That anyone should want to use critical reading in analysis of advertising should be surprising if one accepts a broad conception of letters as including anything in print that worth studying. My idea of English studies supports point of view that our concern in English departments ought to be with critical reading and writing of all kinds of texts, just imaginative literature. In other words, we ought to be concerned as much with rhetorical inquiries as with aesthetic inquiries. In its own right, advertising provides a kind of distinctive knowledge about society. To some critics, advertising fills a genuine need by creating markets for new and valuable products and by expanding and strengthening economy. Advertising also reveals how techniques of science can contribute to better living. In addition, it informs people about available goods and services and invites them to secure good things of life-material comforts, entertainment, travel, and so forth. To some critics, however, advertising creates false values. These critics contend that since some products are basically alike, all too often advertisers appeal to people's baser instincts and emotions to sell their products. To stimulate demand for a product, they attach psychological values such as acquisitiveness, power, sexual pleasure, attractiveness, social approval, and competitive success, none of which are in product. To attain these values, all consumer needs to do to buy appropriate product. In brief, advertising an exercise in a special kind of persuasion. As if these criticisms were enough, advertisers have been accused of manipulating people without their consent at some deeper level of consciousness, of selling to id, as one critic put it (Seldin 442-43). A number of critics have commented on use of techniques in advertising. Vance Packard calls them hidden persuaders(3). Marshall McLuhan refers to them as subliminal pills for subconscious in order to exercise an hypnotic spell (228). They are not meant for conscious consumption. Their mere existence, asserts McLuhan, is a testimony to somnambulistic state of a tired metropolis (229). There evidence to suggest that some of these criticisms are justified. As early as 1934, James Rorty, in his book Our Master's Voice:Advertising, noted that the advertising man is, in fact, a journeyman psychologist (241). He

James L. Kinneavy, William McCleary, and Neil Nakadate. Writing in the Liberal Arts Tradition: A Rhetoric with Readings. Harper & Row, 1985. Pp. xvii + 395. Cloth. Instructor's manual. Marian M. Mohr, Revision: The Rhythm of Meaning. Boynton/Cook, 1984. 248 pages. Lynn Z. Bloom, Fact and Artifact: Writing Nonfiction. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1985. 337 pages. Research in Composition and Rhetoric: A Bibliographic Sourcebook. Ed. Michael G. Moran and Ronald F. Lunsford. Greenwood Press, 1984. 506 pages.

(1986). The Perry scheme and the teaching of writing. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 152-158.

(1985). Argument as emergence, rhetoric as love. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 16-32.

(1985). Multicultural literacy for faculty: Accommodating non‐native speakers of English in content courses. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 100-107.

(1985). Designing a case study method for tutorials: A prelude to research. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 88-97.

To speak of and cynicism in the same breath is to bear a double burden of pejorative jeopardy. The pejorative freight of either term, rhetoric or weighs heavily against anyone who tries to use these terms in non-pejorative ways. Such people are quite simply trying to swim against a torrent of pejorative everyday usage. Yet some of the positive historical legacy of the traditions of classical and of the ancient cynics is still around and does carry over into contemporary contexts, especially when we speak of and cynicism away from the marketplace and in academia, where still is the art of persuasion and cynicism graces literary texts with clever displays of verbal play and repartee. Wayne Booth at a recent conference, in discussing the problem of the public image of rhetoric, quoted a colleague as referring to some fellow as asshole, but at the same time explaining that the term was not intended in its pejorative sense. The twist of irony in the remark stimulates our imagination to come up with a context in which someone could be an asshole in a nonpejorative sense. Quite possibly there is a virtue in acting like an asshole towards others who act the same. Let us leave aside any question of a non-pejorative sense of rhetoric. What possible approbation can there be for the cynic, or for the use of the role of the cynic in our rhetoric? What is the rhetorical payoff of a cynical ethos? What function do cynical remarks serve in rhetorical strategies? To pursue these questions I caution against question begging assumptions when we examine the phenomenon of cynicism, for cynicism is a loaded term. But first off, cynical remarks do not a cynic make. Yet certainly they are used as evidence for attributing cynical attitudes, beliefs and cynicism to the one who makes them. Note in your own experience the degree to which the attributions of cynic and cynical are simply allegations that a sin has been committed. A second note of caution. The phenomenon of cynicism is, I believe, recalcitrant to any essentialist description, and we ought to avoid the pitfalls of pursuing a phantom of cynicism, that is, seeking to describe or to define the essential nature of cynicism. If you are not willing to take my advice on this matter, I commit you to chasing your tail endlessly in verbal circles, a game called whose paradigm is on first?

