One Hundred Ways to Make the Wyoming Resolution a Reality: A Guide to Personal and Political Action Susan Wyche-Smith and Shirley K Rose Principles of Generic Word Processing for Students with Independent Access to Computers Ronald A. Sudol Encouraging Critical Thinking: A Strategy for Commenting on College Papers Patrick Slattery

death of the is a familiar refrain among poststructuralists, a phrase used to mean nonhermeneutic approaches to textsa label against which to react in the name of the historical subject (Kamuf 5). Probably the source of this controversial slogan is Barthes' precisely titled, brief essay, Death of the Author, in which he charts the postmodern move from a literature tyrannically centred on the author.... [where] the explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, to the ascendancy of the reader (143). When Barthes replaces the terms authori scriptor with critic/reader, he suggests that the future movement of literary theory requires the author's death to enable the reader's birth. Foucault, also making a distinction between the author and what happens in the text, offers the term author-function as being outside and preceding the text itself. True, the author is maker of text, but disappears once this is performed, only the function remaining, that is, being outside and preceding the text. In this role the author must accept in the text. Whereas the author in the epic form accepted early death because the epic itself would bring immortality, Foucault says that modem writing no longer is linked to death but to sacrifice of life because the author must accept obliteration of the self that does not require representation in books because it takes place in the everyday existence of the (117). More and more we're hearing another slogan: The tyranny of the author has been replaced by that of the reader. Yet I think one has to accept autonomy of neither author nor reader if we approach poststructuralist theory rhetorically. To do this we need to (1) broaden thinking about literature not only to include the discursive nature of language but also to accept its persuasive nature; (2) attempt distinctions between author and writer; (3) acknowledge the presence of the writer in the text itself (ethos); (4) embrace the concept of the world as language.

In trying to project a positive corporate image and financial health in their annual reports, companies too often confuse and alienate readers with rhetorical smoke and statistical mirrors. Through a more complete understanding of their audiences and by applying effective rhetorical principles to reach those audiences, corporations can both meet the informational needs of report readers and promote a positive and accurate corporate ethos.

Graduate engineers in the United Kingdom are frequently criticized for lacking communication skills. In undergraduate courses, such as civil engineering, which are mathematically and technically oriented, it is very difficult to find space within a full timetable for the development of communication skills. At Aston University this work has been integrated successfully into a course on Public Sector Planning. Lectures are complemented by a project which culminates in the students participating in a simulated Public Inquiry—part of the planning process intended to provide a forum for public debate. Not only do the students learn about the planning process, tangible and intangible aspects of a water resource development, but at the same time develop their written, oral, and decision-making skills.

Persuasive discourse, either as a separate mode of discourse (Kinneavy 1971) or as a distinctive part of argumentative discourse,2 frequendy remains part of the overall writing assignment for our composition students. Although we may disagree as to how to define exactly or teach persuasive discourse in writing classrooms, we have more or less followed the tradition of Western classical rhetoric with respect to our basic understanding of it--although few of us would now restrict ourselves only to discovering in the particular case what are the available means of persuasion (Aristotle 1960: 7). For example, we teach our students different sub-types of persuasive discourse and ask them to apply ethical, emotional (pathetic) and logical proofs to their own persuasive essays; we select political speeches, polemic essays or modern advertising materials as prime examples of how different persuasive strategies and techniques can be most effectively invoked to achieve their respective objectives of winning. To varying degrees, many composition text books have adopted, and thus perpetuated this normal way of doing things with persuasive discourse.3 In so doing, however, we have--perhaps unknowingly--imparted to our students two problematic notions, which underlie much of what has been believed to be persuasive discourse. The first assumes that persuasive discourse is grounded in or predicated on conflict or confrontation, which it aims to overcome or eradicate. The second perceives audience as both external4 and oppositional, whom persuasive discourse is intended to transform or convert. It is these two notions and their probable consequences that I will discuss first in this essay. Following this discussion, I will draw upon, respectively, Grice's cooperative model of conversation (1975; 1989) and Burke's concept of (1962) to propose a new heuristic model5 of persuasive discourse, one that takes cooperation through identification as a core constituent and provides a dynamic setting that is conducive to rhetorical diversities. Finally, I will consider some potentials of this new model in our writing classrooms.

