Rhetoric is the art of persuasion,which along with grammar and logic,is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform,persuade,or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law,for passage of proposals in the assembly,or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies,he calls it "a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics". Rhetoric typically provides heuristics for understanding,discovering,and developing arguments for particular situations,such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals:logos,pathos,and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric or phases of developing a persuasive speech were first codified in classical Rome:invention,arrangement,style,memory,and delivery.
Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage,it normally describes a category of literature,music,or other forms of art or entertainment,whether written or spoken,audio or visual,based on some set of stylistic criteria,yet genres can be aesthetic,rhetorical,communicative,or functional. Genres form by conventions that change over time as cultures invent new genres and discontinue the use of old ones. Often,works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts,works,or pieces of communication may have individual styles,but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid,strictly adhered-to guidelines,while others may show great flexibility.
Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning 'the right,critical,or opportune moment'. In modern Greek,kairos also means 'weather' or 'time'.
Genre studies is an academic subject which studies genre theory as a branch of general critical theory in several different fields,including art,literature,linguistics,rhetoric and composition studies.
The term composition as it refers to writing,can describe authors' decisions about,processes for designing,and sometimes the final product of,a composed linguistic work. In original use,it tended to describe practices concerning the development of oratorical performances,and eventually essays,narratives,or genres of imaginative literature,but since the mid-20th century emergence of the field of composition studies,its use has broadened to apply to any composed work:print or digital,alphanumeric or multimodal. As such,the composition of linguistic works goes beyond the exclusivity of written and oral documents to visual and digital arenas.
Rhetoric of science is a body of scholarly literature exploring the notion that the practice of science is a rhetorical activity. It emerged following a number of similarly-oriented disciplines during the late 20th century,including the disciplines of sociology of scientific knowledge,history of science,and philosophy of science,but it is practiced most fully by rhetoricians in departments of English,speech,and communication.
Composition studies is the professional field of writing,research,and instruction,focusing especially on writing at the college level in the United States.
Patricia Bizzell is a professor of English,emerita,and former Chairperson of the English Department at the College of the Holy Cross,United States,where she taught from 1978 to 2019. She founded and directed the Writer's Workshop,a peer tutoring facility,and a writing-across-the-curriculum program. She directed the College Honors and English Honors programs and taught first-year composition,rhetoric and public speaking,nineteenth-century American literature,and women's literature. A scholar and writer,Bizzell has authored or co-authored half a dozen books,written dozens of articles and book chapters,composed more than a dozen book reviews and review essays,and presented a large number of papers at academic conferences. Bizzell is the 2008 winner of the CCCC Exemplar Award,and former president of Rhetoric Society of America.
First-year composition is an introductory core curriculum writing course in US colleges and universities. This course focuses on improving students' abilities to write in a university setting and introduces students to writing practices in the disciplines and professions. These courses are traditionally required of incoming students,thus the previous name,"Freshman Composition." Scholars working within the field of composition studies often have teaching first-year composition (FYC) courses as the practical focus of their scholarly work.
Genre criticism,a method within rhetorical criticism,analyzes texts in terms of their genre:the set of generic expectations,conventions,and constraints that guide their production and interpretation. In rhetoric,the theory of genre provides a means to classify and compare artifacts in terms of their formal,substantive and contextual features. By grouping artifacts with others which have similar formal features or rhetorical exigencies,rhetorical critics can shed light on how authors use or flout conventions for their own purposes. Genre criticism has thus become one of the main methodologies within rhetorical criticism.
Professional communication is a sub-genre found within the study of communications. This subset encompasses written,oral,visual,and digital communication within a workplace context. It is based upon the theory of professional communications,which is built on the foundation that for an organization to succeed,the communication network within must flow fluently. The concepts found within this sub-set aim to help professional settings build a foundational communication network to better steady the flow of operations and messages from upper-level management. The second part of professional communication can also aim and assist to help within the public relations department of a particular company or organization,as these messages might be delivered to those unfamiliar with the organization or the general public.
Charles Bazerman is an American educator and scholar. He was born and raised in New York. He has contributed significantly to the establishment of writing as a research field,as evidenced by the collection of essays written by international scholars in Writing as A Human Activity:Implications and Applications of the Work of Charles Bazerman. Best known for his work on genre studies and the rhetoric of science,he is a Professor of Education at the University of California,Santa Barbara,where he also served as Chair of the Program in Education for eight years. He served as Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication,delivering the 2009 CCCC Chair's Address,"The Wonders of Writing," in San Francisco,California. He is the author of over 18 books,including Shaping Written Knowledge,Constructing Experiences,The Languages of Edison’s Light,A Theory of Literate Action,and a Rhetoric of Literate Action. He also edited over 20 volumes,including Textual Dynamics of the Profession,Writing Selves/Writing Societies,What Writing Does and How it Does It,as well as the Handbook of Research on Writing and the two series Rhetoric,Knowledge and Society and Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition. He also wrote textbooks supporting the integration of reading and writing that have appeared in over 30 editions and versions including The informed writer:Using sources in the disciplines,The Informed Reader,and the English Skills Handbook.