(1985). Romantic rhetoric for the modern student: The psycho‐rhetorical approach of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 64-79.

Abstract Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse, ed. Robert J. Connors, Lisa S. Ede, and Andrea A. Lunsford (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1984). 291 pages. Student Writers at Work: The Bedford Prizes, edited by Nancy Sommers and Donald McQuade (Boston: Bedford Books, 1984). James M. McCrimmon, Writing With a Purpose, 8th edition by Joseph F. Trimmer and Nancy I. Sommers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984). 752 pp. Joyce S. Steward and Marjorie Smelstor, Writing in the Social Sciences. Scott, Foresman and Company, 1984. 340 pages.

(1985). Writing‐across‐the‐curriculum textbooks: A bibliographic essay. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 202-217.

(1985). The nature of “audience” editor's note. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 218-219.

Advanced composition is now taught in colleges throughout the country to students in a variety of majors. But, unlike freshman English where one finds similar curricula and texts, this course has not had a traditional structure. In some schools, it may even indicate technical writing or advanced grammar study. In a 1979 survey, Michael Hogan discovered that at most colleges the course extended fundamentals learned in freshman English, with work on style and organization for argument, exposition, and other essay forms. Because few specialized texts were then available, teachers relied on books intended for freshmen, such as Hall's Writing Well and The Norton Reader, and thus repeated familiar advice on the modes of exposition, paragraphing and usage, with little attention given to research on composition.1

In its classical formulation, invention is the canon that provides a rhetorician with more or less systematic procedures for finding argu- ments appropriate to the rhetorical occasion that faces her. In most of the composition textbooks written by influential nineteenth-century teachers of writing, however, invention is either greatly transformed from its classical guise or is slighted altogether. By the end of the nineteenth century most popular composition textbooks written in the vein now described as current-traditional treat invention as a means of systematically delimiting an area of thought in order that the writer may handle its exposition in discourse with maximum clarity. 1 In what follows I trace the evolution-or better, devolution-of the inventional procedure recommended by influential composition texts written during the last half of the nineteenth century, and follow its course into our own century. The term evolution is of course metaphorical; however the continuity and development of the inventional tradition I am tracing is remarkably homogeneous. The first-generation authors in the tradition-Alexander Jamieson, Samuel Newman, H. N. Day, and Alex- ander Bain are among the best known-cite and use the work of British rhetoricians George Campbell or Hugh Blair, while members of the second generation-John Franklin Genung, Adams Sherman Hill, Bar- rett Wendell, Fred Newton Scott, and Joseph V. Denney-generally acknowledge at least Bain, Genung, and Day. And after 1900 until about 1940, Wendell and Scott and Denney are the authoritative names in the tradition; they are as routinely cited in early twentieth-century textbooks as were Blair and Campbell in nineteenth-century works. Early nineteenth-century American school rhetoric is an amalgam of classical and eighteenth-century discourse theory. No American rhetoric text had yet succeeded in creating a satisfactory blend of the epistemological rhetoric formulated by George Campbell in his influen- tial Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776) and the Ciceronian rhetoric imparted by such popular works as John Ward's System of Oratory (1759).2 Alexander Jamieson's popular Grammar of Rhetoric and Polite Litera- ture (1818) nicely represents the confusion of traditions which obtained in the early part of the century.3 Jamieson opens his treatise with a discussion of language which is an imitation of Hugh Blair's treatment of 146

(1984). The birth of molecular biology: An essay in the rhetorical criticism of scientific discourse. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 70-83.

(1984). The way of a large house: Synthesis in teaching composition. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 4-12.

C. H. Knoblauch and Lil Brannon, Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing. Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1984. 171 pages. Composition and Literature: Bridging the Gap. Ed. Winifred Bryan Horner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. New Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication: Research, Theory, Practice. Ed. Paul V. Anderson, R. John Brockmann, and Carolyn R. Miller. Baywood's Technical Communications Series: Volume 2. Farmingdale, NY: Bay wood Publishing Co., 1983. 254 pages. Persuasive Messages, Ruth Anne Clark. New York: Harper & Row 1984. vi + 250 pages.

