sat essay rhetorical devices

SAT Essay: Analyzing Rhetorical Devices

The SAT Essay is not just about expressing your opinion; it also assesses your ability to analyze and critique the rhetorical elements of a written argument. To excel in this section, it's crucial to understand and identify rhetorical devices and effectively incorporate them into your essay. In this article, we'll explore strategies for analyzing rhetorical devices in the context of the SAT Essay.

 Understanding Rhetorical Devices

Rhetorical devices are persuasive techniques that authors use to convey their message and engage their audience. These devices can include:

Appeals to the author's credibility and trustworthiness.

Appeals to the reader's emotions, aiming to evoke sympathy, anger, or other emotional responses.

Appeals to reason and logic, using evidence and sound reasoning to support the argument.

- Analogies: 

Comparing two things to make a point or illustrate an idea.

- Metaphors: 

Implied comparisons that go beyond a simple analogy, often using figurative language.

- Similes: 

Explicit comparisons using "like" or "as" to highlight similarities between two things.

- Repetition: 

Repeating words, phrases, or ideas for emphasis.

- Parallelism: 

Balancing and repeating syntactical structures to create a rhythmic and harmonious effect.

- Rhetorical Questions: 

Questions posed for persuasive effect, not necessarily requiring an answer.

- Hyperbole: 

Exaggerated statements used for emphasis.

Expressing an idea through language that signifies the opposite for humorous, dramatic, or poignant effect.

- Imagery: 

Creating vivid mental pictures through sensory language.

 Analyzing Rhetorical Devices in the SAT Essay

When you encounter an SAT Essay passage, you should be prepared to identify and analyze the use of rhetorical devices. Here's how to do it effectively:

1. Read Actively: 

As you read the passage, be attentive to any use of rhetorical devices. Underline, highlight, or make marginal notes to identify where and how they are employed.

2. Determine the Author's Purpose: 

Consider why the author uses a specific rhetorical device. Is it to build credibility (ethos), evoke emotion (pathos), or make a logical argument (logos)?

3. Evaluate Effectiveness: 

Assess the impact of the rhetorical devices. How do they contribute to the author's argument or message? Do they enhance the overall persuasiveness of the passage?

4. Provide Specific Examples: 

When writing your essay, refer to specific instances of rhetorical devices from the passage. Quote or paraphrase these examples to support your analysis.

5. Explain the Significance: 

Don't just identify the device; explain its significance. How does it advance the author's argument or influence the reader's response?

6. Consider Counterarguments: 

Address the possibility that the author's use of rhetorical devices may have limitations or counterarguments. Analyze how the devices could be interpreted differently.

7. Use the Three Rhetorical Appeals: 

Incorporate ethos, pathos, and logos into your analysis when appropriate. Discuss how the author leverages these appeals to persuade the audience.

 Incorporating Rhetorical Analysis into Your Essay

In the SAT Essay, you are expected to incorporate your analysis of rhetorical devices into your essay. Here's how to do it effectively:

- Introduction: 

In your introduction, provide a brief overview of the passage and the author's argument. Mention that you will analyze the use of rhetorical devices to evaluate the author's persuasive techniques.

- Body Paragraphs: 

Dedicate a paragraph to each major rhetorical device you identify. Begin by presenting the device's context and purpose in the passage, then discuss its effectiveness. Support your analysis with direct quotations or paraphrases from the text.

- Conclusion: 

Summarize your analysis of the rhetorical devices and their impact on the author's argument. Conclude by reinforcing your evaluation of the overall effectiveness of the passage.

 Practice and Review

To hone your skills in analyzing rhetorical devices, practice with sample SAT Essay passages and analyze the devices used. Review sample essays that effectively incorporate rhetorical analysis, paying attention to how the analysis is structured and presented.

 Conclusion

Analyzing rhetorical devices is a crucial skill for success on the SAT Essay. Understanding the various rhetorical techniques authors use and being able to evaluate their effectiveness is key to crafting a strong essay. By actively reading passages, identifying devices, explaining their significance, and skillfully incorporating rhetorical analysis into your essay, you can demonstrate your ability to critically assess written arguments and provide a well-rounded analysis.

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Absolutely Essential SAT Writing Strategies

tl;dr: The SAT essay is graded on three metrics — Reading, Analysis, and Writing — each on a scale from 1-4. To score an 8/8/8 on the SAT essay, you need to understand the rubric and keep in mind the three important parts of the essay: analyzing the prompt, outlining, and writing. Analyzing the prompt requires you to identify the author’s claim, purpose, tone, and persuasive elements that help build the argument. Outlining helps you answer the three questions for each device—why, how, and affect—to ensure you have strong analysis. Finally, when writing the essay, make sure to include an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. With these tips, you can write a great SAT essay and get the top score!

❓ What are the SAT Sections?

In the SAT, you will have 4-5 sections on the test (depending on whether you choose to take the essay section or not)! The sections are:

• Check out this video with an overview of the reading section of the SAT .
• Writing and Language (aka the Grammar section)
• Make sure to watch this video with tips and tricks for the grammar section of the SAT .
• Math (No-Calculator)
• Review the important aspects of the math section with this SAT math review part 1 and part 2 .
• Math (Calculator Allowed)
• Writing/Essay (⚠️OPTIONAL ⚠️)

If you signed up for the essay portion of the SAT, you have a relaxing 2-minute break after the math calculator section. You're going to need it, as you have 50 minutes to write a rhetorical analysis essay. ⏲️

If you are taking AP Lang or have already taken the exam, you should be pretty familiar with this format of essay. It is very similar to FRQ 2, or the rhetorical analysis essay. 📰

✍️ Mastering the Rubric

Your essay is graded on these three metrics on a scale from 1-4:

Two readers will score your essay , so the highest score you can receive is an 8 on each of the three sections. Unlike the other SAT sections, there is no percentile for the SAT essay nor a composite score (the three categories aren't "added"). 💯 Let's break down each of these three scoring categories and how you can score an 8 in all three.

This scoring category covers comprehension! Essentially, the scorers want to see if you understand the relationship between the main idea(s) and important details. To get an 8 in this scoring category, you cannot misstate facts from the passage, nor make an interpretation about facts not in the passage.

One of the main things that SAT Essay scorers will check is to ensure you have textual evidence (quotations and/or paraphrases) throughout the essay to ensure that you have a true understanding of the text. 📚

What separates an 8 from a lower score in this category is whether you have thorough (as opposed to effective) comprehension of the text and whether you are making skillful (as opposed to appropriate) use of textual evidence. The line between thorough and skillful is drawn at your consistency; if you make a misrepresentation of text in just one place, that may lower you to a 6.

To earn a 8 in the analysis category, you should be accomplishing the following:

• Offering an insightful analysis of source text.
• Evaluating the author's choice of evidence, reasoning, stylistic & persuasive elements, and/or other features that you noticed.
• Using relevant, sufficient, and strategically chosen support for your claims or points.
• Consistently focusing on features that are most relevant to addressing the task.

