Hypophora
A rhetorical figure in which the speaker asks a question and immediately answers it.
Hypophora is the figure in which a speaker raises a question — often the very question the audience is thinking — and then answers it themselves. It differs from a rhetorical question, which is left unanswered because the answer is assumed obvious. Hypophora insists on providing the answer, and uses the question mainly to focus the audience's attention on the moment the answer arrives.
The figure is a staple of political speech, sermon, and long-form journalism. 'What, then, must we do? We must begin by...' is the classic setup. It works because the human ear locks onto a direct question in a way it does not lock onto a declarative sentence; by controlling both halves of the exchange, the speaker steers the reader's attention with unusual precision.
Hypophora is honest when the question is one the audience genuinely has; it is manipulative when the speaker invents a convenient question to knock down. Careful writers ask the question the reader is actually asking, not the one that would be easiest to answer.
“You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might.”
Keep reading the glossary
A question asked for effect rather than to elicit an answer.
The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses.
The art of persuasive speaking and writing — the discipline behind every great quoted line.
Aristotle's three modes of persuasion — character, emotion, and reason.