From 1887 to 1904, Science and The Popular Science Monthly published a series of articles on the characteristics of composition, articles pointed out an uneasy alliance between scientific methodology and traditional rhetorical assumptions about the nature of writing. This turn-of-the-century dispute between Robert Moritz and Thomas Mendenhall shows how early researchers in rhetoric cast their inquiries in scientific terms to gain the legitimacy of scientific findings. Further, the little-known debate can be read as a precursor to the many debates followed over whether and how quantitative methods can resolve questions in rhetorical inquiry, and more fundamentally, what vision of language underwrites the assumptions of such methods. The debate I want to focus on began with Mendenhall, who first argued for his version of composition analysis in the March 1887 issue of Science.' In this article, as well as in his papers of 1901 and 1904, he seeks to prove his hypothesis (based on a remark by Augustus DeMorgan) each author has a of composition. The curve is based on the frequency with which an author uses words of different lengths, is, one-letter words, two-letter words, and so on. The number of words of each length, when tabulated and graphed, shows the characteristic curve of author. Mendenhall was a noted nineteenth century scientist who published in a wide variety of areas, including geology, geography and science education. He was a president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and served for a time as an editor of Science. Thus a scientific approach to composition was for him merely an extension of methods he used in his daily work. Indeed, he originated his theory based on an analogy to spectral analysis, a method of determining the elements of a given physical substance. Just as each element gives forth a group of waves of definite length, and appearing in certain definite proportions (Mendenhall 1887, 238), so each person's style is marked by numerical constants--the frequency of words of each length. This analogy with spectral analysis reveals not only Mendenhall's procedure but also his notion of the inevitability of style. The style of people, like of elements, is determined by their nature and not their mode of existence; is, their texts are determined by inevitable displays of their fixed personality and not their rhetorical choices. The merits of this approach, according to Mendenhall, are that it offers a means of investigating and displaying the mere mechanism of composition, and it is purely mechanical in its application. (Mendenhall 1887, 245). Mechanism makes impossible human failings of choice and error: by focusing on a meaningless aspect of composition, the researcher can avoid the effects of deliberate changes by the author; by using a mechanistic data gathering method,

Socrates, of course, does not mean to venerate the art of discourse here. He is telling Phaedrus that there is discourse and there is truth. Once you have gone out and dug up the truth somewhere else, you apply the art of discourse to it and fashion a persuasive argument that will permit others to partake also of the truth. Two immediate implications follow from Socrates' position. First, only when the art of discourse, rhetoric, is put to the task of selling truth to the benighted does it become real. Second, rhetoric is necessary human affairs just to the extent that humans are unable to apprehend truth directly. It is an unfortunate evil, required because we are rationally degenerate creatures. Both positions have remained very popular over the intervening two millenia. Bitzer, for instance, can still say that in the best of all possible worlds there would be communication perhaps, but not rhetoric;'I we get our truth and knowledge somewhere else, and only our lack of perfection prevents us from casting rhetoric out of the garden. But there is an important lesson those two millenia that can help us to see the Spartan's words another light: the sources of truth which rhetoric has been obliged to serve have changed dramatically-from Socrates' dialectic and Aristotle's apodeixis, to Christianity's biblical exegesis and divine revelation, to the current authority on matters of knowledge and truth, Science. This rotation of leading roles while the supporting actress, Lady Rhetoric, remains constant indicates that the real art of discourse is connected with truth not because of human degeneracy, but because of precisely the reverse, because of our spark of perfection, because we are truth-seeking, knowledge-making creatures who sometimes get it right. We occasionally do something important with rhetoric: we find truth and we build knowledge out of it. When we manage the trick, though, we are so eager to dissociate it from all the foul and inane things we also do with rhetoric that we give the process another name. But these other names are clearly just aliases for rhetoric, or for some subset of rhetorical interests. Dialectic, for instance, is essentially questing debate. Apodeixis is distinguished only by the level of rigor Aristotle demands of the argumentation, not by any qualitative difference. Exegesis is rhetorical analysis. The only possible gap to this pattern is divine revelation, whose capacity to generate truth I will leave to more knowledgeable commentators, pausing only to notice that, true or not, reports of revelation usually involve a fair amount of persuasive machinery-burning bushes, hovering spirits, and the like. In any case, science is certainly no exception.

