Background: Knowledge workers have become “technologically-tethered,” increasingly using mobile and communication technologies to engage in work during nonwork or “after-hours” personal time. Literature review: Research has identified several individual- and organizational-level predictors of this after-hours technology-enabled work behavior and its primarily negative consequences. However, little is known regarding the behavior's potential benefits or the ways in which it is affected by technology characteristics. Research questions: 1. How do technology characteristics affect after-hours work connectivity? 2. How does after-hours technology use affect work-life balance? Methodology: We test our hypotheses with a survey-based research design involving 312 knowledge workers, and analyze our data with covariance-based structural equation modeling. Results: After-hours work connectivity increases when the technology affords lower levels of immediacy and greater levels of concurrency, rehearsability, and reprocessability. A post-hoc analysis reveals that workers who might be expected to have low levels of after-hours work connectivity-such as those who have children at home or whose employers have a high segmentation norm-have higher levels of after-hours connectivity than their counterparts when the technology has high concurrency. We also find support for a curvilinear (inverted-U shaped) relationship between after-hours technology use and work-life balance. Conclusion: Individuals are amenable to interweaving technology-enabled work with nonwork tasks when the technology facilitates asynchronous and user-controlled interactions. Furthermore, this interweaving has a positive impact on work-life balance, up to a point. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice.

Background: The primary goal of the current study was to conceptualize and operationalize social networking sites (SNS) skills for communication professionals. Literature review: The development of the definition and measurement instrument began with a critical look at internet skills literature. We propose a three-fold instrument for measuring SNS skills: communication, content creation, and strategic SNS skills. Research questions: 1. Which skills do communication professionals need to effectively use SNS? 2. Which SNS use-related factors contribute to the level of SNS skills? Method: We ensured that the proposed measures reflected typical SNS uses for communication professionals. All items in the instrument used a scale that contained statements about SNS skills, with answer formats that ranged from “Not at all true of me” to “Very true of me.” After the development of a first survey instrument, we conducted cognitive interviews that resulted in some amendments to the proposed skill items to improve clarity. The SNS skill scales and their characteristics were then tested in a pilot study. Results: The resulting instrument was refined in the final study among 203 German communication professionals. Conclusion: The findings suggest a recommendation for the use of a 15-item survey measure for communication, content creation, and strategic SNS skills in professional contexts. Our findings furthermore suggest that communication and content creation SNS skills are better developed than strategic SNS skills. Finally, several SNS use variables were identified as predictors of SNS skills.

Background: This paper offers a hybrid, place-based ethic drawn from multiple perspectives as a way to reinvigorate ethical thought for technical communicators. Literature review: Aldo Leopold's land ethic asks us to consider actions beyond our immediate surroundings. Martin Buber's dialogic ethics complement a land ethic and interrogate interpersonal communication. Anticipatory technology ethics recommends the integration of ethical discussions and decisions during the design phase of new technologies. Together, these three approaches inform a place-based ethic for technical communicators. Research questions: 1. How might we meaningfully merge the many ways that technical communicators from varying backgrounds approach ethics into a useful ethical model that considers human interaction, technological innovation, and physical place? 2. How might such a merged model, what we call a place-based ethic, affect technical communication design? Methods: We analyze cases including documents from radical environmental defense groups, a restyling of certain federal court rules from legalese into plainer language, the creation of mortgage documents suitable for consumers and industry professionals, and the action-research design phase of a locative mobile application about public art. Results and conclusion: The cases provide concrete examples of the components of a place-based ethic, and we conclude that designing with a place-based ethic includes actively acknowledging the value of the environment, seeking areas for dialogue among involved parties and celebrating dialogue where it occurs, seeking shared spaces, clearly stating anticipated outcomes, and usability testing for potential ethical issues.