What separates an 8 in analysis from a lower score is whether you have strategically chosen support for claims and whether your essay is consistent in its analysis and its focus on "features most relevant to addressing the task."

The writing rubric category is exactly what it sounds like—checking your ability to write an essay! There are a number of guidelines that SAT essay scorers will be looking at, and here are a few of them that will help you earn an 8:

• A cohesive essay that effectively uses and commands language
• A precise central claim
• Skillful introduction and conclusion
• Progression of ideas that is highly effective both within paragraphs and throughout the essay
• Wide variety in sentence structures
• Consistent use of precise word choice
• Formal style and objective tone
• Strong command of English conventions, an essay free of errors

Consistency is also key to getting a high score in this category. Having a mostly cohesive essay or including a few errors could bump your score down to a 6 or below!

📖 Analyzing Prompt and Passage

On test day, you're not going to see the rubric or even the three scoring categories. All you will get is the prompt and passage. It's important you analyze and annotate the prompt and passage to ensure you can write an effective essay.

On test day, you'll see this at the beginning of the essay.

The most important thing to do before you even start reading the passage is to read the given context. In this example, we know that the article is from the Huffington Post and the author Peter Goodman is writing about crisis and foreign policy. 🔥

Then, you'll read a passage about an argument written for a broad audience. In that passage, the author will make a claim, and use different techniques to persuade the audience of that claim.

Since you will be writing about how the author uses different techniques in the passage to make their argument more persuasive, that is exactly what you should look out for while writing your essay. 🔍

When reading the passage, you'll want to look at the three bullet points given in the prompt: specific factual evidence or examples, reasoning that connects evidence and claims, and other stylistic or persuasive elements that helps the author build the argument. 🚧

Here's a short bullet list of stylistic or persuasive elements that you can look out for:

• Shifts of any kind (in diction 🗣️, tone 😤, imagery 🖼️, etc.)
• Appeals to emotion 💕, logic 🧠, or credibility 👩🏽‍🎓
• Syntax (organization of paragraphs 📑, length of sentences ↔️)
• Unique diction or imagery (make sure to describe diction/imagery with an adjective )

After you find the rhetorical devices you want to analyze, you'll need to answer three important questions:

• Why does the author use this device or strategy?
• How does this device or strategy help them achieve their purpose?
• How does the device or strategy affect or change the audience?

You can strengthen your analysis and answer these three questions for each of your devices by outlining.

🗒️ Outlining

There are a few components to an outline that will help you secure an 8/8/8 on the SAT essay:

• Identifying audience & author's purpose
• Writing a thesis
• Identifying rhetorical devices
• Answering the three important "analysis" questions for each rhetorical device

On test day, find some white space under the article (or on the next page) to write your outline. Knowing and writing down these elements will make the writing process go a lot smoother!

📝 Writing the Essay

Let's break down how to write each section of the SAT essay portion: the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Introduction

There are a few elements that you should explicitly include in your introduction:

• Author's claim in the passage
• Author's tone & purpose
• Audience of passage
• Specific rhetorical choices or persuasive elements in the passage that "enhance logic/persuasiveness" of the argument

One example template for an introduction is:

Here's an example:

Writer Marcus Stern in his article, "How to Prevent an Oil Train Disaster," asserts that new Obama-era regulations in 2015 were insufficient in protecting the public's safety and needed to be expanded. Stern adopts a critical tone to persuade his audience, the general public, of his purpose of supporting stricter, comprehensive regulations that reduce oil volatility. To achieve his purpose, Stern utilizes a variety of rhetorical techniques, including but not limited to specific credible evidence, appeals to the general public's fear of disaster, and emotional word choice that enhances the logic and persuasiveness of his argument.

Body Paragraphs

Your body paragraphs should create a line of reasoning , which is just a fancy of way of saying that it should follow the structure you outline in the essay. For instance, from the introduction paragraph above, I would make my first body paragraph about the "specific credible evidence," my second body paragraph about the appeals to the general public, and so on. 🤩

⚠️ Note: There is no minimum or maximum number of body paragraphs that you should include —focus on developing solid body paragraphs rather than including as many as possible!

You should include the following in a body paragraph to earn high scores on reading, analysis, and writing:

• A strong introduction sentence tied to the thesis
• Embedded quote or paraphrase with context
• Why the author uses this rhetorical strategy or persuasive element
• How it affects the audience and/or how it helps the author achieve their purpose
• Link back to thesis

Let's see these five elements in an example!

• Stern furthers his argument by appealing to the general public’s fear of disaster.
• He invokes specific visual imagery when asserting that an oil tanker rupture would send a “mushroom-shaped fireball” into the sky. In fact, Stern further builds his argument by citing the “nine other places in North America” in which oil tanker explosions materialized.
• Stern uses these appeals to logic and emotion primarily because they highlight a somber reality of the impacts of continued inaction.
• Because Stern includes multiple instances of oil explosions, the audience feels logically impacted. This sense of urgency communicated by the visual imagery makes the audience more convinced that action must be taken, specifically because it could harm them very soon.
• Ultimately, Stern successfully leaves the audience convinced that lax oil restriction could lead to devastating consequences that could harm the audience, which strengthens the persuasion of his argument that we should enact strict regulation that decreases volatility.

You may hear sometimes from your teacher that the conclusion is not that important, or that it can simply be one sentence. This is not true for the SAT; in fact, you could get points taken off the writing section with an oversimplified or non-existent conclusion.

However, you can score highly with a slightly reworded introduction! Here's what you should include in your conclusion:

• Author's central claim (reworded from intro)
• Persuasive elements/rhetorical choices
• Audience & author's purpose

Here's an example conclusion paragraph that includes those elements (and you can see its parallel to the intro):

Author Olmer Stern communicates to the general public that there is a necessity for stricter safety regulations that decrease oil volatility. To convince the audience of his purpose, Stern effectively invokes fearful emotion of the general public, cites specific evidence from the oil industry, and communicates powerful diction about the imminent oil threat to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of his argument.

📂 Resources and Example Essays

There are some fantastic ways to practice for the SAT essay! Here are some useful resources and example essays :

• Two sample SAT Essay prompts from College Board's website
• 50 CrackSAT Practice Essays and Prompts

Guide Outline

Related content, sat math: guide to quadratic equations & radicals, sat math: guide to linear equations, sat math: how to use your calculator, sat reading: guide to the social science passage, how to study for the sat/psat english sections, sat language: guide to word choice & passive flow.

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How to Use Rhetorical Devices in Your College Essay

←Essential Grammar Rules for Your College Applications

Developing a Personalized Metaphor for Your College Applications→

Writing the personal statement is one of the most important, yet difficult aspects of the college application process. The elusive perfect personal statement is deeply moving, expertly written, rich with details of accomplishments or inspiring life stories, and fits neatly into the word limit. These constraints can leave many struggling to fit what they want to say in so few words. But what many fail to realize when writing personal statements is that admissions officers are evaluating more than just the story you have to tell. They’re also examining your writing style and ability to convey the abstract qualities in an eloquent way.

