The author spends the entire first chapter being persuasive. The story of his quick thinking manipulation of his son to get the toothpaste is attention grabbing. For many people his age, the idea of being able to persuade your teenager to do something is certainly effective. The short and succinct discussion of persuasion that he uses (detailing the implicit rhetorical gestures of things like advertisements and the placement of fox feces) is primarily to convince the reader that being aware of the nature of persuasive tactics is tantamount to being an effective rhetorician. The author’s down to earth language and informal tone, combined with his use of personal anecdote are effective uses of persuasion in keeping the reader interested and informed. The opposite might be said of other more high brow rhetoricians. Viewing this book about rhetorical strategy while looking for the author’s rhetorical strategies could get sort of meta. Rhetoric-ception. Perhaps I should just take the book at face value. But I think that would be missing the point in a rhetorical class.

HR: class discussion