“The principals of aikido, meditative breathing, Japanese calligraphy, and soft argumentation constitute four slices of the same pie, whatever their respective origins and pedagogical risks. Kroll recognizes the need for closed-fist argumentation while seeking to moderate its use.”

“Despite some drawbacks, one likely unavoidable given the targeted audience, Applegarth succeeds in her rhetorical archeology, recovering lost or hidden texts and restoring their place within anthropological disciplinary formation.”

“The editors of Present Tense are pleased to announce a new issue focused on a range of topics, from race and law to the politics of higher education. Volume 4.2 includes articles that explore rhetoric as it exists in many different places, especially as it is employed by disempowered and disenfranchised groups in politically contested locations.”

“When groups are not allowed access to participate on the dominant platform, they “make do” by refashioning the space using everyday materials that are available to them”

“Stakeholders may celebrate the nod toward academics in the term student­ – athlete ; however, such a descriptor serves only to reinforce the marginalized status of over 450,000 student-athletes in American higher education.”

“Phoenix’s advertisements galvanize a fear of the now and challenge prospective students to respond, framing the opportune moment as a last chance at economic security.”

“We advocate for a needed awareness on the criminalizing of brown and black bodies within the borderlands.”

“We argue that “technical rhetorics” is a concept that has affordances for thinking about how to critically communicate with public audiences about specialized information.”

“This bibliography may also be useful to scholars looking to publish in queer rhetorics to identify journals that have been particularly open or hospitable to certain queer approaches.”

“Sarah Tinker Perrault examines popular science writing to highlight how communication between science and civic society has inhibited the formation of a democratic process of communication between these two populations.”

“Rhetorics of Motherhood unveils this discursive construction of motherhood within three distinct historical and American contexts to theorize motherhood as a rhetorical strategy that both disadvantages and advantages women.”

We welcome our first intern, Shannon Wagner, to the team. A senior at Towson University, Shannon is an English major with a concentration in writing and a mass communications/advertising minor. Shannon is an active member in the Kappa Delta Sorority, and she enjoys writing creative essays and poetry. Shannon will be working with Present Tense […]

Present Tense editors will be at the upcoming CCCC and ATTW conferences in Tampa, FL. We’re always happy to talk about possible submissions or ideas for articles. Look for editors wearing brightly colored Present Tense pins!

“The editors of Present Tense are excited to announce a new issue focused on meaningful political rhetoric, insightful technical rhetoric, and thoughtful critical reviews . Volume 4.1 connects rhetoric and the public sphere and includes cogent articulations of how rhetoric functions in free speech, contested legal issues, and unexpected digital realms.”

“Westboro Baptist Church has made clear that they have no real interest in any form of discussion, debate, or deliberation; moreover, they appear fundamentally opposed to the very democracy they’ve appealed to for protection.”

“The enthymeme, while serving as the central basis for heuristic invention, also works at the local or sentence level as a rhetorically oriented algorithmic procedure through which a rhetor determines the most probable success in persuading an audience to action”

“the realities of economic globalization are an essential feature of the political “given situation””

“Assessment, from our perspective, should help us understand what we are doing and improve the ways that we are doing it.”

“Ambient Rhetoric succeeds because it usefully synthesizes and extends a broad range of anti-epistemological stirrings from within and outside of rhetoric studies and because it attempts to come to grips with some of the implications of an anti-epistemological shift.”

“Although Restaino’s treatment of theory could appear tenuous, the text’s weaving of storytelling and philosophy invite readers to examine the necessity of connecting theory to the everyday trials of those who actually practice composition pedagogy in the classroom.”

“The editors are quite right in arguing that both literature, because of its speculative qualities, and rhetoric, because of its overt concern with “suasion in all its manifestations,” have a particular connection to the issue of values.”

“This current issue of Present Tense once again proves that vulnerable populations deserve our attention as we research, teach, and advocate in our constantly changing world. Specifically, Volume 3.2 brings together articles that attempt to critique unequal representations, highlight unjust situations, and expose unfair practices in the world today.”

Present Tense would like to congratulate Rochelle Gregory for being accepted into The Best of the Independent Rhetoric & Composition Journals, 2013 (Parlor Press). Rochelle’s article, “A Womb With a View: Identifying the Culturally Iconic Fetal Image in Prenatal Ultrasound Provisions” was featured in our special Medical Rhetorics Issue.