Long story short: you should be focused on not only what you’re saying, but also how you’re saying it.

Presenting Your Case: The Seed of a Personal Statement

It’s crucial to acknowledge that a personal statement should contain, at its core, an argument. We don’t mean an argument in the same way you might write a debate or an SAT essay – there’s no need for a rigid evidence and analysis structure here. However, you are setting forth a case to the office of undergraduate admissions at your school of choice that you’ll contribute substantially to their community; by telling your story, highlighting your personal strengths, and displaying how you’ve grown into the person you are today, you are essentially arguing that you’re a great candidate for admission. Like any great argument, your personal statement should contain the same rhetorical strategies you would employ when trying to write a persuasive essay or speech. The difference is that the subject matter isn’t some topic your teacher assigned – it’s you!

An exceptionally written personal statement that successfully employs rhetorical strategies can elevate your application enormously; it’s an opportunity to display creativity, strong writing skills, and personal depth that can’t be conveyed through a stellar GPA or strong test scores. Additionally, a personal statement is not a piece of academic writing. It’s meant to be personal – it should give the reader as clear an idea of who you are in the word count given. So don’t agonize over grammar conventions, formal speech, and populating your essay with as many vocabulary words as possible. Rather, take the opportunity to showcase your creativity and make the most of it!

Rhetorical Devices to Use in Your College Essay

While any rhetorical devices used in your essay will elevate the quality of your writing and strengthen your argument, there are some that work particularly well for the purpose of the personal statement. Below are a few of our favorite rhetorical devices and how you can use them to set your essay apart.

A conceit is a metaphor that extends throughout the length of a piece of writing. A well-developed conceit will leave a strong impression on readers and immediately make your essay distinctive and memorable. If you can assign a metaphor to the narrative of your personal essay that you can extend throughout, it will make your essay not only more interesting to read, but also more unique; standing out is, of course, of utmost importance in the college admissions process. For example, if you’re struggling to explain a powerful emotional experience like depression, consider using a conceit to develop the idea:

“In television and magazine advertisements, depression is often depicted as a small, feeble raincloud, showering its sufferer with negative thoughts and tiny anxieties. In reality, however, depression is more like a vast ocean; expansive, terrifying, impossibly powerful and seemingly invincible. Depression thrashes one mercilessly against the rocks one moment, only to suffocate one with silent, infinite waves the next. I spent two years of my life lost at sea, but through the turbulent journey, I have come to…”

Comparisons to natural entities like water, fire, storms, etc., work well (if you manage to avoid clichés), but be as creative and authentic as you can be; what’s most important is that whatever comparison you draw is logical and does not seem contrived, nonsensical, or immature. Consider opening and closing your essay with 2-4 sentences relating to your conceit, and make sure the tone throughout your essay is consistent too.

Another engaging, memorable way to open an essay is with a personal anecdote, or story. Specific sensory details setting a scene immediately capture the reader’s interest and immerse them in your story. For instance, if you plan to write about how being captain of the varsity soccer team has shaped you, try opening your essay with a vivid description of your state of mind when you’re playing a game:

“As I sprint across the field, savoring the sensation of my cleats cutting through the earth beneath me, I notice a gap in the opposing team’s defense that’s practically begging me to take the shot. The raucous soundtrack of the game – parents screaming, players shouting to one another, children crying – fades into white noise as I focus solely on the black and white ball stained with bright green grass, the glaring red of the goalkeeper’s gloves. The moment I kick, time seems to slow and then stop entirely; the ball hangs suspended in the air for a brief moment, hanging high above the players’ heads like the sun, before grazing just past the tips of the goalkeeper’s fingers…”

Beginning essays with anecdotes heavy with sensory language like the one above provide you with an opportunity to display both your writing skills and your passion about a specific topic. Anecdotes can be intense, humorous, tragic, joyful – no matter what they describe, they are a guaranteed way to catch a reader’s attention and offer an alternative to beginning with a sentence like, “all my life, I’ve loved playing soccer.”

Using anecdotes becomes crucial in light of one of the paradoxical truths about writing: people are always more able to relate their own experiences to detailed and personal writing rather than universal and bland writing, despite the fact that universal writing will apply to an audience in a more literal sense.

Anaphora is the repeated use of a certain word or phrase at the beginning of separate sentences or clauses. Consider the example below:

“Today, I am immensely proud of my family’s culture. Today, I can speak publicly with my parents in our native language without fear of judgment from others.”

Anaphora is extremely effective in emphasizing a specific emotion or idea. The deliberate repetition is dramatic and emotionally moving, an obvious superior alternative to the awkwardness and dullness of rewording the same idea in different ways repeatedly in order to avoid reusing the same words. Anaphora is also useful when highlighting a transition into a new mindset or environment, as in the sample above.

Still, using anaphora can be surprisingly tricky, and picking the right moment to use it is crucial. If there hasn’t been adequate build-up to create a dense and moving point in the essay, anaphora might come off as more redundant than anything. Anaphora, as with many rhetorical devices, can be watered down through overuse. Make sure that you’re balancing original and variegated writing with this rhetorical device if you want to maximize your impact.

Allusion is a reference to something that is well known, whether that be a person, place, thing, or event. Using allusion can help you to communicate large ideas quickly:

With an uncanny genius for hope, she was the Gatsby of our school; she could look to the past, present, and future, and see only possibility. 

Allusion can help you to draw on your reader’s knowledge of popular culture, history, and more, in order to avoid long and cumbersome descriptions that would ruin your word count. In the example above, the author alludes to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s widely known novel, The Great Gatsby, in order to emphasize the point they were making. Allusion can be especially useful when you want to give the reader extra insight into your meaning without leveraging an entire anecdote. In this way, anecdote and allusion can work together to help you give meaning to primary and secondary events, characters, and insights while still maintaining certain section’s primacy within the essay.

Be careful not to use too many allusions in one essay, though, as they are designed to stretch your essay outwards towards general social and historical knowledge. While this is immensely useful, and allows you to leverage details and feelings without actually explaining them, overuse runs the risk of pulling your essay apart entirely. Allusions are strongest when they are used in tandem with anecdotes that keep your essay in intensely personal territory.

Parallelism:

Parallelism is used to bring rhythm to a sentence or highlight a certain point, accomplished by repeating similar sentence structure, sounds, meter, or meaning.

I was sweaty, I was breathless, and I was hot. The humid air weighed down on my skin and my heavy thoughts weighed down on my mind. Maybe I just didn’t have it in me to be a runner.

In this excerpt, the writer emphasizes their physical state through parallelism. Repeating “I was” highlights their exhaustion. It feels like a more dramatic sentence than “I was sweaty, breathless, and hot.” Similarly, the parallelism of the humid air and their thoughts weighing down evoke an especially uncomfortable, almost suffocating feeling for the writer’s thoughts. 

Since parallelism can make a sentence more dramatic, it can be a powerful addition to the beginning or end of your essay. You can also use it at any other point in your essay, if you want to draw attention to a particular section. 