Computers are now programmed to support emotion; we communicate with our computers as if the computer was another human, not a machine. As a result, user interfaces are being “cutesified” because people love and respond to cute things. This is the basic premise of Cuteness Engineering. Designers, developers, usability researchers, and graduate students will learn the history, key terms, problems, research findings, and international issues pertaining to cuteness engineering, and they will gain exposure to case studies from Japan and China. The book offers strategies and interviews with cuteness designers. This book serves as an introduction to the developing field of cuteness design in the user experience. It is divided into five main chapters, excluding the introduction and conclusion chapters. The first two chapters explore cuteness in Japan and China, the next chapter provides a taxonomy of cuteness, and the final two chapters consist of interview transcripts with user-experience designers. The next logical question the book addresses is “Why cuteness?” To answer this question on a broad scale, the authors use cross-cultural research to examine cuteness in different cultures. This research was used to create and validate their taxonomy of cuteness. However, this taxonomy is general and does not consider the culture-specific attributes of cuteness. To address this problem, the authors study the specific, attributes of cuteness in Japan, China, and the US. They hypothesize that cuteness varies among cultures. According to this theory, different styles of cuteness should be used in different cultures. At the same time, the authors also claim that cuteness can be universal and shared amongst a global audience. Since cuteness is considered a universal language, cuteness is a tool used to help close the gap between technologies, designs, and users. This contradiction limits the overall findings of this book. However, this limitation can be rectified by further clarifying the difference between the goals of cuteness itself (which are universal), and the goals of the individual styles of cuteness (which vary based on culture). Exploring this relationship between the purpose of cuteness and the styles of cute presents an opportunity for future research in cuteness engineering.

