College Composition and Communication
50 articlesFebruary 2018
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Abstract
Epideictic rhetoric reifies and reshapes the shared values of a community, and in this article, I reread William E. Coles Jr.’sThe Plural Ias showing forth a classroom built upon epideictic rhetoric, his own epideictic pedagogy asking that teachers of writing engage student work not expecting to be persuaded but as observers of rhetorical display.
February 2013
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Abstract
This article situates the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing in current educational policy and in the discipline of rhetoric and composition. It argues the Framework positions the discipline to address gaps in American education by reinvigorating historical and traditional frames for writing instruction—ancient rhetoric and the liberal arts tradition. Although this realignment challenges technocratic assumptions about education, it raises pragmatic and ethical questions about assessing habits of mind that rhetoric and composition must consider.
February 2011
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Abstract
Individual agency is necessary for the possibility of rhetoric, and especially for deliberative rhetoric, which enables the composition of what Latour calls a good common world. Drawing on neurophenomenology, this essay defines individual agency as the process through which organisms create meanings through acting into the world and changing their structure in response to the perceived consequences of their actions. Conceiving of agency in this way enables writers to recognize their rhetorical acts, whether conscious or nonconscious, as acts that make them who they are, that affect others, and that can contribute to the common good. Responsible rhetorical agency entails being open to and responsive to the meanings of concrete others, and thus seeing persuasion as an invitation to listeners as also always agents in persuasion.
February 2010
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Composing Women’s Civic Identities during the Progressive Era: College Commencement Addresses as Overlooked Rhetorical Sites ↗
Abstract
This essay examines women’s commencement addresses presented from 1910 to 1915 at Vassar College. These addresses are significant because they reveal the students’ rhetorical education and the “available means” upon which these women drew in developing a public voice. By prompting reflection and the potential for change, the commencement addresses also demonstrate the civic importance of epideictic rhetoric.
September 2007
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Abstract
This study challenges the prevailing interpretations of the Greek rhetorical principle of kairos “saying the right thing at the right time” and attempts to draw on a more nuanced understanding of the term in order to provide generative re-readings of three Braddock Award–winning essays.
December 2003
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Abstract
The project Andrea Greenbaum attempts in EmancipatoryMovements in Composition is both worthwhile and ambitious. The project is worthwhile because introducing newcomers, particularly graduate students, to the multiple disciplines that have been incorporated into critical pedagogy in the last decade can be daunting, and there is certainly room in the field for text that names and organizes them. The project is ambitious because it attempts to do this in mere one hundred pages, with additional pages devoted to an appended syllabus, notes, and citations. Greenbaum opens her book with personal narrative of the Passover story, drawing from it the lesson that human beings need to experience oppression-even if it is relived only mythically-in order to understand our social responsibility to counter and resist those forces that seek to dominate, repress, and disempower individuals (xi), setting the polemical tone she maintains through the rest of the work. She organizes the book around what she identifies as four key approaches to critical pedagogy for the writing classroom: neosophistic rhetoric, cultural studies, feminist studies, and postcolonial studies, examining each for what they offer writing teachers seeking to enact critical pedagogy in their classrooms. Her first two chapters offer brief historical development of sophistic and cultural studies approaches. Greenbaum begins with the reclamation of sophistic rhetoric, drawing particularly on Susan Jarratt, Thomas Kent, John Poulakos, Sharon Crowley, and handful of others. She proposes that this neosophistic contributes to rhetoric of possibility by drawing attention to the indeterminacy of language, an empowering shift from logos privileged in Western philosophy to mythos that invites disruptive stoof the frontier is reconstrued as collabo ative zone of cultur l and linguistic contact, a historical moment of meeting, clashing, and cooperating ulticultura encounters (66).