Personification:

Personification is when you give human-like qualities to inanimate objects. This can make your writing feel more descriptive, poetic, and emotive:

The brilliant fall leaves whispered a goodbye as we left our beloved forest and treehouse for the last time. 

Leaves can’t whisper, but by giving them this human action, the writer evokes a sense of longing. The personification highlights that the forest was so meaningful to the writer that it seemed like even the trees were saying goodbye.

That being said, personification should be used judiciously and viewed with a critical eye, as the wrong comparison can easily sound cheesy. Be sure to get a second or third opinion if you’re not sure whether your personification works.

Wrapping Up

These are only a select few of the vast array of rhetorical devices that can be used to enhance an essay. Try browsing a list of devices and attempting to incorporate several into the latest draft of your personal statement. The greatest advantage of rhetorical devices is that they are incredibly effective in lending an essay a strong emotional appeal, also known as pathos. The ability to skillfully appeal to emotion in an essay while also clearly communicating your accomplishments and personality will be invaluable as you complete your applications.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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4 Key Components of an SAT Text to Analyze (The Rhetorical Square)

by Chris | Dec 25, 2017 | Learning Resources , SAT Prep | 0 comments

What is rhetoric?

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Why is it an art? Well, to be a good rhetorician, you’ve got to be convincing, and being convincing involves knowing your audience and shaping your argument in a way that will be persuasive to that audience. When you want to convince someone of something, chances are you’ll be employing rhetoric to do so.

The SAT Essay asks you to analyze how authors use rhetoric to persuade the reader to agree with them. In addition to analyzing rhetorical devices, you’ll want to make sure you consider these 4 elements of rhetoric. Today, we’ll take a look at the rhetorical square, which is comprised of the 4 elements you should consider when analyzing a text.

The Rhetorical Square

The Rhetorical Square consists of four elements that matter when analyzing a text.

The four elements are: 1) Purpose, 2) Message, 3) Audience, and 4) Voice.

The first element of the rhetorical square is PURPOSE. Purpose has to do with WHY a text exists. What’s the point? What’s the purpose? When you understand what it is that motivates the writer to make his or her argument, you’ll be well on your way to analyzing the rhetorical choices the writer makes in order to convince the reader that his or her argument is sound. All of the writer’s choices will make sense in light of that writer’s purpose, so be sure you’re able to correctly identify it when analyzing a text.

No matter what text you’re dealing with, there’s a purpose for that text. Try to identify WHY the author is writing. Some possible purposes for texts could be…

To persuade someone to buy something.

To persuade someone to do something.

To persuade someone to think something.

To prove something’s true.

To disprove something.

When reading, always ask yourself WHY the author is writing the piece? What does he or she hope to achieve? What are they hoping to convince us?

And when you’re writing, it’s very important to consider YOUR purpose for writing. When you know your purpose, you’ll be better equipped to persuade the reader.

Every day, we hear many messages. “Buy this,” “do that,” “Please RSVP,” “Like and share,” “Vote for so-and-so,” and so on. Messages can often be quite simple, but they can also be subtle and complex. For example, we might see a celebrity on TV endorsing a haircare product. The message is, I’m a celebrity, I use this haircare product, you want to be like me, so use this haircare product. When you read a text, take to identify what the writer’s message is.

What exactly is the writer hoping to get across? Why does the writer believe that this message is significant to readers? How does the message affect me? How might it affect other readers? What consequences will arise as a function of agreeing with the author and acting accordingly? What is at stake?

In most pieces of writing, especially academic writing, the message is the most important thing. We focus all our attention on what it is we want to say. There are many ways to convey a message and to strengthen it, and these methods include rhetorical devices and persuasive techniques. If you’re telling an anecdote or making an emotional appeal, chances are they’ll both be in service to the message you’re trying to get across.

3) Audience

This is a very important element of the rhetorical square! Writers need to be conscious of their audience when writing a text, and readers need to be conscious of the writer being conscious of his or her audience. Why does audience matter? Well, depending on your audience, you might say or do different things in an effort to persuade them. Different audiences might necessitate different strategies, different voices, different tones, different diction, different techniques. An audience of literary theorists will likely read a paper different than an audience of high school freshman. If you’re talking to your mother-in-law, you might speak differently than you do when talking to your best friend. The best rhetoricians will have carefully considered their audience before deciding the most effective methods to persuade that audience.

As readers, we can ask ourselves: Who is the intended audience for this piece? Is it a specific audience? A general audience? Is the writer aware of his or her audience? Is the writer making any choices specifically designed to appeal to this audience? Is the writer ignorant of his or her potential audience? All of these factors, and more, come into play when analyzing rhetoric.

As writers, it’s vital to have our intended audience in mind. Who might be reading our piece or listening to our argument? What techniques will appeal to these readers or listeners? Most people want to be spoken to in a language they can understand. If you’re writing for a general audience, it’s important not to use highly technical terms and leaving those terms unexplained. On the other hand, if you’re writing for a highly specialized audience, the types of claims you’ll make and the diction you use may be different.

The last element of the rhetorical square that we’ll discuss today is voice, and voice is quite important!

All texts can be said to have a “voice,” and the voice of a text is shaped by a variety of factors. A lawyer writing or speaking to another lawyer might use a very different voice than a toddler trying to persuade his mother to get him an ice cream cone. Audience and voice are closely linked; one shapes the other. By considering your audience, you’ll be ready to tailor your voice to that audience’s beliefs, intelligence, needs, desires, and so on.

As readers, we want to pay attention to the author’s voice. How does he or she write or speak? What type of tone does he or she take? What type of diction does the author use? Ask yourselves these questions during your reading and note-taking process, and when you need to write an analytical essay, be sure to discuss the nuances of how voice is employed in service of a message!

That’s it! Remember to keep the rhetorical square in mind whenever you’re reading an argumentative text or listening to a speaker make an argument. A thoughtful consideration of purpose, voice, audience, and message will lead you to a greater understanding of the speaker’s persuasive techniques. For more essay-writing tips, as well as plenty of SAT and ACT prep tips to help you ace the big test, check out the rest of our blog . Looking for 1-on-1 tutoring or small group SAT or ACT classes? Contact us today.

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Digital SAT Reading and Writing

Course: digital sat reading and writing   >   unit 2, rhetorical synthesis | lesson.

• Rhetorical synthesis — Worked example
• Rhetorical Synthesis — Quick example
• Rhetorical synthesis: foundations

What are "rhetorical synthesis" questions?

