kinds of tropes are:
- Signifying - needles the audience with indirection, ironic humor, and a surprise twist at the end.
- Hyperbole - exaggeration through colorful language to achieve a certain effect.
- Understatement - using a muted message to quietly underscore an obvious point, or to mask the serious implications of something urgent or important.
- Rhetorical questions - a question that doesn't need to be answered, but rather makes a point on its own. So what?
- Antonomasia - a title used in substitution for a proper noun. Herman Cain called Nancy Pelosi "Princess Nancy" in an attempt to - I don't know, show the world how much of a sexist idiot he really is?
And finally, the concept of schemes is broken down into the following categories:
- Parallelism - grammatically similar phrases - "by the people, for the people, of the people"
- Antithesis - using parallel structures to show opposite meanings or contrast "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"
- Inverted word order - anything ever said by Yoda.
- Anaphora - effective repetition to make the message flow like the beating of a drum
- Reversed structures - Switching the words in the second half of a sentence to twist the meaning in a clever way - "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
I liked the use of The Boondocks to illustrate the example of signifying, so I'm adding another one here just for fun. What kinds of tropes can you identify?
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