Janice M. Lauer Rice (November 18, 1932 - April 7, 2021) [1] was an American scholar of composition, rhetoric, and linguistics. She was a founding member of the Rhetoric Society of America. [2] She founded one of the first doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition at Purdue University in 1980. [2] [1] 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 (now the Andrea Lunsford Travel Grant) and the Purdue Foundation Janice M. Lauer Dissertation Award. [1] [2]
Lauer was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1932. [1] She obtained a master's degree in English from St. Louis University and her doctorate from the University of Michigan. [1] Walter J. Ong was one of Lauer's professors at St. Louis University. [3] [4] She then went to work at the University of Detroit, where, among others, she mentored James Porter. [3]
In 1967, Lauer, together with Richard Young, Ross Winterowd, Edward P.J. Corbett, and George Yoos decided to create what would become the Rhetoric Society of America while at the Conference on College Composition and Communication. [3] [4] Lauer held regular summer seminars on current theories of teaching composition. [3] [5] Speakers for the seminar included Edward P.J. Corbett, Ross Winterowd, Richard Young, Walter Ong, James Moffett, James Kinneavy, Gordon Rohman, Louis Milic, Frank O'Hare, Janet Emig, Linda Flower, Louise Phelps, James Berlin, and Andrea Lunsford. [3] These seminars shared current composition theories with a wide range of instructions. [3]
In 1980, Lauer founded one of the first doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition at Purdue University in 1980. [2] [1] [4] Working with Muriel Harris, she was instrumental in hiring Patricia Sullivan and James Berlin. [4] She also directed the Cranbrook Writers Conference. Lauer was a professor at Purdue from 1980 until her retirement in 2003, directing 57 dissertations. [5] She later served as the Coordinator of the Consortium of Rhetoric and Composition Doctoral Programs. [2] [5] She also served as an executive committee member of the National Council of Teachers of English and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Rhetoric Society of America. [2] [5] She was also president of the Aquinas Educational Foundation. [1]
Inventio, one of the five canons of rhetoric, is the method used for the discovery of arguments in Western rhetoric and comes from the Latin word, meaning "invention" or "discovery". Inventio is the central, indispensable canon of rhetoric, and traditionally means a systematic search for arguments.
Edward P.J. Corbett was an American rhetorician, educator, and scholarly author. Corbett chaired the 1970 Conference on College Composition and Communication, and was chair of the organization and a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Executive Committee in 1971. He was also chair of the Rhetoric Society of America from 1973 to 1977. From 1974 to 1979, he was editor of the journal College Composition and Communication. He is known for promoting classical rhetoric among composition scholars and teachers.
Victor J. Vitanza is a Professor of English at Clemson University. He is the former Director of the interdisciplinary-transdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design, which is situated in the College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities.
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. The flagship national organization for this field is the Conference on College Composition and Communication.
Patricia Bizzell, Ph.D. is a Professor of English, emerita, and former Chairperson of the English Department at 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.
James A. Berlin was an American scholar, professor, writer, and theorist in the field of composition studies, known for his scholarship on the history of rhetoric and composition theory.
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.
Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive speech. Stance is an individual's attitudes in emotional and intellectual matters, or a philosophical position in a logical argument. Rhetorical stance is the position of a speaker or writer in relation to audience, topic, and situational context. A rhetorical stance is an effective argument in favor of a particular position in order to persuade others to agree.
English studies is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which is a distinct discipline. An expert on English studies can be called an Anglicist. The discipline involves the study and exploration of texts created in English literature. English studies include: the study of literature, the majority of which comes from Britain, the United States, and Ireland ; English composition, including writing essays, short stories, and poetry; English language arts, including the study of grammar, usage, and style; and English sociolinguistics, including discourse analysis of written and spoken texts in the English language, the history of the English language, English language learning and teaching, and the study of World of English. English linguistics is usually treated as a distinct discipline, taught in a department of linguistics.
The Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) is an academic organization for the study of rhetoric.
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
Harriet Malinowitz is an American academic scholar specializing in lesbian and gay issues in higher education, women's studies, the rhetoric of Zionism and Israel/Palestine, and writing theory and pedagogy.
Anthony Edward Schiappa, Jr. is an American scholar of communication and rhetoric, currently Professor of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds the John E. Burchard Chair of Humanities; from 2013 to 2019, he also served as the program's Head. Previously, he spent seventeen years in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, the last seven of which he served as chair. He is the author of eight books and numerous articles that have appeared in classics, communication, English/Composition, philosophy, psychology, and law journals.
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 living beings and in all manner of experiences, and it redefines traditional delivery sites to include the non-traditional locations such as demonstrations, letter writing, and digital processes. An important distinction is made between "feminist rhetoric" and "rhetorical feminism": rhetorical feminism is a strategy that counters traditional forms of rhetoric, favoring dialogue over monologue and seeking to redefine the way audiences define rhetorical appeals. Rhetorical feminism also values listening and silence as dynamic rhetorical practices.
James Louis Kinneavy was an American scholar and teacher of rhetoric and composition. Since the publication of his best-known work, A Theory of Discourse, he has been widely considered “one of America's major rhetorical theorists.” The book's main contribution to the field of contemporary discourse is the case Kinneavy made for the importance of rhetoric throughout Western history. He authored seven books and over thirty articles on rhetorical theory and composition pedagogy, and his work has been the “cornerstone of dozens of textbooks on composition, many university and college programs, and entire state language arts programs.” Throughout his career, Kinneavy was heavily involved with teaching, working with the Texas Department of Education and as a consultant to school districts in Texas and other states.
Lisa S. Ede was an author, editor and scholar of writing and rhetoric. She taught rhetoric and writing at Oregon State University, where she worked as a professor from 1980 to 2013. Ede has received awards for her scholarly work from the Modern Language Association, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and the International Writing Center Association.
Ann E. Berthoff was a scholar of composition who promoted the study of I.A. Richards and Paulo Freire and the value of their work for writing studies.
Janet Emig was an American composition scholar. She is known for her groundbreaking 1971 study The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders, which contributed to the development of the process theory of composition. Her article, "Writing as a Mode of Learning" (1977) is also frequently cited and anthologized by the Writing Across the Curriculum movement.