• Maika’i Tubbs is a Native Hawaiian sculptor and installation artist.
• His work has been shown in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Germany, among other places.
• Many of his sculptures feature discarded objects.
• His work Erasure (2008) includes discarded audiocassette tapes and magnets.
• His work Home Grown (2009) includes discarded pushpins, plastic plates and forks, and wood.
• (Choice A)   Erasure (2008) uses discarded objects such as audiocassette tapes and magnets; Home Grown (2009), however, includes pushpins, plastic plates and forks, and wood. A Erasure (2008) uses discarded objects such as audiocassette tapes and magnets; Home Grown (2009), however, includes pushpins, plastic plates and forks, and wood.
• (Choice B)   Like many of Tubbs’s sculptures, both Erasure and Home Grown include discarded objects: Erasure uses audiocassette tapes, and Home Grown uses plastic forks. B Like many of Tubbs’s sculptures, both Erasure and Home Grown include discarded objects: Erasure uses audiocassette tapes, and Home Grown uses plastic forks.
• (Choice C)   Tubbs’s work, which often features discarded objects, has been shown both within the United States and abroad. C Tubbs’s work, which often features discarded objects, has been shown both within the United States and abroad.
• (Choice D)   Tubbs completed Erasure in 2008 and Home Grown in 2009. D Tubbs completed Erasure in 2008 and Home Grown in 2009.

Choice A: This choice tells us about both works of art, but frames this information by focusing on how the artworks use different types of objects. This emphasizes a difference.

Choice B: This choice tells us something that's true about both works of art. They both "include discarded objects". This emphasizes a similarity.

Choice C: This choice doesn't mention either of the works of art we're supposed to be comparing. It doesn't emphasize any similarities or differences between those specific works.

Choice D: This choice doesn't directly compare the two artworks, but the information it does provide identifies how the works were completed at different times. This presents a difference (but doesn't really emphasize it).

How should we think about rhetorical synthesis questions?

Question structure.

• an introduction
• a series of bulleted facts
• a question prompt
• the choices

How to approach rhetorical synthesis questions

Step 1: Identify the goal

Step 2: Test the choices

Step 3: Select the choice that matches

Simplify the goal

• Choice A doesn't emphasize "similarity". Notice how it uses the word "however" to introduce a difference instead. We can eliminate choice A .
• Choice D doesn't emphasize "similarity". It only tells us the years that the artworks were created, and those years are different . We can eliminate choice D .
• Choice C doesn't focus on these two specific artworks; it only talks about Tubbs's artwork in general. We can eliminate choice C.
• Choice B describes similarities specific to Erasure and Home Grown . Choice B is the answer.

Ignore the grammar

• Marine biologist Camille Jazmin Gaynus studies coral reefs.
• Coral reefs are vital underwater ecosystems that provide habitats to 25% of all marine species.
• Reefs can include up to 8,000 species of fish, such as toadfish, seahorses, and clown triggerfish.
• The Amazon Reef is a coral reef in Brazil.
• It is one of the largest known reefs in the world.
• (Choice A)   Located in Brazil, the Amazon Reef is one of the largest known coral reefs in the world. A Located in Brazil, the Amazon Reef is one of the largest known coral reefs in the world.
• (Choice B)   Marine biologist Camille Jazmin Gaynus studies coral reefs, vital underwater ecosystems that provide homes to 25% of all marine species. B Marine biologist Camille Jazmin Gaynus studies coral reefs, vital underwater ecosystems that provide homes to 25% of all marine species.
• (Choice C)   Providing homes to 25% of all marine species, including up to 8,000 species of fish, coral reefs are vital underwater ecosystems and thus of great interest to marine biologists. C Providing homes to 25% of all marine species, including up to 8,000 species of fish, coral reefs are vital underwater ecosystems and thus of great interest to marine biologists.
• (Choice D)   As Camille Jazmin Gaynus knows well, coral reefs are vital underwater ecosystems, providing homes to thousands of species of fish. D As Camille Jazmin Gaynus knows well, coral reefs are vital underwater ecosystems, providing homes to thousands of species of fish.
• Choice A doesn't mention the scientist at all. We can eliminate choice A.
• Choice C doesn't mention the scientist at all. We can eliminate choice C.
• Choice D names the scientist and alludes to the fact that she "knows [coral reefs] well", but it doesn't specifically identify the field of marine biology, the way choice B does. Nor does choice D explicitly state that Gaynus is a scientist engaged in formal research. We can eliminate choice D.

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Most Useful Rhetorical Devices & How To Use Them

If you’ve ever read a persuasive essay or listened to someone give a speech, you have seen the power of rhetorical devices.

Rhetorical devices are techniques that authors and speakers use to try to persuade their audience to take their side and agree with their point of view.

Politicians, for example, use rhetorical devices to help their constituents engage with their platform and to increase the likelihood that their constituents will vote in their favor. Authors who write persuasive essays use rhetorical devices to help readers connect with their work and encourage their readers to complete certain actions.

When used effectively, rhetorical devices can be incredibly persuasive.

This is why colleges and universities want to know that their students have the ability to recognize and use these devices. 

They want to make sure that their students aren’t easily swayed and that they can think critically about the decisions they make even after hearing a persuasive speech or reading a persuasive essay. 

They also want to make sure that their students have the tools necessary to communicate and write effectively, which often includes using rhetorical devices.

As such, your English courses in high school and college will likely emphasize the use of rhetorical devices.

This guide will help you learn the most useful rhetorical devices and how you can use them to think critically and sharpen your writing skills.

Most useful rhetorical devices

While there are many rhetorical devices that authors and speakers use to persuade their audiences, there are a few particularly important ones that you should know:

Alliteration

Alliteration involves the repetition of consonant sounds with two or more words that are close together in a speech or paper.

For example, there is alliteration with the “b” sound with the sentence brave baboons bring bananas to the beach.

Alliteration is a useful rhetorical device because it grabs the audience’s attention, and it highlights the importance of the particular statements and shows how words work together to form a cohesive theme or idea. 

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “ I Have a Dream ” speech, he frequently uses alliteration. An example would be his line, “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation.”

Anaphora is a rhetorical device that involves the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences or phrases.

In Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address , he uses anaphora when he says, “But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.” His repetition of the words “we cannot,” help emphasize and drive home his argument.

Oftentimes speakers use anaphora to get their audiences to focus on a particular point in their speech and recognize the importance of a specific idea.

Hyperbole is the use of extreme exaggeration to make a point. When speakers and authors use hyperbole, they are not trying to deceive their listeners, they are simply emphasizing the importance of their argument.

An example of hyperbole would be if a politician says, “I will fight for you until the end of time.” While they won’t be alive to fight for their constituents until the end of time, the heart of their statement is true. They are simply showing their audience that they care and that they will work toward their audience’s best interests for as long as they are able to do so.

A metaphor is a direct comparison between two separate ideas. Typically, an idea is standing in place of another. 

This technique is used to help readers and listeners understand the impact and importance of a particular idea, especially if the original idea is abstract.

In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. uses a banking metaphor when he describes America “defaulting” on a promissory note for African Americans. By giving his audience a familiar example of a check that cannot be cashed, he is better able to explain his argument.

Metaphors are helpful because they can help make abstract examples more concrete and truly paint a picture of the idea that a speaker or author is trying to get across.

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions are questions that are not meant to be answered. This rhetorical device is useful because it causes listeners to reflect on the question that is being asked and to think deeply about what the speaker is trying to convey.

