When you see a dangling carrot
on the front of a book’s cover, what comes to mind? Aristotle and Abraham
Lincoln? No? Okay, how about Homer Simpson? Yeah, me neither. In fact, I can
honestly say that I’ve never held the three figures in the same light, or even
in the same stream of thought. At least not until I read Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, a handbook centered on the
art of persuasion. Aside from the carrot cover, every rhetorical concept he
teaches seems to tie together surprisingly and captivatingly well in his book,
even the three aforementioned people.
Before I started reading this,
my mouth was gaping and I immediately regretted my choice of text – all because
of its sheer size. A manual on rhetorical tactics for 328 pages? No thank you.
But nevertheless, I had to read it and soon I realized that I had nothing to
regret at all! The book was a breeze, and information was craftily laced
through the pages in such a way that it felt as though I was going through snippets
of a bunch of stories that had no relation to one another. It was a nice break
from the typical “Here is how you do this… and here are examples of how to do
it.”
The first thing I noticed about the
book’s content was its layout. Contrary to the usual paragraph-by-paragraph,
nothing-else-on-the-page look, “Thank You for Arguing” is filled with chapter
titles, subheadings, quotes, bolded words, and italicized words scattered about
the pages. The book even has sidebars ranging in topics (from running for
political office to selling something) to please the reader and to show how the
principles that Heinrichs taught can be applied to everyday life. It reminded
me of a happy little scrapbook, which is not easy to do with the topic of
rhetorical strategies.
Now, before you read this
review any further, you should know that I’m a sixteen-year-old girl that has
harbored a not-so-secret disgust towards rhetoric – mostly because I’ve never
been able to accomplish it myself. I say this only to show how negatively
biased I’ve been about rhetoric and its related techniques and strategies.
Somehow, my opinion of its principles has done a complete 180° turn, meaning I
now view it as one of the most beneficial tactics a person can use. I think
it’s safe to say that Heinrichs’ power to persuade actually persuaded me into
realizing the importance of persuasion and how easy it is to be persuasive.
That’s a lot of persuasion in one sentence, don’t you think? Well luckily, the
author never had sentences like that. He used a wide variety of words; however,
he didn't seem pretentious or as though he were trying to show superiority. On
the contrary, he came off more as a trusted friend rather than a know-it-all,
despite the fact that he truly does appear to know it all.
Throughout the whole book, he targeted a myriad of ages, supplemented by
phrases like, “even though he rocked my confidence by including Captain Kangaroo
among his clients” (53) in which he connects to the older generation of his
readers. But I had no idea what Captain Kangaroo was. Heinrichs then uses the
example, “Parent: Eat everything on your plate, because kids are starving in [insert impoverished nation]” (165) to
introduce and help explain fallacies. I’ve gotten this excuse from my parents
countless times, and I know others have too, which makes it relatable and
connects the younger generation to his points as well. Early into my read, I
understood that he was being persuasive to the reader by appealing to a wide
audience and coming across more as an advisor rather than as a teacher. Sure
enough, a few sidebars began to show “Persuasion Alert”. He literally tells his
audience that he is persuading them, and yet he does it in a way that they (or
at least I) didn’t end up feeling betrayed.
Regardless of the joy this book
brought me, the explanations and examples started to feel redundant and his
writing style ended up being a bit lackadaisical. What I mean by this is that
the latter half of it suffered a sense of repetition of the primary half. So,
although the ideas and the persuasive tools were different in each new chapter,
I found that I was forcing myself to read it – I wasn’t using it for happy,
educational purposes anymore. In addition, the author opens up a bunch of
extremely controversial subjects. Abortion, rape, gay/straight marriage
equality, and slavery are only a few examples of his array of topics. He could
just as easily reach his initial mentoring purpose without these topics, and I
felt as though those took away from his personality and voice.
Nevertheless, Heinrichs discovered a
painless way to pave a pathway for people of any age on how to effectively persuade.
That alone is a huge accomplishment. I would recommend this read to anybody,
especially to those who are taking a class like AP Language and Composition or
other analytical courses because this book has benefitted me in so many aspects
for those types of subjects. Jay Heinrichs, who has been recognized by
Bloomberg BusinessWeek Magazine and has clients such as Walmart and some Ivy
League universities, spent 25 years of his life in journalism and marketing. He’s
a busy, world-famous man, but if I could say anything to him, it would be either
the question of ‘What does the dangling
carrot have to do with rhetoric?' or
a big “Thank You!” for persuading the world one page at a time.
Works
Cited
Heinrichs, Jay. Thank
You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us about the Art of Persuasion. New York:
Three Rivers, 2013. Print.
"Jay Heinrichs." Jay Heinrichs. N.p., n.d. Web.
21 Nov. 2013.
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