- Define and explain Rhetorical Devices in your own words
- Use key terms such as anaphora accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Rhetorical Devices: deploy anaphora, tricolon and rhetorical questions with precision.
Deploy anaphora, tricolon and rhetorical questions with precision.
Key ideas
Devices are tools, not decoration
Anaphora creates rhythm; the tricolon (a three-part list) feels complete and memorable; a rhetorical question invites the audience to agree without answering. Devices work because they match how brains process language — pattern, repetition and rhythm make ideas stick.
The rhetorical triangle
Every persuasive act balances speaker, audience and message. Ethos convinces the audience to trust you, pathos makes them feel, and logos makes them think. The most powerful persuasion blends all three: evidence alone rarely moves people, and emotion alone rarely convinces them.
Key term — anaphora: Repeating a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses — as in Churchill's 'we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight…' — to build rhythm and emotional force.
Identify the rhetorical techniques in this paragraph and explain their effect: Our school library is closing, and with it a door to a thousand worlds. Who will lend a curious child their first adventure? We must act now — sign the petition, join the protest, save our library.
Pathos: a door to a thousand worlds uses emotive metaphor — losing the library means losing imagination itself. Rhetorical question: Who will lend a curious child their first adventure? makes the reader supply the answer — nobody — which feels unacceptable. Tricolon: sign the petition, join the protest, save our library gives three clear actions in a memorable rhythm. Logos: the argument assumes libraries matter for children's learning — the emotional case carries an unstated logical one. Conclude: pathos opens the heart, the question engages the mind, and the tricolon drives action.
Answer: The paragraph blends pathos (the thousand worlds metaphor), a rhetorical question that forces agreement, and a tricolon of imperatives that channels feeling into action.
- Piling on rhetorical questions One well-placed rhetorical question is powerful; five in a row sound hectoring. Vary your devices.
- Confusing anaphora with any repetition Anaphora is repetition at the start of successive clauses — we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight… — not just repeating a word anywhere.
Practice
A series of three parallel items, e.g. sign the petition, join the protest, save our library.
Repetition at the start of clauses builds rhythm and emotional momentum, making ideas memorable.
Ethos, pathos and logos.
Acknowledging and answering an opposing view to strengthen your own position.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "anaphora"?
Who delivered the we shall fight on the beaches speech, and when?
- Rhetorical Devices: deploy anaphora, tricolon and rhetorical questions with precision.
- Devices are tools, not decoration: Anaphora creates rhythm; the tricolon (a three-part list) feels complete and memorable; a rhetorical question invites the audience to agree without answering.
- ethos: Persuasion through character and credibility.
- Watch out for: piling on rhetorical questions