In John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address in 1961, he asked the audience, “ Will you join in that historic effort?” He is not expecting his listeners to shout out in agreement or disagreement, rather he is simply trying to get his audience to think about the question he posed and whether or not they will play a particular role.

People use rhetorical questions all of the time (did you notice my use of hyperbole here!) to get their point across. 

For instance, if a parent asks their misbehaving child, “Do you want to lose your chance to get ice cream later?” They don’t want their child to actually respond. Obviously, the child wouldn’t want to miss out on this opportunity. All they are trying to do is to get the child to look inward and think about their behavior and the consequences of continuing to act out.

A simile is a comparison between two things using the words “like” or “as.”

For example, you might say, “This room is like a sauna,” if one of your teachers has a warm classroom.

Similes are important rhetorical devices because they help emphasize points by comparing them to more familiar concepts.

Telling someone that not wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle is “like leaving your most prized possession in a house while keeping the doors open,” makes a bigger impact than simply telling someone to wear a helmet.

In this way, similes work to help people fully understand a point that the speaker or author is trying to emphasize.

Learning to use rhetorical devices

While this guide is a starting point, there are many more rhetorical devices that you will want to learn how to use to strengthen your writing.

You can start learning how to master the use of all of these rhetorical devices by working with a private tutor.

At Prep Expert, we only hire expert instructors who have the skills and experience necessary to teach complicated concepts, including rhetorical devices and other writing techniques. When you work with one of our tutors, you will not only learn new rhetorical devices that weren’t covered in this guide, but you will also receive tips and tricks about how to use these rhetorical devices effectively.

Sign up for private tutoring through Prep Expert today when you visit our website .

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 6 sat essay examples to answer every prompt.

Just as with most essays, the major secret to excelling on the SAT essay is to pre-plan the examples and evidence you want to use.

"But wait!" I hear you cry. "Can you do that on the new SAT essay? Isn’t the point of the essay that you’re supposed to be using information from the passage in your answer, which you don’t know about ahead of time?"

The answer: Yes and no. While the specifics of each example will obviously change, depending on the passage, the types of examples you choose to discuss (and the way you explain each example builds the author’s argument) can be defined, and thus prepared for, ahead of time.

In this article, we give you 6 good SAT essay examples you’ll be able to find in nearly every prompt the SAT throws at you. By assembling a collection of these reliable types of evidence that can be used to answer most prompts, you'll cut down on planning time and significantly increase the amount you can write, making you able to walk into every SAT essay confident in your abilities.

feature image credit: 1 to 9 mosaic , cropped/Used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 .

UPDATE: SAT Essay No Longer Offered

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In January 2021, the College Board announced that after June 2021, it would no longer offer the Essay portion of the SAT (except at schools who opt in during School Day Testing). It is now no longer possible to take the SAT Essay, unless your school is one of the small number who choose to offer it during SAT School Day Testing.

While most colleges had already made SAT Essay scores optional, this move by the College Board means no colleges now require the SAT Essay. It will also likely lead to additional college application changes such not looking at essay scores at all for the SAT or ACT, as well as potentially requiring additional writing samples for placement.

What does the end of the SAT Essay mean for your college applications? Check out our article on the College Board's SAT Essay decision for everything you need to know.

Why You Can Prep SAT Essay Examples Before Test Day

The SAT essay prompts have several important things in common:

• They’re all passages that try to convince the reader of the veracity of the author’s claim
• They’re all around the same length (650-750 words)
• They’re all meant to be analyzed and written about in a relatively short period of time (50 minutes)

This means that you can have a pretty good idea ahead of time of what types of argument-building techniques you might see when you open the booklet on test day.

The main techniques the author uses aren't going to be overly complex (like the first letter of every word spelling out a secret code), because you just don’t have the time to analyze and write about complex techniques. B ecause of that, you can prepare yourself with SAT essay examples that’ll be likely found across persuasive passages about many different issues .

Naturally, for each passage you're going to want to play to its particular strengths—if there are a lot of facts/statistics, make sure to discuss that; if it dwells more on personal anecdotes/appeals to emotion, discuss those. However, if you struggle with analysis in a short period of time, memorizing these categories of examples ahead of time can give you a helpful checklist to go through when reading the SAT essay prompt and point you in the right direction.

Below, we've chosen two examples of evidence, two examples of reasoning, and two examples of stylistic/persuasive elements you can use as stellar evidence to support your thesis .

For each example below, we also show you how you can use the type of evidence to support your thesis across a range of prompts. This flexibility should prove to you how effective pre-planned examples are.

So, without further ado, onto our list of multipurpose support for any SAT Essay prompt.

Examples of Evidence

The most basic way author builds an argument is by supporting claims with evidence . There are many different kinds of evidence author might use to support her/his point, but I'm just going to discuss the two big ones I've seen in various official SAT Essay prompts. These two types of evidence are Facts and Statistics and Anecdotes .

Example Type 1: Facts and Statistics

Employing statistics and facts to bolster one's argument is one of the most unassailable methods authors can use to build an argument. This argument-building technique is particularly common in essays written about scientific or social studies-related topics, where specific data and facts are readily available.

How Can You Identify It?

Statistics usually show up in the form of specific numbers related to the topic at hand —maybe as percents, or maybe as a way to communicate other data.

Here are a couple of examples of statistics from an official SAT essay prompt, "Let There Be Dark" by Paul Bogard :

Example : 8 of 10 children born in the United States will never know a sky dark enough for the Milky Way

Example : In the United States and Western Europe, the amount of light in the sky increases an average of about 6% every year.

Factual evidence can also be in the form of non-numerical information. Often, you'll see facts presented with references to the research study, survey, expert, or other source from which they're drawn. Here's another example from "Let There Be Dark":

Example : Already the World Health Organization classifies working the night shift as a probable human carcinogen[.]

Why Is It Persuasive?

Facts and statistics are persuasive argument building techniques because the author isn't just making up reasons for why his/her argument could possibly be true— there's actually something (data, research, other events/information) that backs up the author's claim .

In the case of the examples above, Bogard presents specific data about issues with light pollution (8 in 10 children won't be able to see the Milky Way, light in the sky increases 6% annually) to back up his statements that light pollution is real, then goes on to present further information that indicates light pollution is a problem (working the night shift puts humans at risk for cancer).

By presenting information and facts, rather than just opinion and spin, Bogard empowers the reader to connect the dots on her own, which in turn gives the reader ownership over the argument and makes it more persuasive (since the reader is coming to the same conclusions on her own, rather than entirely relying on Bogard to tell her what to think).

Example Type 2: Anecdotes

Another form of evidence that is often used as an alternative to actual facts or statistics is the anecdote. This type of evidence is most often found in speeches or other sorts of essay prompts that are written as a personal address to the reader.

An anecdote is a short story about a real person or event . When an author discusses own personal experience or personal experience of someone they know or have heard of, that's anecdotal evidence.