Over the last two decades, the development of graduate programs in composition has provoked a number of questions: Is this study a genuine discipline? What are its origins, its domain of investigation, its modes of inquiry and methods of evaluation? To some it seems a newcomer to academia even though part of its work reinstates and reorients the written branch of rhetoric, one of the most ancient disciplines of higher education. To others its character is puzzling because its scholarship has a highly multidisciplinary cast. These attitudes manifest themselves in many circumstances. A panel at the last meeting of the Modern Language Association raised questions about criteria for assessing composition research. A recent article in College English by Scott and Castner implied this puzzlement by offering some bibliographic starting places for those wishing to enter the field.' Such questions are normal and appropriate for a developing field, which must define itself. This essay does not attempt to offer definitive answers to these questions but rather some preliminary reflections on the nature of composition studies as a discipline, first delineating some of its distinctive features and then discussing advantages and dangers associated with these features.

(1984). Confessions of a writer: The art of Richard Selzer. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 84-98.

(1984). Going public: A case for reading aloud in the classroom. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 58-64.

Written responses to student writing continue to play an important part in most composition classes despite increased employment of peers and tutors as sources of informed opinion and despite increasing emphasis on the importance of oral response. How best to respond to students' essays therefore concerns us all, at whatever level we teach. Yet valuable as we believe our penciled comments to be, this timeconsuming, difficult task proves too frequently a confused, unsatisfying experience for us; worse, our efforts prove too often apparently unhelpful to students who, if uninstructed, are alienated, antagonized, by our thought-heavy marginalia and terminal remarks. I suspect many of us, seated before a stack of papers, wonder over late-night coffee if we are doing this job well, if the results are worth the effort. Much of the research done on response remains buried in unpublished dissertations (for accounts of such research, see Jarabek and Dieterich, Knoblauch and Brannon 1981, Lamberg*), and the published material, scattered throughout the professional literature, is not readily available for comprehensive review. Compared to the growing body of literature devoted to other compositional and rhetorical topics, the amount of accessible advice on how to respond productively to student writing is scant. Nevertheless, enough such material of a practical nature exists to warrant attention. What follows is an attempt to summarize and to synthesize some of the guidelines for writing effective comments that this literature suggests, thereby supplementing C. W. Griffin's recent review-essay, which deals exclusively with the components of a theory of evaluation. To bring together and to group under general rubrics the eighty-one items here reviewed may assist the formation of a useful theory of response and may, more immediately, bring greater coherence and consistency to the almost daily act of commenting on student themes.

(1984). Reality as enchantment—a theory of repetition. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 165-174.

(1983). Black holes, indeterminacy, and Paulo Freire. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 28-36.

(1983). Teaching the enthymeme: Invention and arrangement. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 38-50.

Articles by Richard Fulkerson, Karen Pelz, and Michael Hogan in the first issue of the Journal of Advanced Composition (Spring 1980) all pointed to a serious lack of consistency in the profession's conception of what should be covered in advanced composition courses in college. Professor Pelz, while arguing against what she perceives as another teacher's advocacy of media-centered rather than writing-centered advanced composition courses, advocates the development of a personal style in advanced writing courses, seemingly calling for an emphasis on expressive discourse and self-discovery (A Reply to Medicott: Evaluating Writing, 7-9). Professor Fulkerson (Some Theoretical Speculations on the Advanced Composition Curriculum, 9-12) uses Abrams' and Kinneavy's theories of literary criticism and the aims of discourse to construct two different curricular models for advanced composition programs--one suggesting courses based on the skills required of students as they produce discourse with different aims, the other suggesting synthesizing all four discourse aims in a single advanced composition course. Finally, Professor Hogan (Advanced Composition: A Survey, 21-29) sent questionnaires to 374 advanced composition teachers at 311 schools and found an enormously diverse range of course objectives and plans among the responses that he received. Hogan also found that many advanced composition courses used the same books as freshman writing courses in the same schools. Although rhetoric, Hogan found, dominated the courses of instruction, there did not seem to be any clear or consistent pattern of rhetorical approach in the schools or teachers who reported. Very few respondents, in fact, reflected much attention to types or aims of discourse, as Fulkerson had suggested, in their assignments or plans. Articles such as these reflect the composition profession's general lack

(1982). A comparison of John Locke and John Henry Newman on the rhetoric of assent. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 40-49.

(1982). Using Carl Rogers’ communication theories in the composition classroom. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 50-55.

(1982). Aristotle's concept of ethos, or if not his somebody else's. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 58-63.