A rhetorical question is a question asked to encourage your audience to reflect on an issue but not to elicit a direct response. Thus, in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. writes, “One may well ask, ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’” He does not intend for his audience to answer but instead uses the rhetorical question to lead to his explanation of the difference between just and unjust laws. Rhetorical questions allow you to frame the issue, engage your readers, and offer a transition from one idea or issue to the next.