Here's an example of (part of) an anecdote from an official SAT essay prompt that was adapted from a foreword by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter :

One of the most unforgettable and humbling experiences of our lives occurred on the coastal plain. We had hoped to see caribou during our trip, but to our amazement, we witnessed the migration of tens of thousands of caribou with their newborn calves. In a matter of a few minutes, the sweep of tundra before us became flooded with life, with the sounds of grunting animals and clicking hooves filling the air. The dramatic procession of the Porcupine caribou herd was a once-in-a-lifetime wildlife spectacle. We understand firsthand why some have described this special birthplace as “America’s Serengeti.”

Even though anecdotes aren't statistics or facts, they can be powerful because it’s more relatable/interesting to the reader to read an anecdote than to be presented with dry, boring facts. People tend to put more faith in experiences if they can personally connect with the experiences (even though that doesn't actually affect how likely or not a statement is to be true).

In the example above, rather than discussing the statistics that support the creation of wildlife refuges, Jimmy Carter instead uses an anecdote about experiencing the wonder of nature to illustrate the same point—probably more effectively.

By inviting the reader to experience vicariously the majesty of witnessing the migration of the Porcupine caribou, Carter activates the reader's empathy towards wildlife preservation and so makes it more likely that the reader will agree with him that wildlife refuges are important.

Examples of Reasoning

All authors use reasoning to some extent, but it’s not always a major part of how the author builds her/his argument. Sometimes, though, the support for a claim on its own might not seem that persuasive—in those cases, an author might then choose to use reasoning to explain how the evidence presented actually builds the argument.

Example Type 3: Counterarguments and Counterclaims

One way in which an author might use reasoning to persuade the reader to accept the claim being put forward is to discuss a counterargument, or counterclaim, to the author's main point. The discussion (and subsequent neutralization) of counterarguments is found in prompts across all subject areas.

A counterargument or counterclaim is simply another point of view that contradicts (either fully or partially) the author's own argument. When "some might claim," "however," or other contrast words and phrases show up in an essay prompt, the author is likely presenting a counterclaim.

Here's an example of an effective presentation (and negation) of a counter claim from an official SAT essay prompt, "The Digital Parent Trap" by Eliana Dockterman :

“You could say some computer games develop creativity,” says Lucy Wurtz, an administrator at the Waldorf School in Los Altos, Calif., minutes from Silicon Valley. “But I don’t see any benefit. Waldorf kids knit and build things and paint—a lot of really practical and creative endeavors.”

But it’s not that simple. While there are dangers inherent in access to Facebook, new research suggests that social-networking sites also offer unprecedented learning opportunities.

So how does bringing up an opposing point of view help an author build her argument? It may seem counterintuitive that discussing a counterargument actually strengthens the main argument. However, as you can see in the brief example above, giving some space to another point of view serves to make it seem as if the discussion’s going to be more “fair.” This is still true whether the author delves into the counterargument or if the author only briefly mentions an opposing point of view before moving on.

A true discussion of the counterargument  (as is present in Dockterman's article) will   also show a deeper understanding of the topic than if the article only presented a one-sided argument . And because the presence of a counterargument demonstrates that the author knows the topic well enough to be able to see the issue from multiple sides, the reader's more likely to trust that the author's claims are well-thought out and worth believing.

In the case of the Dockterman article, the author not only mentions the opposite point of view but also takes the time to get a quote from someone who supports the opposing viewpoint. This even-handedness makes her following claim that "it's not that simple" more believable, since she doesn't appear to be presenting a one-sided argument.

Example Type 4: Explanation of Evidence

In some cases, the clarity with which the author links her evidence and her claims is integral to the author's argument. As the College Board Official SAT Study Guide says,

Reasoning is the connective tissue that holds an argument together. It’s the “thinking” — the logic, the analysis — that develops the argument and ties the claim and evidence together."

Explanation of evidence is one of the trickier argument-building techniques to discuss (at least in my opinion), because while it is present in many essay prompts, it isn't always a major persuasive feature. You can pretty easily identify an author's explanation of evidence if the author connects a claim to support and explains it , rather than just throwing out evidence without much ceremony or linking to the claim; however, whether or not the explanation of the evidence is a major contributing factor to the author's argument is somewhat subjective.

Here's a pretty clear instance of a case where an author uses explanations of each piece of evidence she discusses to logically advance her argument (again from the Dockterman passage):

And at MIT’s Education Arcade, playing the empire-building game Civilization piqued students’ interest in history and was directly linked to an improvement in the quality of their history-class reports. The reason: engagement. On average, according to research cited by MIT, students can remember only 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear and 50% of what they see demonstrated. But when they’re actually doing something themselves—in the virtual worlds on iPads or laptops—that retention rate skyrockets to 90%. This is a main reason researchers like Ito say the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation of a two-hour screen-time limit is an outdated concept: actively browsing pages on a computer or tablet is way more brain-stimulating than vegging out in front of the TV.

Unfortunately, the explanation the Official SAT Study Guide gives for how to discuss an author's "reasoning" is a little vague:

You may decide to discuss how the author uses (or fails to use) clear, logical reasoning to draw a connection between a claim and the evidence supporting that claim.

But how exactly you should go about doing this? And wh y is it persuasive to clearly explain the link between evidence and claim?

In general, when an author explains the logic behind her argument or point, the reader can follow along and understand the author’s argument better (which in some cases makes it more likely the reader will agree with the author).

In the Dockterman example above, the author clearly lays out data ( Civilization leads to improvements in history class), a claim (this is because of engagement with the game and thus the subject material), provides data that back up that claim (retention rate skyrockets when students do things for themselves), and links that smaller claim to a larger concept (actively browsing pages on a computer or tablet is way more brain-stimulating than vegging out in front of the TV).  This clear pattern of data-explanation-more data-more explanation enables the reader to follow along with Dockterman's points. It's more persuasive because, rather than just being told " Civilization leads to improvements in history" and having to take it on faith, the reader is forced to reenact the thinking processes that led to the argument, engaging with the topic on a deeper level.

Examples of Stylistic/Persuasive Elements

This final category of examples is the top layer of argument building. The foundation of a good argument is evidence, which is often explained and elucidated by reasoning, but it is often the addition of stylistic or persuasive elements like an ironic tone or a rhetorical flourish that seals the deal.

Example Type 5: Vivid Language

Vivid language is truly the icing on the persuasive cake. As with explanations of evidence, vivid language can be found across all topics of essay prompts (although it usually plays a larger role when the passage is lacking in more convincing facts or logic).

Vivid language is pretty easy to spot—it shows itself in similes, metaphors, adjectives, or any words that jump out at you that don’t seem to have purely functional purposes . Here are a couple of examples—the first is Paul Bogard again:

…show that what was a very dark country as recently as the 1950s is now nearly covered with a blanket of light.

This example is relatively restrained, using the metaphor of "a blanket of light" to add emphasis to Bogard's discussion of light pollution. A more striking example can be found in another official SAT essay prompt, adapted from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech "Beyond Vietnam—A Time To Break Silence":

Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.

Vivid language is an effective argument building device because it puts the reader in the author’s shoes and draws them into the passage . If used in moderation, vivid language will also make the topic more interesting for the reader to read, thus engaging them further.

