Rhetorical Devices In Your E-Book

Alexandra Alter’s “Your E-Book is Reading You” Rhetorical devices are powerful tools used by writers attempting to make a persuasive argument to a given audience. While rhetorical devices are often dismissed as being mainly at the mercy of the fiction genre, they are equally compelling in nonfiction, particularly literary-style long-form pieces that have an editorial slant to them. Alexandra Alter’s “Your E-Book is Reading You” is one such example of the many different rhetorical devices that suit an opinion piece attempting to persuade using only non-fictional settings, and is worth analyzing to identify the effectiveness of these methods when framed by a purely technological and business setting. This essay will examine some different rhetorical …show more content…
When Alter states that “for centuries, reading has largely been a solitary and private act” (3) she is making the kind of leap in logic and generalization that is exaggerated. There is simply no way of proving that reading has been a private act for centuries. Given the existence of events like public readings, performances of plays, and other art forms that bring words into the public sphere, it seems an exaggeration to suggest that reading has “largely” been anything at all over such a large time span. Suggesting that reading has been private nearly exclusively, however, frames Alter’s argument for revised policy guidelines when it comes to the privacy of data collection in e-books in a much more dire light; one that requires quick action than a more even-keeled rhetorical approach would dictate. Furthermore, Alter also manages to intersperse quotes that help amplify the perceived significance of the essay’s stance, relying on a cyber security expert’s overblown comment to make it seem as though data collection through e-books could be a massive infringement of our privacy rights: “’there are a gazillion things that we read that we want to read in private,’ Mr. Schneier says” (22). The statement is an apparent use of hyperbole meant to evoke an emotional response from readers, who might reflect on the absurd total indicated by Schneier’s quote and, at the very least, come to the conclusion that they read a lot more things they want to be kept private than they might have otherwise thought. By framing the problem as more significant than it is, Alter’s opinion piece gains a great deal more weight, making it a more compelling and frightening