Background: Research suggests that communication instruction is particularly effective when situated in disciplinary courses. While studies show that this approach improves communication skills, less is known about how it enhances engineering learning. Literature review: Prior work includes approaches to integrating communication into engineering, studies of writing to learn, and explorations of the role of communication in identity development. Research question: How might the integration of communication instruction and practice into undergraduate engineering courses support engineering learning? Methodology: Because little is known about how communication instruction enhances engineering learning, we conducted an exploratory case study of an established integrated program in one European university. Participants included six engineering instructors, five engineering program heads, and six engineering students. Using interviews and focus groups, we explored the engineering-specific gains that faculty and students perceived from integrating communication assignments into engineering courses. Results: Our analysis yielded three salient areas of learning: 1. understanding disciplinary content, 2. selecting important information, and 3. justifying choices. While the first aligns tightly with writing-to-learn research, all three themes, in fact, bridge content learning and disciplinary literacy to enhance students' development as engineering professionals. Conclusions: Communication instruction can potentially support engineering learning through assignments that prompt students to select information in ways that are consistent with both disciplinary values and the needs of stakeholders, and make and justify decisions about approaches and solutions in ways that demonstrate sound engineering judgment.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Infertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term Infertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term. By Robin E. Jensen. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016; pp. xiii + 225. $69.95 cloth; $29.95 paper. Tasha N. Dubriwny Tasha N. Dubriwny Texas A&M University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 168–171. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0168 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Tasha N. Dubriwny; Infertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 168–171. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0168 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Feminism, 1973–2000 Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Feminism, 1973–2000. Edited by Cheryl Glenn and Andrea Lunsford. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015; pp. viii + 266. $185.00 cloth; $54.95 paper. Rosalyn Collings Eves Rosalyn Collings Eves Southern Utah University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 160–163. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0160 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Rosalyn Collings Eves; Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Feminism, 1973–2000. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 160–163. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0160 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention. By Candice Rai. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2016; pp. xiii + 244. $54.95 cloth. Bridie McGreavy Bridie McGreavy University of Maine Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 149–152. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0149 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Bridie McGreavy; Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 149–152. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0149 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen Colbert Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen Colbert. By Elizabeth Benacka. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017; pp. ix + 165. $80.00 cloth. Michael Phillips-Anderson Michael Phillips-Anderson Monmouth University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 153–155. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0153 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Michael Phillips-Anderson; Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen Colbert. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 153–155. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0153 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| March 01 2019 Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric. Edited by Kathleen J. Ryan, Nancy Myers, and Rebecca Jones. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016; pp. vii + 304. $45.00 paper. Brittany Knutson Brittany Knutson University of Minnesota—Twin Cities Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (1): 164–167. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0164 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Brittany Knutson; Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2019; 22 (1): 164–167. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0164 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| February 01 2019 Review: Ethics and the Orator: The Ciceronian Tradition of Political Morality, by Gary A. Remer Gary A. Remer, Ethics and the Orator: The Ciceronian Tradition of Political Morality, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. xii, 291 pp. ISBN: 9780226439167 Jakob Wisse Jakob Wisse School of History, Classics and Archaeology Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU England, UK jakob.wisse@ncl.ac.uk +44 (0) 191 208 7974 Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (1): 91–94. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.91 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jakob Wisse; Review: Ethics and the Orator: The Ciceronian Tradition of Political Morality, by Gary A. Remer. Rhetorica 1 February 2019; 37 (1): 91–94. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.91 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| February 01 2019 Review: The Social Life of Books: Reading Together in the Eighteenth-Century Home, by Abigail Williams Abigail Williams, The Social Life of Books: Reading Together in the Eighteenth-Century Home, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. 352 pp. ISBN: 9780300228106 Don Paul Abbott Don Paul Abbott Department of English Voorhies Hall 1 Shields Avenue University of California Davis, CA 95616 dpabbott@ucdavis.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (1): 83–85. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.83 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Don Paul Abbott; Review: The Social Life of Books: Reading Together in the Eighteenth-Century Home, by Abigail Williams. Rhetorica 1 February 2019; 37 (1): 83–85. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.83 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| February 01 2019 Review: Rhetorical Mimesis and the Mitigation of Early Christian Conflicts, by Brad McAdon Brad McAdon, Rhetorical Mimesis and the Mitigation of Early Christian Conflicts, Eugene Oregon, Pickwick Publications, 2018. 333 pp. ISBN: 9781532637728 Arthur Walzer Arthur Walzer Professor Emeritus, Communication Studies University of Minnesota awalzer@umn.edu 40 Prospect Park W, 1J Brooklyn, NY 11215 Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (1): 87–90. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.87 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Arthur Walzer; Review: Rhetorical Mimesis and the Mitigation of Early Christian Conflicts, by Brad McAdon. Rhetorica 1 February 2019; 37 (1): 87–90. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.87 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| February 01 2019 Review: La retorica degli esercizi preparatori. Glossario ragionato dei, by Francesco Berardi Francesco Berardi, La retorica degli esercizi preparatori. Glossario ragionato deiProgymnásmata, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag (Spudasmata, 172), 2017. 346 pp. ISBN: 9783487155951. Rodolfo González Equihua Rodolfo González Equihua Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 58910 Morelia, Michoacán, México rodolfoge@gmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (1): 85–87. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.85 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Rodolfo González Equihua; Review: La retorica degli esercizi preparatori. Glossario ragionato dei, by Francesco Berardi. Rhetorica 1 February 2019; 37 (1): 85–87. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.1.85 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This study aims to explore effective ways in which students can learn to write synthesis texts. First, through a systematic literature search we found 16 (quasi-)experimental studies from 6th grade to undergraduate level in the field of learning to write source-based synthesis texts, that met our inclusion criteria. Second, we formulated a general instructional design principle, that included three main processes: (a) selecting relevant/important information from sources, (b) organizing, and (c) connecting that information. Bottom-up analyses of the six most effective studies yielded a set of learning activities that contribute to the improvement of students’ performance on writing synthesis texts. Subsequently, we supplemented our general design principle with relevant learning activities obtained from these effective interventions. One effective intervention differed considerably from the others due to its divergent nature, but its content was considered valuable enough to warrant the inclusion of an additional design principle. The design principles formulated in this study can be used as guidelines for future interventions in synthesis writing or as a means of support for teachers who want to develop educational materials for teaching synthesis writing.

