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Haley Hegenauer

Lilah Galvin

English 111

September 18, 2018

Rhetorical Strategies Changing an Argument

In any form of an argument, such as an argumentative article, or a debate on television,

the author or speaker always uses at least one form of rhetoric to build and enhance the argument

they are making. Rhetoric is the way that the author or speaker chooses to construct their

argument. Rhetoric is what makes you believe or not believe what the author is arguing. In the

excerpt, “Story Skeletons” by Roger Schank, from his 1990 book, Tell Me a Story: A New Look

at Real and Artificial Memory, he uses many forms of rhetoric to persuade his audience. Schank

claims that when people are telling stories, they use different “story skeletons” to construct their

own versions of the truth, so therefore only hearing one version of a story can be dangerous. A

story skeleton is a basic construct used as a format for many stories. For example, one of the

story skeletons described in the article is called an understandable tragedy.(129) The first part of

this skeleton is ““Actor pursues justifiable goal”, after this the “Actor selects a reasonable plan to

achieve [his/her] goal, Plan involves selection of correct action, Action taken has unintended and

unanticipatable result. Result turns out to be undesirable. Innocent people are hurt by

result””(129). These different steps produces different outcomes when using a different story

skeleton. Schank uses rhetorical strategies effectively to persuade his audience that story

skeletons can be used to make different stories from the same facts.

The first forms of rhetoric that Schank uses in his argument are ethos and logos.

Ethos is a rhetorical strategy that establishes credibility of the author to the audience to help the
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audience believe that what he is claiming is true. Without credibility, a reader can disregard

everything that an author is saying because a reader may believe that what the author is saying is

made up, or that an author is not educated enough to give a valid argument. Schank uses ethos by

including an introduction of himself, akin to a resume, at the beginning of the article. For

example, one part in the introduction states, “Roger Schank… taken from his 1990 book Tell Me

a Story: A New Look at Real and Artificial Memory”(128). Because he wrote a book about story

skeletons before, Schank proves to his audience that he is educated on the subject, and therefore

his argument is trustworthy. People will often trust an author’s argument when the author proves

to be credible. By proving that he is credible through experience in writing about this topic

previously, Schank was able to use the rhetorical strategy ethos effectively. Schank also uses

logos early in his article. Logos is a form of rhetoric that uses facts, logic, and reasoning to build

an argument and lead readers to drawing conclusions based on facts, logic, and reasoning.

Schank gives examples of stories that people have told, and gives another perspective of the

same event with a different story skeleton. Schank claims that to describe an event,“ Mr. Reagan

has chosen a common skeleton: understandable tragedy” and to describe the same event, “Mrs.

Thatcher has used a much more specific skeleton, namely the justifiability of self-defense”(130).

Schank is showing that by using different story skeletons, there can be different stories made

from the same event. By giving an example one story that had two different outcomes resulting

in the use of story skeletons, Schank sets up the reader to come to a conclusion on their own

about how easy it is to change a story, and how it could be problematic.This use of rhetorical

strategies helps further build his argument that using story skeletons can change a story, so it is

dangerous to hear just one viewpoint.

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Schank also used the form of rhetoric called pathos in his article. Pathos is a form of

rhetoric that is supposed to spark an emotional response from the audience by appealing to

emotions such as: sadness, sympathy, or guilt. By using emotional appeals, readers can agree

with an argument based on moral values, or their own emotional experiences. Schank uses

pathos later in the article by using examples of divorce stories to show how people use story

skeletons. Schank writes,, “We interviewed people who had been divorced and asked them to tell

us the story of their divorces”(134). By using divorce stories Schank is actively using an

emotional appeal to readers in order to incite a sympathetic response. After Schank explains

what sort of story skeleton is used in the divorce story, he is inviting his audience to recall their

own use of story skeletons. The reader is able to remember a time when they might have used a

story skeleton intentionally, or unintentionally to change the ending of a story, such as a divorce

story. This use of rhetoric was effective in that Schank gives his audience stories that can be

more interesting and relatable. Schank also uses a softer tone when talking about the divorce

stories. This gives readers a sympathetic response along with the stories themselves. By using

pathos, readers had a more sympathetic response, making them drawn more to believing

Schank’s argument that it is dangerous to hear one story through one story skeleton.

Schank uses multiple anecdotes throughout his article. Anecdotes are short stories that

are being told that is often used to relate back to an author’s argument. The divorce stories that

Schank uses serve as anecdotal appeals. He writes, “My first marriage took place within hours

literally of my graduation from college… that just confirmed my belief that this relationship

wasn’t going to work, so we separated” (137). This is just one of the instances that Schank uses

an anecdote to explain what sort of story skeleton was used. Anecdotes like this one can be

effective when making an argument because it is an example that creates a picture in the reader’s
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mind of how the argument the author is making is valid, making the reader more convinced of

the argument. Although using anecdotes can be helpful for an argument, Schank relies too

heavily on using anecdotes that are paired with other rhetorical strategies such as logos and

pathos. Most of Schank’s article is just repetitive patterns of somebody telling a story, and

Schank explaining what story skeleton is used. This is harmful because readers do not have

hardly any other form of evidence to further Schank’s argument, so if the reader does not think a

story and an explanation is enough to convince them of his argument, there is not much else to

convince them. Schank also does not use anecdotes effectively because he uses anecdotes too

often, and this can make readers uninterested, and can distract them from the actual argument

that is being made.

In conclusion, Schank uses multiple forms of rhetoric to further his argument that the

same story can be told in a completely different way based on what story skeleton is used, so it is

dangerous to only hear one side of a story. Schank uses rhetoric such as logos, ethos, pathos, and

anecdotes. By using rhetorical strategies, Schank builds his argument to convince his audience

that his claim is true. While Schank was able to use multiple forms of rhetorical strategies to

further his argument, he also relied heavily on the use of anecdotes. Anecdotes can be helpful

when building an argument by giving the reader something to relate to, but Schank uses

anecdotes too often, which made his article uninteresting and repetitive. Overall, Schank was

able to mostly effectively use rhetorical strategies because even though he used too many

anecdotes, he also paired other rhetorical strategies with anecdotes, such as pathos when he

described story skeletons used in divorce stories.

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Works Cited

Schank, Roger C. “Tell Me a Story: a New Look at Real and Artificial Memory.”

Exploring Connections, Learning in the 21st Century, Pearson, 2016, 128-140.