In the excerpt taken from Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech above, the phrase "demonic destructive suction tube" is startling and provocative, meant to rouse the audience's indignation at the injustice and waste of the Vietnam war. If King had left out the second part of the sentence and only said, "Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money," his point would not have had as big of an impact.

Example Type 6: Direct Addresses and Appeals to the Reader

The last category I'll be discussing in this article are direct addresses and appeals to the reader. These stylistic elements are found across all sorts of different passage topics, although as with the previous category, these elements usually play a larger role when the passage is light on facts or logic.

Direct addresses and appeals to the reader are wordings or other stylistic devices specifically designed to provoke a response (often emotional) in the reader . This category covers many different elements, from appeals to emotion to rhetorical questions. Here's an example of an appeal to emotion, taken again from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech:

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population.

And here's an example of a rhetorical question (from the Paul Bogard article):

Who knows what this vision of the night sky might inspire in each of us, in our children or grandchildren?

Appealing to the emotions , as Martin Luther King, Jr. does in his speech, is an alternate route to persuasion, as it causes readers to emotionally (rather than logically) agree with the author . By describing how the war was causing "their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and die," King reminds the reader of the terrible costs of war, playing upon their emotions to get them to agree that the Vietnam War is a mistake, particularly for the poor.

Rhetorical questions , on the other hand, get the readers to step into the author's world. By reading and thinking about the author's question, the reader engages with the topic on a deeper level than if the reader were just given a statement of what the author thinks . In the case of the Bogard example above, the rhetorical question draws the reader into thinking about his/her descendants, a group of people for whom the reader (presumably) only wishes the best, which then puts the reader into a positive mood (assuming the reader likes his/her descendants).

As you can see, these examples of different argumentative techniques can be extracted from a lot of different article types for a wide range of topics . This is because the examples themselves are so meaningful and complex that they can be used to discuss a lot of issues.

The main point is, you don't have to wait until you see the prompt to develop an arsenal of types of argument-building techniques you can use to support your points. Instead, preparing beforehand how you’ll discuss these techniques will save you a lot of time and anxiety when the test rolls around .

What's Next?

If you're reading this article, you probably want to excel on the SAT essay. We've written a bunch of detailed guides to make sure you do.

Start to scratch the surface with our 15 tips to improve your SAT essay score .

Follow our step-by-step guide to writing a high-scoring essay and learn how to get a perfect 8/8/8 on the SAT essay .

Took the old SAT and not sure how the new essay compares to the old? Start with our article about what’s changed with the new SAT essay , then follow along as we  investigate the SAT essay rubric .

Want to score a perfect SAT score? Check out our guide on how to score a perfect SAT score , written by our resident perfect scorer.

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Laura graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College with a BA in Music and Psychology, and earned a Master's degree in Composition from the Longy School of Music of Bard College. She scored 99 percentile scores on the SAT and GRE and loves advising students on how to excel in high school.

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31 Useful Rhetorical Devices

What is a rhetorical device and why are they used.

As with all fields of serious and complicated human endeavor (that can be considered variously as an art, a science, a profession, or a hobby), there is a technical vocabulary associated with writing. Rhetoric is the name for the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion, and though a writer doesn’t need to know the specific labels for certain writing techniques in order to use them effectively, it is sometimes helpful to have a handy taxonomy for the ways in which words and ideas are arranged. This can help to discuss and isolate ideas that might otherwise become abstract and confusing. As with the word rhetoric itself, many of these rhetorical devices come from Greek.

Ready, set, rhetoric.

The repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables

wild and woolly, threatening throngs

Syntactical inconsistency or incoherence within a sentence especially : a shift in an unfinished sentence from one syntactic construction to another

you really should have—well, what do you expect?

Repetition of a prominent and usually the last word in one phrase or clause at the beginning of the next

rely on his honor—honor such as his?

A literary technique that involves interruption of the chronological sequence of events by interjection of events or scenes of earlier occurrence : flashback

Repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect

we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground

The repetition of a word within a phrase or sentence in which the second occurrence utilizes a different and sometimes contrary meaning from the first

we must all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately

The usually ironic or humorous use of words in senses opposite to the generally accepted meanings

this giant of 3 feet 4 inches

The use of a proper name to designate a member of a class (such as a Solomon for a wise ruler) OR the use of an epithet or title in place of a proper name (such as the Bard for Shakespeare)

The raising of an issue by claiming not to mention it

we won't discuss his past crimes

An expression of real or pretended doubt or uncertainty especially for rhetorical effect

to be, or not to be: that is the question

Harshness in the sound of words or phrases

An inverted relationship between the syntactic elements of parallel phrases

working hard, or hardly working?

A disjunctive conclusion inferred from a single premise

gravitation may act without contact; therefore, either some force may act without contact or gravitation is not a force

The substitution of a disagreeable, offensive, or disparaging expression for an agreeable or inoffensive one

greasy spoon is a dysphemism for the word diner

Repetition of a word or expression at the end of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect

of the people, by the people, for the people

Emphatic repetition [ this definition is taken from the 1934 edition of Webster's Unabridged dictionary ]

An interchange of two elements in a phrase or sentence from a more logical to a less logical relationship

you are lost to joy for joy is lost to you

A transposition or inversion of idiomatic word order

judge me by my size, do you?

Extravagant exaggeration

mile-high ice-cream cones

The putting or answering of an objection or argument against the speaker's contention [ this definition is taken from the 1934 edition of Webster's Unabridged dictionary ]

Understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary

not a bad singer

The presentation of a thing with underemphasis especially in order to achieve a greater effect : UNDERSTATEMENT

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them ( Metaphor vs. Simile )

drowning in money

A figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated

crown as used in lands belonging to the crown

The naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it

A combination of contradictory or incongruous words

cruel kindness

The use of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense : REDUNDANCY

I saw it with my own eyes

A figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by "like" or "as"

cheeks like roses

The use of a word in the same grammatical relation to two adjacent words in the context with one literal and the other metaphorical in sense

she blew my nose and then she blew my mind

A figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (such as fifty sail for fifty ships ), the whole for a part (such as society for high society ), the species for the genus (such as cutthroat for assassin ), the genus for the species (such as a creature for a man ), or the name of the material for the thing made (such as boards for stage )

The use of a word to modify or govern two or more words usually in such a manner that it applies to each in a different sense or makes sense with only one

opened the door and her heart to the homeless boy

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Prepositions, ending a sentence with, hypercorrections: are you making these 6 common mistakes, a comprehensive guide to forming compounds, can ‘criteria’ ever be singular, singular nonbinary ‘they’: is it ‘they are’ or ‘they is’, grammar & usage, words commonly mispronounced, more commonly misspelled words, is 'irregardless' a real word, 8 grammar terms you used to know, but forgot, homophones, homographs, and homonyms, great big list of beautiful and useless words, vol. 3, even more words that sound like insults but aren't, the words of the week - mar. 15, 9 superb owl words.

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