Introduction to Rhetoric and Writing for English Majors

Writing and Rhetoric

“Writing---the art of communicating thoughts to the mind, through the eye---is the great invention of the world.”Abraham Lincoln

What is writing?

Writing is a tool of thinkingWriting is a means of learningWriting is a tool for communicationWriting is a method of self-representationWriting is a tool of knowledge creation

Across space and time …

What counts as writing?

Process

Rhetoric

Domain Specific Content Knowledge

Genre Knowledge

Discourse Community Knowledge

College Board. (2000). Writing a ticket to work...or a ticket out: A survey of business leaders. Retrieved December 3, 2009, from http://www.writingcommission.org/prod_downloads/writingcom/writing-ticket-to-work.pdf

The History of Writing

• De-familiarizing the familiar

30,000 BC

Chauvet Cave, near the village of Vallon-Pont-d’ Arc, France

The Origins of Writing

• The available evidence shows that writing arose autochthonously in three places of the world: in Mesopotamia, about 3200 BC, in China about 1250 BC, and in Mesoamerica around 650 BC.– Autochthonously: Adj. Originating where found;

indigenous: autochthonous rocks; an autochthonous people; autochthonous folktales. See synonyms at native.

Sumerians created the first written language based on abstract signs around 3000 B.C.E. Imprints of the signs, called cuneiform, were made by pressing a wedge-shaped stylus into wet clay.

• In China, the earliest written event, name of a person or object was found marked on large animal bones or tortoise shalls. The earliest of marks on these bones date from about 1600BC. These scratch marks are ideographs, similar in principle but not related to Mesopotamian and Egyptian symbols used for writing. These are the so-called Chinese Oracle Bone Inscriptions (jiaguwen) which were found at the site of the last Shang capital near present-day, Henan province.

This is the earliest form of Chinese writing, used probably from the Middle to the Late Shang dynasty (approximately 1500 BC ?? to 1000 BC). Most of the time, this script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then used for divination in the royal court.

Early Meso-American Writing The Dresden Codex: circa 650 BCE

How Writing Started …

The Invention of Printing

• The invention of printing is considered to be one of the defining inventions for the advancement of civilization. Printing was invented in China, possibly between the 4th and 7th century AD. Gutenberg's movable type printing press about 1450 AD is often cited as the single greatest invention for world civilization.

Writing and Knowledge

• The Fabrica filled revolutionary drawings of human anatomy. This work marks the turning point in the understanding of the human body.

Leonard Fuch's New Kreiterbuch (1543) a text on the medicinal properties of plants "which marked the beginning of the botanical textbook”.

Robert Hooke's Micrographia "the first great work devoted to microscopical observations (1665)

Writing in the Digital Age

What role do texts and writing play in a networked world?

Three kinds of writing

• Knowledge telling• Knowledge transforming• Knowledge crafting

Rhetoric

Rhetoric can be used asboth analytic and productive art

Analytic → Analysis

Heuristic → Production

Definitions

Aristotle: Rhetoric is “the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion.”

Cicero:  “Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five lesser arts: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery."  Rhetoric is "speech designed to persuade.”

Quintilian:  “Rhetoric is the art of speaking well" or "...a good person speaking well.”

Aristotle’s Rhetoric provides a solid foundation for practicing, learning, and teaching communication, including writing

I Ethos (Speaker)

It Logos (Text)

You Pathos (Audience)

Purpose

Kairos(Urgent and Non-Trivial)

Persuasive Communication• Rhetoric: The ability in any particular case to

see all the available means of persuasion (Aristotle, The Rhetoric). – Being persuasive is an ability

• It can be developed through study and practice– Will give you more options to accomplish your communication

goals

– There are multiple means of persuasion• But, first be clear about your purpose• Know your audience• Use ethos, logos, and pathos

Classical Rhetoric: Aristotle Aristotle named three rhetorical appeals

Logos: logical appeal

Pathos: emotional appeal

Ethos: ethical appeal

Classical Rhetoric: Aristotle

Branch Time Purposes Topics

Judicial Past accuse or defend justice/injustice

Deliberative Futureexhort or dissuade good/unworthy

Epideictic Present praise or blame virtue/vice

In College Writing You Must Develop Your Logical Argumentation Abilities

I Ethos (Writer)

LOGOS = LOGICAL ARGUMENTATION

You Pathos (Audience(s))

Purpose

Kairos(Urgent and Non-Trivial)

Contemporary research also adds a great deal to our understanding of what works in communication, and writing in particular

Cicero 3 functions of oratory – teach, delight, and move

• INFORM: What do I want my audience to know?

• ENTERTAIN: What do I want my audience to feel?

• PERSUADE: What do I want my audience to do?

Characteristics of rhetorical discourse

1. Planned

2. Adapted to an audience

3. Shaped by human motives

4. Responsive to a situation

5. Persuasion-seeking

6. Concerned with contingent issues

Social functions of the art of rhetoric

1. Rhetoric tests ideas

2. Rhetoric assists advocacy

3. Rhetoric distributes power

4. Rhetoric discovers facts

5. Rhetoric shapes knowledge

6. Rhetoric builds community

Ethos = credibility

• What counts as credibility differs among groups of people

• O'Keefe (1990) defined credibility as "judgments made by a perceiver concerning the believability of a communicator"

• In other words “credibility is in the eye of the beholder”

• The two most important elements in establishing credibility are expertise and trustworthiness

Credibility is subject to change over time

What will compromise your credibility in the short and long term?

• A single spelling error on a resume of cover letter could seriously undermine your competitiveness in applying for an internship or job.

Two kinds of credibility

Extrinsic: what people know about you before they read your work or

hear you speak

Intrinsic: what we do within a communication setting through our

actions.

Putting ethos to work in your writing• Know your material• Cite evidence (Reinard, J.C. (1988) Human Communication Research,

15,3-59).

• Share your interest, experience, and expertise• Have your reader’s best interest in mind• Identify similarities with your reader• If you lack extrinsic credibility increase your reader’s

involvement with the topic, which will help focus them on the topic more than the messenger (Petty and

Cacioppa, 1986).

Definitions of rhetoricshift in the 1700s:

Belletristic Rhetoric

Hugh Blair: Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres

Alexander Jamieson: A Grammar of Rhetoric and Polite Literature

Privilege the reader’s “taste” over the writer’s “eloquence”: reading and study of literature have more value than the production of eloquent writing

Rhetoric and English Studies

• Focus on “Belletristic Rhetoric” in the mid-1800s opens the way for the establishment of the study of the literary arts as a focus for English departments.

• Meanwhile, the first “tech writing” course is offered in 1860, for specific situations: English + Engineering = Technical Writing