September 2003
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Abstract
Jasper Neel, Reclaiming Our Theoretical Heritage C. Jan Swearingen, and as a Coherent Intellectual Discipline Gary A. Olson, The Death of as an Intellectual Discipline Charles Bazerman, The Case for as a Major Discipline Susan Miller, Writing as a Mode of Inquiry Susan Wells, Claiming the Archive for and Composition Susan C. Jarratt, New Dispositions for Historical in Rhetoric Gary A. Olson, Ideological Critique in and Composition Tom Fox, Working Against the State Lynn Worsham, Coming to Terms Keith Gilyard, Holdin' It Down Steven Mailloux, From Segregated Schools to Dimpled Chads Thomas Kent, Paralogic Rhetoric Barbara Couture, Writing and Truth Victor J. Vitanza, Seeing in Third Sophistic Ways Sharon Crowley, Body in and Composition John Trimbur, Delivering the Message Cynthia L. Selfe and Richard J. Selfe, The Intelligent Work of Computers and Studies William A. Covino, The Eternal Return of Magic-Rhetoric
February 2003
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Abstract
I begin with an analogy: teaching research-based argumentation and critique in composition studies is like learning how to perform hip-hop music. My analogy's focus on argumentation does not exclude traditional methods of argumentative pedagogy based on models like Stephen Toulmin's complex hierarchies or the Aristotelian triad of deliberative (offering advice), forensic (taking a side in a debate, often a legal or controversial matter), and epideictic (a speech of praise or blame appealing to an already won-over audience) discourse. Instead, I pose the analogy as a first step towards developing alternative or additional ways to engage composition students with the argumentative essay. In choosing hip-hop as a model for the composition essay, I attempt to draw upon a dominant form of contemporary culture familiar to the majority of students I encounter in my classrooms. Does a relationship between hip-hop and com-
September 2000
December 1999
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Abstract
Susan Wells’ Sweet Reason: Rhetoric and the Discourses of Modernity is an often brilliant but at times frustrating book. It undertakes a project that has been suspended by those who want to re-validate rhetoric (and rhetoricians) within hermeneutics, especially by following the laborious normalizing work involved in Richard Rorty’s anti-foundational relocation of “truth” in the play of interpretative methods. Wells would herself suspend the competitive and entirely disciplinary contest between Aristotelian classical rhetoric (on her account, modernized by Brian Vickers and Jasper Neel, for instance) and hermeneutic rhetoricians who prefer reading the Phaedrus.
September 1998
May 1998
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Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions (Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich) ↗
Abstract
One of the few authors to define and focus on feminist theories of rhetoric, Krista Ratcliffe takes Bathsheba s dilemma as her controlling metaphor: I have the feelings of a woman, says Bathsheba Everdene in Hardy s Far from the Madding Crowd, only the language of men. Although women and men have different relationships to language and to each other, traditional theories of rhetoric do not foreground such gender differences, Ratcliffe notes. She argues that feminist theories of rhetoric are needed if we are to recognize, validate, and address Bathsheba s dilemma. Ratcliffe argues that because feminists generally have not conceptualized their language theories from the perspective of rhetoric and composition studies, rhetoric and composition scholars must construct feminist theories of rhetoric by employing a variety of interwoven strategies: recovering lost or marginalized texts; rereading traditional rhetoric texts; extrapolating rhetorical theories from such nonrhetoric texts as letters, diaries, essays, cookbooks, and other sources; and constructing their own theories of rhetoric. Focusing on the third option, Ratcliffe explores ways in which the rhetorical theories of Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, and Adrienne Rich may be extrapolated from their Anglo-American feminist texts through examination of the interrelationship between what these authors write and how they write. In other words, she extrapolates feminist theories of rhetoric from interwoven claims and textual strategies. By inviting Woolf, Daly, and Rich into the rhetorical traditions and by modeling the extrapolation strategy/methodology on their writings, Ratcliffe shows how feminist texts about women, language, and culture may be reread from the vantage point of rhetoric to construct feminist theories of rhetoric. She rereads Anglo-American feminist texts both to expose their white privilege and to rescue them from charges of naivete and essentialism. She also outlines the pedagogical implications of these three feminist theories of rhetoric, thus contributing to ongoing discussions of feminist pedagogies. Traditional rhetorical theories are gender-blind, ignoring the reality that women and men occupy different cultural spaces and that these spaces are further complicated by race and class, Ratcliffe explains. Arguing that issues such as who can talk, where one can talk, and how one can talk emerge in daily life but are often disregarded in rhetorical theories, Ratcliffe rereads Roland Barthes The Old Rhetoric to show the limitations of classical rhetorical theories for women and feminists. Discovering spaces for feminist theories of rhetoric in the rhetorical traditions, Ratcliffe invites readers not only to question how women have been located as a part of and apart from these traditions but also to explore the implications for rhetorical history, theory, and pedagogy. In extrapolating rhetorical theories from three feminist writers not generally considered rhetoricians, Ratcliffe creates a new model for examining women s work. She situates the rhetorical theories of Woolf, Daly, and Rich within current discussions about feminist pedagogy, particularly the interweavings of critical thinking, reading, and writing. Ratcliffe concludes with an application to teaching.
