Whenever you find yourself communicating with the intent of modifying someone’s or a group’s perspective, you are within a rhetorical situation. This unique context encompasses a topic, listeners or readers, and specific boundaries. Each time you write an essay, have a verbal discussion or listen to a debate, it happens

By the age of 10, children have the ability to tell right from wrong, according to expert Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist. However, knowing how to distinguish a true statement from a false one is a skill that you have to learn. One vital component is spotting fallacies. Apple Polishing:

When you fall for a fallacy, you are taken in by false or misleading reasoning. Some fallacies appeal to such emotions as pity or guilt. Others leverage your anger or your fear. When you learn to recognize these kinds of fallacies, you are less susceptible to their squishy, insubstantial logic.

Activity: Pretend You’re a Marketer 1. Create an ad based on emotion. Use rhetoric containing emotive force. (Note: Rhetoric frequently involves language that contains emotive force and affects what others believe without actually providing logical reasons for a claim.) Look at Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion below and decide which emotional

  Rhetoric is the art of influence, friendship and eloquence, of ready wit and irrefutable logic. And it harnesses the most powerful of social forces, argument.  – Jay Heinrichs The above quote is from Jay’s book Thank You For Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About The Art