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English studies are caught up in a debate over whether we should see individual cognition or social and cultural context as the motive force in literate acts. This conflict between cognition and context (Bartholomae, Berlin, Bizzell, Knoblauch) has special force in rhetoric and composition because it touches some deeply-rooted assumptions and practices. Can we, for instance, reconcile a commitment to nurturing a personal voice, individual purpose, or an inner, self-directed process of meaning making, with rhetoric's traditional assumption that both inquiry and purpose are a response to rhetorical situations, or with the more recent assertions that inquiry in writing must start with social, cultural, or political awareness? These values and assertions run deep in the discipline. One response to these differences is to build theoretical positions that try to polarize (or moralize) cognitive and contextual perspectives. We know that critiques based on dichotomies can fan lively academic debates. They can also lead, Mike Rose has argued, to reductive, simplified theories that narrow the mind and page of student writers. In the end, these attempts to dichotomize may leave us with an impoverished account of the writing process as people experience it and a reductive vision of what we might teach.

(1989). Mr. Darwin and his readers: Exploring interpersonal metadiscourse as a dimension of ethos. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 91-112.

building on some common ground with the audience. Aristotle's concept of the enthymeme as a fundamental source of persuasion requires the audience to grant or accept the premises of the rhetor. Aristotle says that a speaker should start from opinions accepted by our judges or by those whose authority they recognize (1395b). Similarly, for Kenneth Burke the key term in rhetoric is identification, which is established between a persuader and an audience by finding some substance or underlying ground in common (consubstantiality) (I 969, 19-23). But what if there is little or nothing in common between a speaker and an audience? What if the audience does not accept the value system of the speaker? How could a speaker proceed in such an extreme case? As Wayne Booth explains, classical rhetoric offers little help, for it assumes

Because of the recent emphasis on rhetorical context in business and technical writing (BTW) instruction, the problem-solving case has become a staple in BTW classrooms. However, a number of critics have voiced concerns about the use of the rhetorical case. These concerns recall an ancient debate among Roman rhetoricians over an early case-study method called declamation. For contemporary theorists, the debate over case study revolves around its value as a stimulant to problem-solving skills, its ability to imitate the realistic circumstances of professional BTW, and its emphasis on persona and audience along with its deemphasis of the teacher. A full spectrum of arguments on these and other issues in the case-study debate indicates that the discipline is entering a new phase in its deliberations over the role of problem-solving and pragmatics in the BTW classroom.