October 1997
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Abstract
Introduction - Barbara Emmel, Paula Resch, and Deborah Tenney ARGUMENT REVISITED The Reasoned Thesis - John T Gage The E-Word and Argumentative Writing as a Process of Inquiry Evidence as a Creative Act - Barbara Emmel An Epistemology of Argumentative Inquiry The Toulmin Model of Argument and the Teaching of Composition - Richard Fulkerson Rogerian Rhetoric - Doug Brent Ethical Growth through Alternative Forms of Argumentation Classical Rhetoric - Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor The Art of Argumentation ARGUMENT REDEFINED Positioning Oneself - Pamela J Annas and Deborah Tenney A Feminist Approach to Argument Principles for Propagation - Judith Summerfield On Narrative and Argument The 'Argument of Reading' in the Teaching of Composition - Mariolina Salvatori The Argument of Reading - David Bartholomae
October 1996
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Abstract
Preface. Acknowledgments. 1. Ancient Rhetorics: Their Differences and the Difference They Make. INVENTION. 2. Kairos and the Rhetorical Situation: Seizing the Moment. 3. Stasis Theory: Asking the Right Questions. 4. The Common Topics and the Common Places: Finding the Available Means. 5. Logical Proof: Reasoning in Rhetoric. 6. Ethical Proof: Arguments from Character. 7. Pathetic Proof: Passionate Appeals. 8. Extrinsic Proofs: Arguments Waiting to Be Used. ARRANGEMENT. 9. The Sophistic Topics: Define, Divide, and Conquer. 10. Arrangement: Getting It Together. STYLE, MEMORY, AND DELIVERY. 11. Style: Composition and Ornament. 12. Memory: The Treasure-House of Invention. 13. Delivery: Attending to Eyes and Ears. RHETORICAL EXERCISES. 14. Imitation: Achieving Copiousness. 15. The Progymnasmata, or Rhetorical Exercises. Glossary of Terms. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.
May 1996
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Abstract
Power, Genre, and Technology Deborah H. Holdstein This Is Not an Essay Carolyn R. Miller Notes on Postmodern Double Agency and the Arts of Lurking James J. Sosnoski
October 1995
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Abstract
This title provides an introduction to the rhetorical tradition of sophistical dialectics in antiquity.In Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical Greece, John Poulakos offers a new conceptualization of sophistry, explaining its direction and shape as well as the reasons why Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle found it objectionable. Poulakos argues that a proper understanding of sophistical rhetoric requires a grasp of three cultural dynamics of the fifth century B.C.: the logic of circumstances, the ethic of competition, and the aesthetic of exhibition. Traced to such phenomena as everyday practices, athletic contests, and dramatic performances, these dynamics set the stage for the role of sophistical rhetoric in Hellenic culture and explain why sophistry has traditionally been understood as inconsistent, agonistic, and ostentatious.In his discussion of ancient responses to sophistical rhetoric, Poulakos observes that Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle found sophistry morally reprehensible, politically useless, and theoretically incoherent. At the same time, they produced their own version of rhetoric that advocated ethical integrity, political unification, and theoretical coherence. Poulakos explains that these responses and alternative versions were motivated by a search for solutions to such historical problems as moral uncertainty, political instability, and social disorder. Poulakos concludes that sophistical rhetoric was as necessary in its day as its Platonic, Isocratean, and Aristotelian counterparts were in theirs.
May 1995
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Oratorical Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Transformations in the Theory and Practice of Rhetoric ↗
Abstract
Gregory Clark S. Michael Halloran bring together nine essays that explore change in both the theory the practice of rhetoric in the nineteenth-century United States. In their introductory essay, Clark Halloran argue that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, rhetoric encompassed a neoclassical oratorical culture in which speakers articulated common values to establish consensual moral authority that directed community thought action. As the century progressed, however, moral authority shifted from the civic realm to the professional, thus expanding participation in the community as it fragmented the community itself. Clark Halloran argue that this shift was a transformation in which rhetoric was reconceived to meet changing cultural needs. Part I examines the theories practices of rhetoric that dominated at the beginning of the century. essays in this section include Edward Everett Neoclassical Oratory in Genteel America by Ronald F. Reid, The Oratorical Poetic of Timothy Dwight by Gregory Clark, The Sermon as Public Discourse: Austin Phelps the Conservative Homiletic Tradition in Nineteenth-Century America by Russel Hirst, of Citizenship in Nineteenth-Century America by P. Joy Rouse. Part 2 examines rhetorical changes in the culture that developed during that century. essays include The Popularization of Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric: Elocution the Private Learner by Nan Johnson, Rhetorical Power in the Victorian Parlor: Godey s Lady s Book and the Gendering of Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric by Nicole Tonkovich, Jane Addams the Social of Democracy by Catherine Peaden, The Divergence of Purpose Practice on the Chatauqua: Keith Vawter s Self-Defense by Frederick J. Antczak Edith Siemers, The of Picturesque Scenery: A Nineteenth-Century Epideictic by S. Michael Halloran.