“racism is an ongoing discourse that both gives rise to and emerges from many rhetorical moments—it is a continuous force requiring continuous opposition. The discourses of racism are as much visual as they are textual and oral”

“We have written this article to intervene in the transgender coinage narrative and to more closely attend to the ways that knowledge is built among and between academic and non-academic communities.”

Present Tense editors will be at the Rhetoric Society of America conference in San Antonio, TX. Look for conference-goers wearing Present Tense pins!

“we can prepare students for the complexities that arise in working with real-world clients by teaching them flexibility in approaching this type of work”

“Our overarching assumption, one that carries through all principles and practices for curricular and program design, is that no one individual should be the center of the program.”

“the book advocates for experience architects to participate in the systems they build and to invite other participants to comment on the design of those systems, thus encouraging a greater fit between a design and implementation.”

“Watkins contributes to social class theory by basing his revisionist history on non-English majors and by seeing our capital not in decline inside the university, but as a provider of developing forms of cultural capital outside the university.”

“We remember Linda’s legacy at Present Tense as we continue publishing scholarship that advocates the kind of positive change through pedagogy, community engagement, and research that Linda worked toward her whole life. Thank you, Linda, for enriching our lives.”

Present Tense will once again have a number of editors attending and presenting at the CCCC Annual Convention, this year in Indianapolis, IN. Be on the lookout for Editors wearing Present Tense pins or stop by the Editor Roundtable during the Research Network Forum.

Present Tense is happy to announce that two of our Editors have taken tenure-track positions this last year. Alexandra Hidalgo, our Multimedia Editor, is now at Michigan State University, and Jessica E. Clements, our Style Editor, is at Whitworth University.

Present Tense will be at the Editor Roundtable during the Research Network Forum at 4Cs again this year. Stop by to say hello and talk to us about an article.

This issue is our most multimodal collection to date, including our first slidecast essay (“The Quiet Country Closet”) and our first full audio essay (“Voices in Egypt”), as well as a number of other essays that incorporate images, video, and additional modes beyond alphabetic text.

“I have never been assaulted behind a bar, dragged behind a pickup, tied to a fence, or shot at in the woods… things that are supposed to happen if you grow up gay in a rural small town.”

“As I reflect on my experiences with the Kinect ’s depth data, it occurs to me that it is a “degree zero” for experimental work because the data is (in Deleuzian terms) an intensive form, pure potential.”

“As a somewhat conservative, non-confrontational rhetorical strategy, rhetorical empathy can open doors of discussion and address fears and threats that may prevent listening and engagement.”

“C.K.’s approach to kairos, to the complex forces that shape rhetorical situations, offers an alternative to the dominant mode of contemporary networked rhetoric: snark.”

“We fancy ourselves rational, nuanced, and critically thinking animals, and commonplaces help perpetuate this fantasy.”

“I think people should have this healthy worry that they’ll construct this elaborate argument and then somebody’s going to be able to just puncture it by saying ‘wait a minute, here’s something you missed.'”

“Female bodies are offered in the exhibit as… learning tools. According to these displays, women need not be equally represented or studied.”

“While CY existed, it enacted and exceeded the role of national identity, and it suggests how the internet transforms our understanding of nationhood.”

The editors of Present Tense enjoyed meeting potential and current authors at the recent Conference on College Composition and Communication and the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference.

“Medical rhetoric, much like gender and body rhetorics, enjoys a rich interdisciplinary history and so feels at home in a journal dedicated to the rhetorical study of socially significant and timely topics. We seek to expand the field’s endeavors with this special, double issue.”

“Ultrasound provisions specifically exploit the cultural significance of the iconic fetal image in order to dissuade a patient from terminating her pregnancy.”

“Rhetoricians of health and medicine can challenge the effectiveness of the instrumental view of persuasion entailed by the commonplaces that regulate public health, such as fact is knowledge while belief is fiction .”

“In the pregnant composition teacher we see a dangerously stacked set of circumstances… Enclosed in a body that far exceeds her control, she is a microcosm for the larger system in which she must teach.”