Bridgeford, T., & St.Amant, K. (Eds.), (2015). Academy-industry Relationships and Partnerships: Perspectives for Technical Communicators. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Company.

Willerton, R. (2015). Plain Language and Ethical Action: A Dialogic Approach to Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge.

Steven Alvarez’s commitment to understanding the complex challenges faced by emerging bilingual (or multilingual) students and their families is easily seen through his two recently published books, Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies (2017a) and Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning from Bilingual After-School Programs (2017b). As educators who are invested in diverse student… Continue reading Review: Brokering Tarea: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies and Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning from Bilingual After-School Programs by Megan Faver Hartline and Amber Montalvo

Other People’s English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy deals heavily with code-meshing, code-switching, and the role these concepts play in African American literacy. The book builds off the work of scholars such as John Rickford, Geneva Smitherman, Suresh Canagarajah, Lisa Delpit, and Keith Gilyard in their research on African-American English (AAE). Young, Barrett, Young-Rivera,… Continue reading Review: Other People’s English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy by Mack Curry IV

The field of working-class studies is particularly relevant in these times, when access to equitable education is under fire. With regard to race, Nikole Hannah-Jones’s (2016) essay in the New York Times Magazine raised our awareness regarding the institutionalized segregation that cripples our New York City schools. At the same time, scholars like Sherry Linkon… Continue reading Review: Class in the Composition Classroom: Pedagogy and the Working Class, Eds. Genesea M. Carter and William H. Thelin by Laurie Cella

