This article studies the fate of scientific observations as they pass from original research reports intended for scientific peers into popular accounts aimed at a general audience. Pairing articles from two AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) publications reveals the changes that inevitably occur in “information” as it passes from one rhetorical situation to another. Scientific reports belong to the genre of forensic arguments, affirming the validity of past facts, the experimental data. But a change of audience brings a change of genre; science accommodations are primarily epideictic, celebrations of science, and shifts in wording between comparable statements in matched articles reveal changes made to conform to the two appeals of popularized science, the wonder and the application topoi. Science accommodations emphasize the uniqueness, rarity, originality of observations, removing hedges and qualifications and thus conferring greater certainty on the reported facts. Such changes could be formalized by adopting the scale developed by sociologists Bruno Latour and Steven Woolgar for categorizing the status of claims. The alteration of information is traced not only in articles on bees and bears, and so on, but also on a subject where distortions in reporting research can have serious consequences—the reputed mathematical inferiority of girls to boys. The changes in genre and the status of information that occur between scientific articles and their popularizations can also be explained by classical stasis theory. Anything addressed to readers as members of the general public will inevitably move through the four stasis questions from fact and cause to value and action.

This study explored the collaborative writing processes of a group of computer software company executives. In particular, the study focused on the year-long process that led to the writing of a vital company document. Research methods used included participant/observations, open-ended interviews, and Discourse-Based Interviews. A detailed analysis of the executive collaborative process posits a model that describes the reciprocal relationship between writing and the organizational context. The study shows the following: (1) how the organizational context influences (a) writers' conceptions of their rhetorical situations, and (b) their collaborative writing behavior; and (2) how the rhetorical activities influence the structure of the organization.

Preview this article: It Takes Capital to Defeat Dracula: A New Rhetorical Essay, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/48/3/collegeenglish11612-1.gif

Research Article| February 01 1986 Richard Whately's Public Persuasion: The Relationship between his Rhetorical Theory and his Rhetorical Practice Lois Einhorn Lois Einhorn Department of English, General Literature, and Rhetoric, State University of New York, Binghamton, N. Y. 13901, USA Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1986) 4 (1): 50–65. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1986.4.1.50 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Lois Einhorn; Richard Whately's Public Persuasion: The Relationship between his Rhetorical Theory and his Rhetorical Practice. Rhetorica 1 February 1986; 4 (1): 50–65. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1986.4.1.50 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1986, The International Society for The History of Rhetoric1986 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Writing good computer manuals for beginners is a demanding job. Recently, rhetoricians have advised manual writers who want to write better manuals to consider the audience (computer users) carefully. However, my rhetorical analysis of several computer manuals shows that writers should also consider genre, subject, and writer's purpose. I also found that, while some writers accommodate their rhetorical situation, they may do it unconsciously, given the inconsistency of their rhetorical choices. In conclusion, by paying attention to the overall rhetorical situation, manual writers will surely produce better manuals.

Preview this article: Mikhail Bakhtin as Rhetorical Theorist, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/47/6/collegeenglish13257-1.gif

Traditional views of organizational communication have fallen short because they misapprehended and oversimplified the realities of rhetorical behavior in organizations and because they offered weak theoretical underpinnings for the study of business communication. Recent developments in rhetorical theory spearheaded by the work of Toulmin, Perelman, Polanyi, and others offer a coherent, theoretically sound, and productive way of analyzing discourse in organizations. Applying constructs of the “new rhetoric” to the study of sample documents from a representative organizational situation illustrates the importance of consensus building as a tacit communication purpose, reveals the decision-making process involving the text's audience, and demonstrates the central role of context or situation in shaping discourse. Rhetoric in organizations, just as in other “rational enterprises” (such as the disciplines of science and law), reveals underlying paradigms that are determined by the nature of communal behavior and by the nature of thinking man.

