Plain Style Rhetoric

According to Aristotle, there are three points to persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. The ancient Greeks also used exigence to describe the proper moment for using rhetoric. Kairos expresses the proper moment with the proper mode of rhetoric. Puritans of Colonial America used plain style to reach a broader audience. The leader William Bradford detailed much of his group’s treacherous journey on the Mayflower in Of Plymouth Plantation.

You also practiced two forms of sentence structure in this topic. It is important to realize that no matter how complex a sentence may be, the bulk, or meat, of a sentence can be made of a subject, verb, and direct object. Additional words in a sentence provide more description, but the essence of the sentence's meaning relies on the subject, verb, and (if available) a direct object. Understanding the basic sentence patterns will help you to find meaning in complex literary pieces.