O’Connell’s Rhetoric of Seeing joins a growing list of titles interested in restoring performance and visuality to our understanding of ancient Greek culture and, especially, political and legal culture. This work distinguishes itself through its limited focus on the rhetorical function of seeing and visuality in extant forensic speeches. Each chapter addresses a different kind of seeing, often beginning with an overview of the relevant secondary literature, then considering other ancient genres or fields—Plato and Aristotle, poetry or history, medical or rhetorical treatises, and finally examining two or three important or representative examples from legal speeches. O’Connell divides the work into three “kinds” of seeing.First, he looks at what the audience can literally see. Part 1, “Physical Sight,” considers examples of visual bias concerning the physical appearance of litigants or others. This includes familiar arguments from probability (eikos) based on appearance: one need only look at Antigenes to know that he could not have overpowered Pantainetos (Demosthenes 37, Against Pantainetos); a glance at the pensioner’s disability and we can see that the charge of hubris is ridiculous (Lysias 31, For the Disabled Man). It is surprising here that O’Connell does not do more with the visual aspect of eikos arguments, which are said to have begun with Hermes’ infantile appeal to his own youth in his defense speech against Apollo: “Do I look like a cattle driver to you, a burly fellow?” (Hymn to Hermes 265). This is a central and well-trod aspect of ancient rhetorical theory that seems to call out for inclusion and that could have been given a new layer of interpretation through O’Connell’s visual approach. Counter-probability is rare in legal arguments but equally important in the development of rhetorical theory and with similar implications for visual rhetoric. The strong (or young) man who asserts that he would not have assaulted the weak (or old) man because he would be the first suspected depends in part upon similarly visible features of his person (Antiphon 2.2.3; cf. Aristotle 2.24.10–11).The final chapter of Part 1 takes up issues of movement and gesture, with references to gesture in Plato and Aristotle, a brief review of physiognomy, and then a discussion of Aeschines’ widely studied Against Timarkhos. There is brief mention of the rhetorical cannon of delivery or hupokrisis and the recommendations of Cicero, Quintilian, and Dionysius and more recent work on categories of gesture by Karsouris and Hughes, but O’Connell does not take up the rhetorical canon of delivery (hupokrisis) in depth. His discussion of delivery faces the same problems that most scholars face: there simply is no good way to talk about it as a general category. Either atomize the body to talk about hands, then faces, then movement, or settle for vague gestural and expressive categories and recommendations: modest and appropriate or excessive and inappropriate. Attending to specific cases and speeches is often more successful. O’Connell’s discussion of Aeschines’ speech Against Timarkhos goes further toward demonstrating his overall thesis than do his general comments.Second, we can observe the language of visuality in the speech itself, when the speaker asks the audience to look at something literally and directly as visual evidence, or figuratively or indirectly through terms of demonstration, display, and witnessing. Part 2, “The Language of Demonstration and Visibility,” looks at terms of seeing in the orations: deiknumi (demonstrate or display) and its variants (apodeixis, epideixis, endeixis, etc.), phaneros and phainomai (visible) and their variants (kataphanēs, apophainō, etc.), and martus (witness) and its variants. Chapter3 considers the language of display and witnessing, where speakers seek to prove their case by describing what has been shown and seen by witnesses, or where they demand witnesses to prove what has been asserted. “How else,” says Antiphon in On the Chorus Boy, “can I make true things trustworthy” except through the consistent affirmation of witnesses who were present? (Antiphon 6.29). This section is valuable for bringing into focus the centrality of visibility and sight to notions of truth, a factor that can easily be lost in translations. Thus, the speaker of On the Chorus Boy emphasizes not only that he was appointed a counselor and entered the council-house as such, but that he was seen (horōntes) and was visible (phaneros) doing so. O’Connell does not claim, but he enables one to conclude, that the infamous dichotomy between truth and probability in rhetorical theory typically devolves into these two kinds of seeing: what has been witnessed (and is therefore true) and what the situation “looks like” to the audience (and must be probable).Included here is a section on medical and philosophical interest in the visible as an epistemological link to the invisible. O’Connell quotes Anaxoagoras’ maxim, “Visible things are the face of things which are unclear” (101). This could lead to a discussion of the complex and rhetorically important doctrine of signs as tools of rhetorical argument. Instead, O’Connell moves on in chapter four to discuss how speakers use the language of visibility and demonstration to describe arguments. This, argues O’Connell, places jurors into the position of virtual witnesses themselves of something publicly known, as it was known that some grain dealers had been changing their prices over the course of a day (Lysias 22, Against the Grain Dealers). Or they are witnesses of arguments as demonstrations (epideixō). Speakers contrast what the opponent simply says (legei) with what the speaker will “demonstrate in an evident manner” (110). The language of display is thus used to differentiate mere telling from showing. This reference to visual metaphors for the persuasive effects of argument suggests a larger connection with rhetorical argument generally and the role of vision therein.Third, we can attend to imagination as internal sight, or what O’Connell calls “shared spectatorship,” when speakers “try to make the jurors visualize their version of events and accept it as true” (123). This includes a discussion of techniques of vivid description like enargeia, hyptyposis, or ekphrasis via detailed description. O’Connell looks specifically at described scenes of civic suffering, as when Lycurgus describes the panic after the Athenian defeat at Chaeronea. Shared spectatorship can also occur through the construction of “internal audiences—characters in a narrative who witness what is being described and whose reaction can function as a prompt and model for the jury, as when, in the speech Against Diogeiton (Lysias 32), the speaker recounts Diogeiton’s daughter speaking to the family about her father’s embezzlement and lying (150). Visualization can also be heightened through deictic pointing to the persons in court whose actions or suffering is being described, fusing what is physically seen (demonstratio ad oculo) with what is imagined (deixis ad phantasma): “this man here they seized and tied to the pillar” (Lysias fr. 279, 155). This takes us back to the beginning, which addressed seeing in performance space itself. This last section was for me the most interesting and informative, and it seemed the most widely applicable to forensic, and indeed all genres of oratory. Here too, I saw connections to a basic category of rhetorical discourse: narrative and narrative theory, to notions of realism and verisimilitude, to the conjuring of story worlds and the work of narrative inference.Certainly, anyone interested in visual and spatial rhetorics, bodily rhetoric, performance, and related topics will want to be familiar with O’Connell’s work. I found much to admire in every chapter, and more so as the book advanced to later sections and chapters. At the same time, in each section I found myself thinking about some clear and relevant connections to fundamentals of rhetorical theory—theories of probability and signs, of argument and narrative—that the work brushed up against but did not explore. Of course, O’Connell writes as a classicist, not a rhetorician, and we cannot expect any work to follow up every thread that it pulls on, particularly those outside the author’s bailiwick. So, we might rather say that this work promises to amply repay the attention of scholars of rhetorical history and theory for its insights into the operation of sight and seeing—physical, lexical, and imaginary—in Attic forensic speeches.