Analogical models are common in scientific and technical literature but scientific/technical communicators may be reluctant to write clarifying comparisons for fear of producing inaccurate or inappropriate similes. Technical writers can use the logical operations that underlie all metaphorical thinking consciously as prewriting strategies: they can learn to construct their comparisons using the logical operations of identification, distinction, re-classification, and division. Applying these logical operations to the generation of useful analogies can give writers confidence that their comparisons possess the qualities of specificity, clarify, richness, scope, and validity.

A guided workshop in editing can give students and report writers an objective means of evaluating their drafts to improve the quality of writing. In each of four steps, the workshop uses three processes (identification, analysis, rewriting) to examine overall logic, verb usage, sentence openings, and conjunctions. Practical tips for objectively examining drafts provide the greatest improvement in editing one's own work.

This study examined the effect of sentence-combining and kernel-identification practice on the syntactic component of sixth graders’ reading comprehension, as measured by a cloze instrument developed by the authors, and by two subtests from the norm-referenced Test of Reading Comprehension (TORC). The experimental group completed eight open sentence-combining exercises, seven kernel-identification exercises, and eight cloze exercises over a 10-week period (two or three exercises per week). The comparison group completed eight cloze exercises during the same period. When covaried by Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills Total Reading scores and by pretest scores on the cloze instrument, results on the immediate posttest administration of the cloze instrument were significantly (p ˂ .001) in favor of the experimental group; results on a 6-week delayed administration of the cloze instrument approached but did not reach significance in favor of the experimental group (p ˂ .07). There was no significant difference between experimental and comparison groups on the two TORC subtests. Since the readability of the cloze instrument was estimated at eighth grade level (due primarily to the use of longer and more complex T-units), it was inferred that sentence-combining and kernel-identification training enabled the experimental group to comprehend longer, syntactically more complex sentences and to exhibit a tendency toward retention of this ability over a 6-week period.

Preview this article: On the Way, Perhaps, to a New Rhetoric, but Not There Yet, and if We Do Get There, There Won't Be There Anymore, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/47/2/collegeenglish13298-1.gif

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

Verbal Style and the Presidency: A Computer‐Based Analysis. By Roderick P. Hart. Orlando, Florida: Academic Press, Inc., 1984. The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric. Winifred Bryan Horner, Editor. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1983. Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse. Ed. Robert J. Connors, Lisa S. Ede, and Andrea A. Lunsford. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizxng of the Word. By Walter J. Ong, S. J. London and New York: Methuen, 1982.

(1984). Gertrude Buck's rhetorical theory and modern composition teaching. Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Vol. 14, No. 3-4, pp. 95-104.

Research Article| May 01 1984 The Rhetorical Theory of John Constable's Reflections upon Accuracy of Style Vincent M . Bevilacqua Vincent M . Bevilacqua Communications Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1984) 2 (1): 63–73. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1984.2.1.63 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 Vincent M . Bevilacqua; The Rhetorical Theory of John Constable's Reflections upon Accuracy of Style. Rhetorica 1 May 1984; 2 (1): 63–73. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1984.2.1.63 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. Copyright 1984, The International Society for The History of Rhetoric1984 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

In his critical writing Kenneth Burke approaches texts as for dealing with situations.I In terms of his dramatistic pentad, each text may be seen as an or strategy which responds to a given scene or situation (GM, p. xv). His approach that a [text's] structure is to be described most accurately by thinking always of the [text's] function. It assumes that the [text] is designed to 'do something' for the [writer] and his readers, and that we can make the most relevant observations about its design by considering the [text] as the embodiment of this act (PLF, p. 89). But Burke's own texts have rarely been approached with Burke's critical methods. Few have been seen as strategies that respond to particular historical-cultural situations. Yet is is clear from Counterstatement (1931) through Language as Symbolic Action (1966) that Burke's texts name and strategically respond to particular historical-cultural situations. In A Rhetoric of Motives (1950) the situation so named is one dominated by language and thought which privilege the economic forces of production (RM, p. 290) and the scientific ideals of an 'impersonal' terminology (RM, p. 32). Burke's pentad clusters these emphases in modern thought and language under the term scene; that is, all favor motivational explanations based in the scene. Thus in A Rhetoric of Motives the scene Burke addresses, the situation he names, is one which emphasizes the scenic. Burke's strategic response to this situation is to restore an emphasis on act: substance, in the old philosophy, was an act; and a way of life is an acting together (RM, p. 21). In A Rhetoric of Motives Burke aims to change the reader's central emphasis from scene to act. Yet, while intending this emphasis, Burke in his writing is also aware of a tendency to slight the term, act, in the very featuring of it. For we may even favor it enough to select it as our point of departure (point of departure in the sense of an ancestral term from which all the others are derived, sharing its quality 'substantially'); but by the same token it may come to be a point of departure in the sense of the term that is 'left behind' (GM, p. 65). Burke acknowledges the difficulty of writing against his times-against the prevailing