As Otto A. L. Dieter argues in his landmark essay, (1959), Greek concepts of motion provided classical rhetoricians with a theoretical framework for analyzing and conducting rational argument.' The various ways in which motion can be considered contrary, the different grounds on which contrary motions come to rest, the array of faults impeding contrary motions--all these distinctions, borrowed from the philosophic study of kinesis (movements) and metabolai (changes in Being), were applied by rhetoricians to describe and facilitate amphisbetesis, or the moving apart of opposing assertions. Stasis theory, then, provided a paradigm essential to the two phases of the rhetorical process: Noesis (Cogitation) and Poiesis (Production). This paradigm allowed the rhetorician to reflect upon--and upon reflection, to judge--whether a conflict of wills and a contest of assertions truly existed, and therefore, whether the matter under dispute was properly rhetorical. Likewise, the paradigm allowed him to anticipate the question to be resolved, the strategies of accusation or defense most likely to be adopted by the opponent, and consequently, the posture or strategy best suited to winning the dispute. If it is true that theories of classical rhetoric have survived because of their utility, then stasis theory has proven indispensable: for over 2000 years it has survived within the canon of rhetorical theory.2 Its most recent incarnation has taken place during the past four decades. Motivated first by historical interest, rhetorical scholars are now reconstituting stasis theory for much the same reason that prompted its formalization in the second century B.C.: the need to find an overarching paradigm that shapes the vast array of distinctions belonging to rhetorical theory into a practical system, one capable of identifying and resolving current communication problems.3

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.

(1989). Hunting for ethos where they say it can't be found. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 299-316.

(1989). Argumentation in Chomsky's syntactic structures an exercise in rhetoric of science. Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 105-130.

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The author examines the fundamental conflict between controlling the dissemination of scientific and technical data and promoting openness and peer review of the data. She focuses on the control of unclassified scientific and technical data for national security purposes. She explains the reasons for such controls, the federal government's policies, and how some foreign governments deal with this problem. She summarizes and evaluates the arguments for and against controls and presents some recommendations for the current administration.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

(1989). Bibliography on Argumentation. Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 71-81.

Few will disagree, I think, if I say that twentieth-century discussion of the lyric has often granted little recognition, and sometimes none, to the role of argumentation. Indeed, the word itself may not appear at all: we are much more likely to be told, instead, that lyric poems contain-and we should emphasize the word contain--such things as subjects, ideas, themes, or even conceptual schemes, and we are just as likely to be told that none of these things are what the lyric is really all about. Such things belong to prose, and in the lyric are merely there, contained, as useful but dispensable accessories and props; the lyric dramatizes or expresses feeling. Or rather, it bodies forth image of the poet's thought as it moves through some phase or phases of an intensely felt experience (Hardy 1-2). It is essentially dramatistic or expressive, rather than, say, discursive, argumentative, or suasory-no matter how much, in the reader's experience, it may seem to operate discursively, as an argument intending to create, intensify, or change belief. The feeling's the thing. Or so that argument goes, or has gone. This is the average mainstreammodern view of lyric, the view most likely to be taken as a self-evident given in a typical account of this most protean mode of poetry. (Barbara Hardy, for example, is able to simply declare it, as an opening premise for her book, with virtually no recognition of a possible disagreement.) I believe that few will disagree, either, if I say that strong objections to this mainstream-modern version of the lyric are and have been available. We can argue, as did Yvor Winters, that lyric poetry, or any poetry, intends not only representation or embodiment of an or state of but also judgment or evaluation of human experience, and thus is necessarily suasory and involved with argumentation, or what Winters called exposition. Or we can argue, as Gerald Graff has done, that the logos and the pathos projected by a poem are necessarily related, as premise(s) and conclusion(s), what Graff calls ground and consequent: the ground provided by what is said, by logos, makes the speaker's represented state of feeling or act of mind both convincing and intelligible-as opposed, say, to self-indulgent, incoherent, and neurotic. Graff's line of objection, then, defines the lyric once more as a form of argument. We

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This essay examines self-portrayal in fictional and nonfictional written discourse. The essay focuses on various treatments of self-representation in rhetorical and literary critical theory in an effort to overcome the conceptual and terminological confusion that has arisen across time and disciplinary specialties in the discussion of self-portrayal. The essay argues that two common terms for describing self-representation—ethos and persona— are often conflated but that there are good historical and conceptual grounds for maintaining a distinction between them. Such a distinction refines our critical vocabulary for analyzing the multidimensional nature of self-representation in writing.