The phenomenon of the Octalog came into being at the 1988 CCCC when James J. Murphy, with support from Theresa Enos and Stuart Brown, proposed and chaired a roundtable composed of eight distinguish...

Calls for historians of rhetoric to return to the archives. Argues that it is the neglect of training graduate students in standard research methodologies that prevents the field from writing “better” histories of rhetoric. Argues for archival training similar to that given to graduate students in history departments, training tailored to recovering the history of rhetorical practices and instruction.

Research Article| February 01 1994 Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric in North America; Nineteenth-Century Scottish Rhetoric: The American Connection Nan Johnson, Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric in North America (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991).Winifred Bryan Homer, Nineteenth-Century Scottish Rhetoric: The American Connection (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993). Linda Ferreira-Buckley Linda Ferreira-Buckley Department of English, PAR 108, The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1164, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1994) 12 (1): 117–121. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1994.12.1.117 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 Linda Ferreira-Buckley; Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric in North America; Nineteenth-Century Scottish Rhetoric: The American Connection. Rhetorica 1 February 1994; 12 (1): 117–121. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1994.12.1.117 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 1994, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1994 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

To help students enter a professional discourse community, teachers must assess how accurately they both understand the community's discourse practices. Our research investigated how job recruiters seeking to fill positions in mechanical engineering or marketing were influenced by the quality of writing in student résumés. The résumés varied in elaboration, sentence style, mechanics, and amount of relevant work experience. The recruiters rated the résumés to indicate their willingness to interview the students. We found that recruiters in the two fields—engineering and marketing—valued quite different writing features. When we subsequently asked students in business writing and technical writing classes to rate the same résumés, we found that they underestimated the importance of various writing features. Generally, however, students' ratings resembled those of the recruiters in their respective disciplines. This study documents how students can improve their résumés and provides insight into the variations of discourse practices in professional disciplines.