February 1993
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Abstract
On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, Aristotle, translated, with introduction, notes, and appendixes by George A. Kennedy Janet M. Atwill Rhetoric and Irony: Western Literacy and Western Lies, C. Jan Swearingen Beth Daniell Composition and Resistance, C. Mark Hurlbert and Michael Blitz Alice Calderonello Written Language Disorders: Theory into Practice, Ann M. Bain, Laura Lyons Bailet, and Louisa Cook Moates Patricia J. McAlexander Faking It: A Look into the Mind of a Creative Learner, Christopher M. Lee and Rosemary F. Jackson Patricia J. McAlexander Reading and Writing the Self Autobiography in Education and the Curriculum, Robert J. Graham Lynn Z. Bloom Textbooks In Focus: Advanced Writing Rethinking Writing, Peshe C. Kuriloff Evelyn Ashton-Jones About Writing: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers, Kristin R. Woolever Evelyn Ashton-Jones Process, Form, and Substance: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers, Richard M. Coe Evelyn Ashton-Jones Beginning Writing Groups Daniel Sheridan
December 1992
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Abstract
(Inter)views: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on Rhetoric and Literacy, Gary A. Olson and Irene Gale Douglas Vipond Contending with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age, Patricia Harkin and John Schilb Stephen M. North Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured, Susan C. Jarratt James D. Williams Portfolios: Process and Product, Pat Belanoff and Marcia Dickson Edward M. White Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher’s Guide, Edward M. White Karen L. Greenberg Evolving Perspectives on Computers and Composition Studies: Questionsfor the 1990s, Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe Mary G. French Pain and Possibility: Writing Your Way through Personal Crisis, Gabriele Rico JoAnn Campbell
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Abstract
This book is a critically informed challenge to the traditional histories of rhetoric to the current emphasis on Aristotle Plato as the most significant classical voices in rhetoric. In it, Susan C. Jarratt argues that the first sophistsa diverse group of traveling intellectuals in the fifth century B.C.should be given a more prominent place in the study of rhetoric composition. Rereading the ancient sophists, she creates a new lens through which to see contemporary social issues, including the orality/literacy debate, feminist writing, deconstruction, writing pedagogy.The sophists pleasure in the play of language, their focus on historical contin-gency, the centrality of their teaching for democratic practice were sufficiently threatening to their successors Plato Aristotle that both sought to bury the sophists under philosophical theories of language. The censure of Plato Aris-totle set a pattern for historical views of the sophists for centuries. Following Hegel Nietzsche, Jarratt breaks the pattern, finding in the sophists a more progressive charter for teachers scholars of reading writing, as well as for those in the adjacent disciplines of literary criticism theory, education, speech communication, ancient history.In tracing the historical interpretations of sophistic rhetoric, Jarratt suggests that the sophists themselves provide the outlines of an alternative to history-writing as the discovery recounting of a set of stable facts. She sees sophistic use of narrative in argument as a challenge to a simple division between orality literacy, current discussions of which virtually ignore the sophists. Outlining similarities between ecriture feminine and sophistic style, Jarratt shows that contemporary feminisms have more in common with sophists than just a style; they share a rhetorical basis for deployment of theory in political action. In her final chapter, Jarratt takes issue with accounts of sophistic pedagogy focusing on technique the development of the individual. She argues that, despite its employment by powerful demagogues, sophistic pedagogy offers a resource for today s teachers interested in encouraging minority voices of resistance through language study as the practice of democracy.