Background: Disparity of attainment between different groups of students in UK higher education has been correlated with ethnicity (UUK & NUS, 2019). For example, students who declared their ethnicity as Black were 20% less likely to graduate with a top classification than those who declared their ethnicity as White (OfS, 2018a). The causes of such attainment gaps are complex, and one important factor may be the nature of the feedback given by academic staff on assignments written by different groups of students. This paper aims to explore the feasibility of investigating this hypothesis by analyzing written feedback and looking for patterns in feedback given to different groups of students. Literature Review: Research on attainment among Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students in the UK has explored a number of aspects, and has generally concluded that there are issues of “belonging” (Richardson, 2015), particularly in institutions where the majority of academic staff and students are White, but that no single variable can explain the disparity. The wording of feedback on lower-scoring papers has been shown to be more impersonal and distant than that given to students on higher-scoring papers (e.g., Gardner, 2004), which has the (unintended) result of increasing the sense of belonging of higher performing students in ways that can build incrementally over the years of a degree course. While there have been many such small-scale studies of written feedback, none have aimed to collect large quantities of authentic written feedback for analysis. Research Questions: The hypotheses that drive our exploration are that written feedback information (WFI) (Boud & Malloy, 2013) is worded differently to different groups of students, and that there is a direct relationship between this aspect of feedback and academic attainment as measured by grades on summative assessments. Specifically, we asked: 1. Can a framework of WFI functions be developed for our data that share a meaningful set of attributes? 2. Can these categories be used to differentiate WFI to different groups of students? Methodology: A small pilot corpus was compiled from written feedback comments on twelve student assignments from two large Faculties. Metadata was added to each file, and the WFI comments were annotated and analyzed according to a framework developed in a branching format through a recursive construction process informed by the literature reviewed and the data in the corpus. This technique was used to characterize the WFI styles of the two Faculties. Results: The results show that all WFI comments could be classified using the novel systematic framework developed, and that its binary nature enabled ready cross-tabulation with metadata variables. Praise and critique were found to be most frequent, with specific praise of ideas (P1A) accounting for 68% of all praise, and specific critique of content (C1A) accounting for 49% of all critique. Observations tend to be the longest feedback comments (average 15.4 words). When the two Faculties are compared, two different feedback styles are evident, with Fac1 providing more advice, query, and observation style feedback than Fac2, and Fac2 providing more praise and critique than Fac1.

This article is Dr. Martin’s review of Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Routledge. 978-1620365687. Contact the publisher for pricing.

This systematic review of 46 published articles investigates the constructs employed and the meanings assigned to writing in writing-to-learn assignments given to students in science courses. Using components of assignments associated with the greatest learning gains—meaning making, clear expectations, interactive writing processes, and metacognition—this review illuminates the constructs of writing that yield conceptual learning in science. In so doing, this article also provides a framework that can be used to evaluate writing-to-learn assignments in science, and it documents a new era in research on writing to learn in science by showing the increased rigor that has characterized studies in this field during the past decade.