Mega Prompt Throughout our philosophical readings, you can see that the main purpose is for the author to express their beliefs and why they think you should read them. To do this they use many forms of rhetoric to capture our attention. Authors, especially the philosophical ones we have been talking about, used rhetorical devices for many different reasons, including: drawing the readers attention and strengthening their essays and ideas. In the essays we read in class, the authors use rhetorical devices to help draw the readers attention. For example, Emerson uses an epigraph at the beginning of his essay that completely draws the attention of the audience. It says, "No te quaesiveris extra"(Emerson 1). This is a Latin quote meaning do not look outside of yourself from the truth. Just by knowing what the epigraph means, the reader can figure out the entire theme of this essay: self-reliance. Epigraphs are not the only devices used by these authors to capture the attention of the reader. Many of the authors use symbols. Whitman used a symbol of nature in his essay, The Song of Myself. He uses nature to discuss reincarnation after death, which is what he believes in, and he also uses it to show the growth of people. For example, he believes that no matter how bad a person is on earth, they will come back through reincarnation no matter what. The devices make their works more interesting because it gives some flavor to a boring topic. They also use rhetoric to appeal to the reader because the devices usually help in explaining how their beliefs are better than what others may think of them. I mean Emerson's writing sounded pretty appealing to a high school student; high schoolers would be able to do what they want to do without asking their parents and they would not always have to worry about completing their homework. Using rhetorical devices, the authors of the physiological readings we have read, draw the readers attention and strengthen their ideas. The authors use rhetoric to show us how they feel about the topic at hand, by strengthening their topics in their essays through rhetoric. By reading Socrates work, we can find that he uses rhetoric to portray his view of society. Satre used rhetoric in his essay to show the reader what he believed in. It helps the audience to understand Satre because he explains all the points of his beliefs. He shows how it contradicts what people in society say about it. Most of the authors used the contradicting views of their beliefs to help explain why their views made since. That is exactly what Satre did. It helps deepen our understanding of the author when they explain the contrasting ideas of their beliefs. Throughout reading these essays, the reader can begin to understand the authors and more about what they believe in. The authors use rhetoric to help the readers understand better and to draw the attention of the reader by using rhetoric. I recommend the authors to use epigraphs because they help us to understand about the topic at hand without actually reading the entire essay. If a reader doesn't understand, then they can better understand by reading the epigraph.