December 1991
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Abstract
One of the major figures in this book, the Roman educator Quintilian, points out that writing -- unlike speaking -- must always be learned from a teacher since it cannot be learned by natural imitation as oral language is. He uses the example of a two-year-old who can understand and speak even though the child is years away from being able to be taught even the rudiments of the written alphabet. Writing instruction therefore plays an important role in any literate culture. This book offers a survey of the ways in which writing has been taught in Western culture, from ancient Greece to present-day America. Although there have been many studies of individual periods or specific educators, this volume provides the first systematic coverage of teaching writing over the 25 centuries from the ancient Sophists to today. It is hoped that the modern reader will find useful ideas in this account of the ebb and flow of teaching methods and philosophies over the years.
May 1991
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Abstract
Symbols in the prehistoric Middle East - developmental features preceding written communication, Denise Schmandt-Besserat a historical view of the relationship between reading and writing, Edward P.J.Corbett sophistic formulae and the emergence of the Attic-Ionic grapholect - a study in oral and written composition, Richard Leo Enos the auditors' role in Aristotelian rhetoric, William M.A.Grimaldi a sophistic strain in the medieval ars praedicandi and the scholastic method, James L.Kinneavy the illiterate mode of written communication - the work of the medieval scribe, Denise A.Troll rhetoric, truth and literacy in the Renaissance of the 12th century, John O.Ward Quintillian's influence on the teaching of speaking and writing in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, James J.Murphy l'enseignement de l'art de la premiere rhetorique - rhetorical education in France before 1600, Robert W.Smith technological development and writer-subject reader immediacies, Walter J.Ong a rhetoric of mass communication - collective or corporate discourse, Lynette Hunter.
February 1991
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Abstract
A standard in its field, this new edition provides the most up-to-date current thinking on rhetoric.
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Abstract
Conversations on the WrittenWord: Essays on Language and Literacy, Jay L. Robinson John Schilb Expressive Discourse, Jeannette Harris Douglas Hesse The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg Theresa Enos Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 3rd ed., Edward P. J. Corbett Cheryl Glenn Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing, Andrea Lunsford and Lisa Ede John Trimbur Learning to Write in Our Nation’s Schools: Instruction and Achievement in 1988 at Grades 4, 8, and 12, Arthur N. Applebee et al. Paul W. Rea The Future of Doctoral Studies in English, Andrea Lunsford, Helen Moglen, and James F. Slevin Joseph J. Comprone
May 1989
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Abstract
The first book to examine closely how the relationship of Cicero s oral and written skills bears on his legal argumentation.Enos argues that, more than any other Roman advocate, Cicero developed a literate mind which enabled him to construct arguments that were both compelling in court and popular in society. Through close examination of the audience and substance of Cicero s legal rhetoric, Enos shows that Cicero used his writing skills as an aid to composition of his oral arguments; after the trial, he again used writing to edit and re-compose texts that appear as speeches but function as literary statements directed to a public audience far removed from the courtroom.These statements are couched in a mode that would eventually become a standard of literary eloquence. Enos explores the differences between oral and literary composition to reveal relationships that bear not only on different modes of expression but also on the conceptual and cultural factors that shape meaning itself.
December 1986
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Abstract
The argument of this book is that the earliest tradition of Western rhetoric, the classical perspective of Aristotle and Cicero, continues to have the greatest impact on writing instruction--albeit an unconscious impact. This occurs despite the fact that modern rhetoric no longer accepts either the views of mind, language, and world underlying ancient theory or the concepts about discourse, knowledge, and communication presented in that theory. As a result, teachers are depending on ideas as outmoded as they are unreflectively accepted. Knoblauch and Brannon maintain that the two traditions are fundamentally incompatible in their assumptions and concepts, so that writing teachers must make choices between them if their teaching is to be purposeful and consistent. They suggest that the modern tradition offers a richer basis for instruction, and they show what teaching from that perspective looks like and how it differs from traditional teaching.
