In class, I defined rhetoric as the art of argumentation through speech and writing, particularly through the use of the three main rhetorical strategies: ethos, logos, and pathos. However, after discussing various definitions from classmates, listening to MAJ Garriott lecture, and reading the Losh et al Understanding Rhetoric excerpts, my view of how rhetoric can be defined has been altered. Rhetoric isn’t just about argumentation in an essay, but is an extensive strategy in which speakers or writers convey and present viewpoints and ideas.

Over the years, my views on rhetoric have primarily come from how I’ve been taught to use it in argumentative essays and how the media presents it as an all talk no action strategy for politicians. After being asked to define it and then discussing how it can be defined, I have realized that rhetoric is a much more broad and complex strategy of communicating. Rather than just a tool to convince an audience of a view point, rhetoric can be used to aid debate and reaching compromise in issues by allowing different viewpoints to be hear and understood. Where I once saw rhetoric as a focused strategy, I now see it as a broad technique with multiple uses.