Preview this article: Dramatism in Themes and Poems, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/45/6/collegeenglish13613-1.gif

Research Article| May 01 1983 The Topics of Argumentative Invention in Latin Rhetorical Theory from Cicero to Boethius Michael C. Leff Michael C. Leff Vilas Communication Hall, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1983) 1 (1): 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1983.1.1.23 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Michael C. Leff; The Topics of Argumentative Invention in Latin Rhetorical Theory from Cicero to Boethius. Rhetorica 1 May 1983; 1 (1): 23–44. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1983.1.1.23 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. Copyright 1983, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1983 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Preview this article: Integrating Formal Logic and the New Rhetoric: A Four-Stage Heuristic, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/45/4/collegeenglish13634-1.gif

Much has been written on and about technical communication. Most of this writing focuses on specific advice for practitioners (e.g., how to write better, typographical guidelines, proposed standards, how to produce more effective manuals, and the like). Also, considerable literature deals with the field theoretically. Often, this second category of literature is difficult to find because so much is buried under the welter of pragmatically oriented material and is interwoven with literature from related fields. Assemblage of this hard-to-find material reveals that within the context of the considerably broader area of human communication, generally technical communication occupies a unique position. Schematic models of related human communication disciplines are used to construct an overall theoretical model which locates this specialized niche occupied by technical communication. Contributions to the overall model come from such areas as empirical social research, general semantics, learning theory, and modern rhetoric. The overall model represents an attempt to provide a catalogue of perspectives from which technical communication might be studied profitably. It also is intended to provide a useful guide to specific actions in various pragmatic and occupational technical communication situations.

We may discover the basis for a humanistic rhetoric of technical writing by examining managerial theories of human behavior. Complaints about the deficiencies of writers and their work correspond remarkably to complaints about the deficiencies of employees and their work. And both sets of complaints may actually be related to the traditional Theory X of human behavior, held by managers and teachers of writing. An alternative managerial theory proposed by Douglas McGregor, Theory Y, suggests ways to encourage an individual's initiative and to satisfy the organization's goals simultaneously. Since technical writing weds the worlds of writing and working, this managerial theory can provide a sound basis for a rhetorical theory that encourages a writer's initiative and satisfies the goals of writing simultaneously. The letter of application for employment illustrates how Theory Y works.

The classic rhetoricians divided the art of rhetoric into at least three main stages: invention, disposition , and elocution (also memoryand delivery for oratory). Today, we continue to recognize this tripartite division of the composing process but prefer to substitute a more modern taxonomy for the latinate terms: pre-writing , arrangement, and style. The advancements in rhetorical theory in the past decade and a half are impressive; however, despite this growing insight into the writing process, many of us who teach composition still seem to disregard observations made centuries ago by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. We are speaking specifically of the inattention paid to the first stage of the tripartite writing process: invention. It is a fad currently to attend conferences in order to discuss heuristics and the invention process, but it seems that most of us fail to do anything about prewriting in the classroom or writing center. Although we were encouraged by Tom Nash's description of invention-oriented methods used in several writing centers ("Hamlet, Polonius and the Writing Center," Writing Center Journal , vol. I, No. 1, 80), we sensed that these experiments with pre-writing were probably the exception not the rule.

Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth—Century England. Nancy F. Partner. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1977. Pp. 289. $18.00. Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Literature; An Exploration. Edited by Don M. Burks. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1978. Pp. xiii + 115. $7.50. Basic Writing: Essays for Teachers, Researchers, Administrators. L. N. Kasden and D. R. Hoeber, editors. Urbana, Illinois: NCTE Publication, 1980. Pp. 185. Justice, Law, and Argument: Essays on Moral and Legal Reasoning. Chaim Perelman. Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1980. Pp. xiii & 181. Introduction by Harold J. Berman. Homer and the Oral Tradition. G. S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Pp. viii & 223.

PROFESSOR ARNETT IS ADDRESSING taxonomists in entomology, no doubt a rather peripheral body of specialists, at least in the vision of most English teachers. But his point holds for any profession that makes and perpetuates formal classifications. What specialists forget is that classifications, built by specialists, should serve nonspecialists. Yet in all disciplines the formal classification often does little more than befuddle. Since my aim here is precisely to suggest a classification fit for the novice writer, I think it is essential first to ask what has gone wrong when this particular mode of knowledge-a more central one can hardly be conceived-proves difficult for laymen to assimilate. Such a preliminary inquiry, although perforce brief, at least will show faults I have tried to avoid in building a classification of discourse that beginning writers can both understand readily and use easily. It may help to remain for a moment with the biological taxonomy. Three centuries have so refined this classificatory procedure that the problem of which Professor Arnett speaks, this failure of communication between builder and user, stands out clearly. Consider those taxonomic keys that biologists construct for identification of specimens, for instance those in Julian A. Steyermark's Flora of Missouri or Melville Hatch's Beetles of the Pacific Northwest. Professor Arnett's point is that amateurs (and not a few professional biologists) find these keys impossible to use. The chief obstacle is not hard to find. Traditionally, these keys are constructed to follow evolutionary, genetic relationships as closely as possible. The result is an analytical description of a whole field, very much like a genealogical tree. The farmer, however, who rashly comes to these keys with specimen in hand, cares little

Three important steps in the development of a training curriculum are task analysis, identification of trainee needs, and setting program objectives. When client requirements force the elimination or short-changing of these steps, the curriculum writer can lessen potential problems in course development by making an informal needs assessment, identifying skill constants and variables, obtaining feedback for informal evaluation, and educating the client.

When interdisciplinary or interorganization teams are assigned, temporarily, to solve a nonfamiliar problem, intragroup communication may be difficult but is critical to the outcome of the task. Most of the problem analysis and solution or action plan are developed in meetings where all participants must come to terms with the different facets of the situation. Among the recommendations of this article for organizing a project team and holding successful meetings of this kind is a meeting agenda that covers (1) recognition of the problem, (2) definition of its scope, (3) identification of related needs and wants, (4) identification of possible solutions, (5) evaluation of solutions, (6) determination of the best solution, and (7) planning for further action.

A long-term relationship between a technical writing program and a single non-university organization can have rewards as significant as short-term relationships with several such organizations. Four specific programs of interaction now in effect at Battelle Memorial Institute and Ohio State University provide Battelle personnel ready access to information on the state-of-the-art of rhetorical theory and assure them of a large pool of well trained writers as potential employees. The technical writing faculty gains confidence and a better understanding of the tasks typically performed by technical writers over long periods of time. Description of these particular programs of interaction suggests ways to foster similar programs elsewhere, even in the absence of nearby research foundations.

The bibliographic reference and citations which exist among documents in a given document collection can be used to study the history and scope of particular subject areas and to assess the importance of individual authors, documents, and journals. A clustering study of computer science literature is described, using bibliographic citations as a clustering criterion, and conclusions are drawn regarding the scope of computer science and the characteristics of individual documents in the area. In particular, the clustering characteristics lead to a distinction between core and fringe areas in the field and to the identification of particularly influential articles.