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Abstract
Historically considered, the concept of the topic sentence seems to be related to the concept of the topoi in classical rhetoric-in the sense of a topos or topic as subject matter treated in a speech or a portion of a discourse, as a method of reasoning about a subject, and as a place or heading from which arguments are drawn. All of these senses of the word seem to have been maintained in the kind of advice given by 19th-century textbook writers about methods of constructing paragraphs. In order to construct a paragraph, the advice goes, the writer should embody the main idea of the paragraph (its subject) in a topic sentence. Then, drawing upon a list of commonplace methods of reasoning about the subject (in the form of headings, such as comparison, contrast, and cause and effect, that label relationships), the writer should develop the central idea contained in the topic sentence into a unified and coherent paragraph. This connection between the topic sentence and the classical topoi is eminently suggestive, but however interesting it may be, the fact is that as an independent concept the topic sentence did not begin to emerge until the mid-19th century. It first appeared in Alexander Bain's discussion of the paragraph in 1866, and it attained fuller development in the late 19th and early 20th century. But the 19th-century conception of the topic sentence has come under considerable attack in recent years because of its deductive origins and because one kind of research has revealed that many contemporary professional writers do not use topic sentences in their writing. I would like to argue, however, that in some kinds of writing the topic sentence can be a valuable rhetorical strategy because it can help writers to organize their ideas and it can help readers to follow the logical development of the writer's ideas. As a means of developing my argument, I would like to look briefly at the origin and development of the concept of the topic sentence, consider the criticisms that have been made of the topic sentence in the 20th century, and then, drawing upon readability research that discusses the topic sentence and schema theory, argue that this kind of research supports the value of using topic sentences in expository prose.
October 1986
May 1986
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Abstract
Defining a rhetoric as a social invention arising out of a particular time, place, and set of circumstances, Berlin notes that no rhetoricnot Plato s or Aristotle s or Quintilian s or Perelman sis permanent. At any given time several rhetorics vie for supremacy, with each attracting adherents representing various views of reality expressed through a rhetoric.Traditionally rhetoric has been seen as based on four interacting elements: reality, writer or speaker, audience, and language. As emphasis shifts from one element to another, or as the interaction between elements changes, or as the definitions of the elements change, rhetoric changes. This alters prevailing views on such important questions as what is appearance, what is reality.In this interpretive study Berlin classifies the three 19th-century rhetorics as classical, psychological-epistemological, and romantic, a uniquely American development growing out of the transcendental movement. In each case studying the rhetoric provides insight into society and the beliefs of the people.
February 1985
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Abstract
Up until the publication of Alexander Bain's English Composition and Rhetoric in 1866, most American college textbook rhetorics were organized around belletristic discourse classifications; that is, they divided up the subject of writing into established literary forms such as orations, history, romance, treatises, sermons, and the like. Bain's textbook brought about what we now, thanks to Thomas Kuhn, refer to as a paradigm shift, sweeping away these belletristic schemes and substituting five forms-Description, Narration, Exposition, Persuasion, and Poetry-that, with the exception of Poetry, have survived up to the present in Freshman Composition and are known in the trade as the Modes of Discourse. 1 In recent years, however, another paradigm shift has been taking place, and Bain is now often held responsible for the impoverishment of rhetoric in the late nineteenth century.2 Regrettably, in the campaign to undo the damage he did, little attention has been paid to his intellectual milieu or to the question of why he did what he did, with the result that the true historical importance of the modes has been obscured. The most noteworthy feature of Bain's English Composition and Rhetoric-and the reason perhaps for its popularity among his contemporaries-may be its reliance upon the scientific thought of the day. During the previous century in Bain's native Scotland, Adam Smith, George Campbell, Hugh Blair and Joseph Priestley had sought to redefine the basic aims of rhetoric, largely in an effort to accommodate the increasingly prestigious natural sciences. As Wilbur Samuel Howell has argued, the classical rhetorical systems offered little guidance to the scientist in presenting his discoveries to the learned community and to the public at large: they conceived of persuasion as an appeal to commonplaces rather than facts, they depended for methods of proof on the logic of deduction rather than induction, they encouraged the use of ornamental figurative devices rather than plain statements, and in general they were designed for popular exhortation rather than for disseminating fresh knowledge.3 In his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke points the way to-
February 1983
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Abstract
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February 1981
October 1979
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Abstract
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Abstract
better ways for a writer to gain clarity, copiousness, and flexibility in language. To classical rhetoricians, a paraphrase was a literary exercise, a mode of literary treatment. It consisted of turning poetry into prose and prose into poetry. So far as sentence structure was concerned, poetry and prose were considered to be essentially the same. Thus a theme assignment could be given in poetry or in prose, so the paraphrase was an exercise which laid the founda-
October 1976
October 1975
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Abstract
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October 1971
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May 1970
February 1969
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Abstract
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December 1966
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Abstract
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May 1966
October 1965
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Abstract
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October 1963
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Abstract
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