In David Foster Wallace’s speech, “This is Water,” he uses common techniques to get through to his audience. Authors tend to use the repetition of words and phrases throughout their writing with intent. In order for Wallace to persuade his audience to accept his opinions and thoughts, he repeats the phrase “default-setting,” the word “think,” and the word “decide,” to support his idea that people live their lives unconsciously.

First, Wallace repeats the phrase “default-setting” to remind the audience that there is a problem to be solved. He believes that people are “hard-wired” into this state at birth into living in an automatic state. Implying there is a solution to this unconscious thinking, Wallace pins the “default setting” as a problem. This word choice and repetition throughout the speech allows Wallace to persuade the audience continuously that they should begin to become aware of their thoughts. The default-setting is a euphemism for unconscious thinking, and Wallace organizes the phrase to make the audience conscious of the situation.

Next, Wallace places the word “think” in his speech more than a few times, in order to catch the audience’s attention. He attempts to do so with this method so that the idea of people needing to think more consciously can be reiterated. Wallace’s point in repetition is to remind the audience that they should have control over what they choose to think. He says, “’Learning how to think’ . . . control over how and what you think” (line 47). He uses the word “think” twice in one sentence to plant the thought in the reader’s mind.

Finally, Wallace uses the word “decide” repeatedly to emphasize the importance of why people should make conscious decisions and break the habit of an automatic way of thinking. He uses this diction technique near the end of his speech in order to summarize his complete thought on the topic. He places the word in three sentences back to back, “decide . . . consciously decide . . . You get to decide. . .” (paragraph 10). This choice of placement proves that he makes a point to make the reader think about the decisions they make in life and how much more aware they can become of choosing them.

Many writers use techniques such as the repetition of words and phrases. Usually, they do so as a point to enforce a topic or a thought. David Wallace does this in his speech by repeating the words “default-setting,” “think,” and “decide.” In “this is water” he effectively gets his point across to his audience with this choice of writing technique. 

  