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148 Unit 2 ■ Appealing to an Audience

LANGUAGE AND STYLE Creating Emphasis through
Syntax
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Enduring Understanding (STL-1)
The rhetorical situation informs the strategic stylistic choices that writers
make.

Even the best claims and evidence will fail to persuade if the writer does not
engage the reader. So, writers choose rhetorical strategies carefully, not only to
enhance the reading experience but also, more importantly, to create deeper
meaning in their own text.
Writers make syntactical choices, which refers to the order of words in sen-
tences and sentences within paragraphs. Earlier in the chapter, you analyzed some
effective syntactical moves in the readings and discussed their effects.
Now, review the examples that follow and then try to incorporate some of
these moves into your own writing.

Examples of Syntactical Moves
Syntactical Choice Example
Fragment Buzz . . . buzz.
Simple Sentence Phones distract us.
Repetition In a busy classroom, smartphones distract the
users, distract those around them, and distract the
teacher, preventing everyone from full access to
learning.
Juxtaposition Piles of papers and unfinished tasks littered my
desk while the small, silver device buzzed on,
inviting me to another conversation.
Parallel Structure Smartphones allow us to access information
readily, to organize our lives effortlessly, and to
connect to one another constantly.
Rhetorical Question Why would students pay attention to an instructor
when the whole world of news and entertainment is
right under their fingertips?
Antithesis Smartphones offer the wide-open spaces of
endless information while creating a prison of
distraction.

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