An appeal to advantage is a rhetorical device in which the speaker encourages his or her audience to perform some action by representing that action as being in the audience's best interest.
An appeal to advantage can also be a request from someone in a position of power to someone who is in a socially subordinate position; the request is specifically for the subordinate to perform an act contrary to the subordinate's wishes, such that the subordinate is forced to commit the act in order to satisfy a more significant need. The appeal is specifically most expedient or advantageous to the person in power, but is also presented as forwarding the subordinate's interests in some significant way.
Read more about Appeal To Advantage: Examples
Famous quotes containing the words appeal to, appeal and/or advantage:
“[The Republican Party] consists of those who, believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of governing themselves and hating hereditary power as an insult to the reason and an outrage to the rights of men, are naturally offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the understanding and to the general interest of the community.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 1:10.
“We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)