Jimmie Wayne Corder was a scholar of rhetoric.
Theories of rhetoric and composition pedagogy encompass a wide range of interdisciplinary fields centered on the instruction of writing. Noteworthy to the discipline is the influence of classical Ancient Greece and its treatment of rhetoric as a persuasive tool. Derived from the Greek work for public speaking,rhetoric's original concern dealt primarily with the spoken word. In the treatise Rhetoric, Aristotle identifies five Canons of the field of rhetoric:invention,arrangement,style,memory,and delivery. Since its inception in the spoken word,theories of rhetoric and composition have focused primarily on writing
Collaborative pedagogy stems from the process theory of rhetoric and composition. Collaborative pedagogy believes that students will better engage with writing,critical thinking,and revision if they engage with others. Collaborative pedagogy pushes back against the Current-Traditional model of writing,as well as other earlier theories explaining rhetoric and composition;earlier theories of writing,especially current-traditional,emphasizes writing as a final product. In contrast,collaborative pedagogy rejects the notion that students think,learn,and write in isolation. Collaborative pedagogy strives to maximize critical thinking,learning,and writing skills through interaction and interpersonal engagement. Collaborative pedagogy also connects to the broader theory of collaborative learning,which encompasses other disciplines including,but not limited to,education,psychology,and sociology.
The rhetoric of health and medicine is an academic discipline concerning language and symbols in health and medicine. Rhetoric most commonly refers to the persuasive element in human interactions and is often best studied in the specific situations in which it occurs. As a subfield of rhetoric,medical rhetoric specifically analyzes and evaluates the structure,delivery,and intention of communications messages in medicine- and health-related contexts. Primary topics of focus includes patient-physician communication,health literacy,language that constructs disease knowledge,and pharmaceutical advertising. The general research areas are described below. Medical rhetoric is a more focused subfield of the rhetoric of science.
The rhetoric of technology is both an object and field of study. It refers to the ways in which makers and consumers of technology talk about and make decisions regarding technology and also the influence that technology has on discourse. Studies of the rhetoric of technology are interdisciplinary. Scholars in communication,media ecology,and science studies research the rhetoric of technology. Technical communication scholars are also concerned with the rhetoric of technology.
Feminist rhetoric emphasizes the narratives of all demographics,including women and other marginalized groups,into the consideration or practice of rhetoric. Feminist rhetoric does not focus exclusively on the rhetoric of women or feminists,but instead prioritizes the feminist principles of inclusivity,community,and equality over the classic,patriarchal model of persuasion that ultimately separates people from their own experience. Seen as the act of producing or the study of feminist discourses,feminist rhetoric emphasizes and supports the lived experiences and histories of all human beings in all manner of experiences. It also redefines traditional delivery sites to include non-traditional locations such as demonstrations,letter writing,and digital processes,and alternative practices such as rhetorical listening and productive silence. According to author and rhetorical feminist Cheryl Glenn in her book Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope (2018),"rhetorical feminism is a set of tactics that multiplies rhetorical opportunities in terms of who counts as a rhetor,who can inhabit an audience,and what those audiences can do." Rhetorical feminism is a strategy that counters traditional forms of rhetoric,favoring dialogue over monologue and seeking to redefine the way audiences view rhetorical appeals.
Cheryl Ball is an academic and scholar in rhetoric,composition,and publishing studies,and Director of the Digital Publishing Collaborative at Wayne State University. In the areas of scholarly and digital publishing,Ball is the executive director for the Council of Editors of Learned Journals and the Editor-in-Chief for the Library Publishing Curriculum. Ball also serves as co-editor of Kairos:A Journal of Rhetoric,Technology,and Pedagogy,an open access,online journal dedicated to multimodal academic publishing,which she has edited since 2006. Ball's awards include Best Article on Pedagogy or Curriculum in Technical or Science Communication from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC),the Computers and Composition Charles Moran Award for Distinguished Service to the Field,and the Technology Innovator Award presented by the CCCC Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication (7Cs). Her book,The New Work of Composing was the winner of the 2012 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. Her contributions to academic research span the areas of digital publishing,new media scholarship,and multimodal writing pedagogy.
Janice M. Lauer Rice was an American scholar of composition,rhetoric,and linguistics. She was a founding member of the Rhetoric Society of America. She founded one of the first doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition at Purdue University in 1980. The Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition from Parlor Press is named in her honor,as well as the Rhetoric Society of America's Janice Lauer Fund for Graduate Student Support and the Purdue Foundation Janice M. Lauer Dissertation Award.
