Persuasive Devices

[lucascimino98]

Hi! Im new to this website and really need help. I am working on a persuasive essay for school and I need to use 2 persuasive devices. The persuasive devices that my teacher indicated are: parallelism, rhetoric question, irony, and repetition. My essay is on the benefits of allowance. This is my thesis statement which im sure is not the best but it indicates my subtopics discussed in my essay: "Parents should give allowances for good grades, doing chores, and for paid activities because it helps with their grades, teaches them the responsibility of having a job, and helps them maintain money."
If you could please help I would be very appreciative! Thanks!

[Calidore]

I'm afraid you haven't said what exactly you need help with. My suggestion: Just start writing and see if two of those devices fit themselves in without you having to try. Once you've got it written, if it's still missing what you need and you're not sure how to fix it, then post what you have and be specific about where you're stuck.

[Eman Resu]

I'm afraid you haven't said what exactly you need help with. My suggestion: Just start writing and see if two of those devices fit themselves in without you having to try. Once you've got it written, if it's still missing what you need and you're not sure how to fix it, then post what you have and be specific about where you're stuck.


This was a tactful, diplomatic suggestion that you examine the definitions of parallel construction, the interrogative rhetorical device, rhetorical dissimulation and rhetorical redundancy without resorting to tautology, and then employ them in whatsoever fashion they might aid your argument. A tactless, overbearing person might instead have said, "read the material and then write your argument."






Read the material and then write your argument.

[lucascimino98]

Hi...

[luhsun]

My comments may not help you get better marks. Write from your heart, how giving allowance applies to you personally, your life, your ambitions, your dreams. Tailor your message as to how your parents will be moved, keeping in mind their personality. As your teacher will be giving the marks, individualise your message according to her likes and dislikes. The 'form' of your sentences is important, but the crux is the message content. Mark Anthony prevailed against Brutus not because he was better at rhetorics- he was able to predict and capitalise on brutus' idealism. He was able to predict the greed of the hoi polloi and bribed them accordingly.

[Eman Resu]

You've employed comparative parallel construction here:

"Allowances should be given for good grades, having done chores, and for paid activities because it helps with their grades, teaches them the responsibility of having a job, and helps them maintain money..."

but you're missing the word "for" prior to, "having done chores" to complete the parallelism. Likewise, your pronouns haven't any determinate reference, and the pronoun "it" as it refers to "allowances" is incorrect. - "Allowances should be given to children for good grades, for having done their chores, and for paid activities because doing so helps with their grades, teaches them the responsibility of having a job, and helps them maintain money." Personal note: "maintain money" isn't really what one is doing unless one's spending is zero; one is maintaining a budget.

¶3:L3 - "Disgust" can be both a noun and a verb, but its use here ("chores are one of those things that children disgust...") states that the chores are disgusted by the children. Children can be "disgusted" by certain unsavoury chores; children might find certain chores "disgusting," but without anthropomorphising the chores, they'll never feel disgust even at the most uncouth, disheveled nor the most unruly child.

By this point, Calidore will doubtless actually have written something constructive, and I'll still be wondering if that's Keats' Calidore or Edmund Spenser's.

[luhsun]

Just a note: to use the word disgust when describing chores will not endear you to the hearer..those like your parents who out of love did the chores willingly or unwillingly since you were a tiny tot. After upsetting them with an inappropriate choice of word, it would be a wee bit difficult to ask them to increase your allowance ;-)

[luhsun]

Of course, the calidore in spenser's faery queen is worthy of emulation.. outwardly courteous but adroit at using grace wisely to steal men's hearts
Perhaps the self-same young calidore of keats will show lucascimino98 his path towards persuasive writings

[lucascimino98]

You've employed comparative parallel construction here:

"Allowances should be given for good grades, having done chores, and for paid activities because it helps with their grades, teaches them the responsibility of having a job, and helps them maintain money..."

but you're missing the word "for" prior to, "having done chores" to complete the parallelism. Likewise, your pronouns haven't any determinate reference, and the pronoun "it" as it refers to "allowances" is incorrect. - "Allowances should be given to children for good grades, for having done their chores, and for paid activities because doing so helps with their grades, teaches them the responsibility of having a job, and helps them maintain money." Personal note: "maintain money" isn't really what one is doing unless one's spending is zero; one is maintaining a budget.

¶3:L3 - "Disgust" can be both a noun and a verb, but its use here ("chores are one of those things that children disgust...") states that the chores are disgusted by the children. Children can be "disgusted" by certain unsavoury chores; children might find certain chores "disgusting," but without anthropomorphising the chores, they'll never feel disgust even at the most uncouth, disheveled nor the most unruly child.

By this point, Calidore will doubtless actually have written something constructive, and I'll still be wondering if that's Keats' Calidore or Edmund Spenser's.

So I did these edits and now only have the Conclusion left. Im not really sure what to say in the conclusion without sounding too repetitive...

[Calidore]

This was a tactful, diplomatic suggestion that you examine the definitions of parallel construction, the interrogative rhetorical device, rhetorical dissimulation and rhetorical redundancy without resorting to tautology, and then employ them in whatsoever fashion they might aid your argument.

You give me way too much credit, because I have no idea what any of that means. I was simply trying to 1) make sure he actually intended to do the work himself, and if so, 2) help him help us help him.

Would you have been able to parse your suggestion at 15?

Also, that would be Spenser's Calidore, as I've never read Keats. Actually, I've never read Spencer either, but the Faerie Queene is what I was scanning for a name for a D&D character long ago, and when the Internet came about I decided it was a perfectly good posting name as well. It's helped me mostly overcome my natural snarkitude.


Of course, the calidore in spenser's faery queen is worthy of emulation.. outwardly courteous but adroit at using grace wisely to steal men's hearts

I'd prefer to steal women's hearts. Unfortunately, while the years have helped the courtesy become first nature, that other skill hasn't improved much at all. C'est la vie.

[Eman Resu]

Would you have been able to parse your suggestion at 15?



I'd thought that by placing the edits in boldface within the text block immediately thereafter, that each would be evident without footnoting them properly, and it seems, from post 9, that despite my haste and shortcomings, the OP managed to read through them and (I hope) to take away something of some value, anyway.

Yes; but fifteen isn't always fifteen.

[Ecurb]

Parallelism, repetition, rhetorical questions and irony may persuade some people. However, more effective (if cruder) persuasive devices include: the blackjack, the pillory, the iron maiden, the rack, the malay boot, and the scold’s bridle. Do not use them on your teacher, however.