Purpose of this Blog:

                Rhetoric is a concept used often, but infrequently understood.  This post is to give an simple explanation for what rhetoric is, how it is used and its place in academic study.

What is Rhetoric?

                Rhetoric is a broad subject with a number of views and definitions.  It’s been studied and used since ancient times and has evolved in its scope and practice over the course of centuries.  As such, it is difficult to give it one concise definition.   Rhetoric is the use of discourse—be it used in writing, speaking, or visual mediums—to persuade, inform, educate, or motivate its audience effectively. 

                Three “modes of proof” are crucial in use of rhetoric and are a focus of study in the field.  They are pathos, ethos and logos.  Pathos is where a piece tries to get an emotional response from the audience.  Ethos is the attempt of the author, speaker or artist to establish credibility.  Logos, finally, is the use of logic through proof of their ideas or arguments.

               

A Brief History of Rhetoric:

Ancient Greece is often credited as the birthplace of rhetoric and the philosophers (Aristotle, Plato, others) of that time provided the still standing basis for the study.  It was primarily studied for its use in speech at the time.  Rhetoric in the middle shifted from a political focus to that of a religious focus.  Instead of rhetoric being a tool to lead the state, it became a means of saving souls.  Universities adopted rhetoric as a field of study alongside grammar and logic.  By the 18th and 19th centuries, universities had devoted entire departments to the study of rhetoric.  By this time rhetoric was once again a political tool; spreading democratic ideals through American and European colonies.  By the 20th century the study of rhetoric had expanded to include the study of visual arts as well in large part due to the influence of television and other visual mediums.

Why is Rhetoric Useful?

                Rhetoric is something that many people encounter on a daily basis.   All conversations held and text a person reads— intentionally or not — are practices of rhetoric.  An ad in a magazine, on a billboard or on television is loaded with rhetorical choices.   Even entertainment mediums are loaded with rhetoric.  Politicians use rhetoric to gain the support of the people.  Advertisers use rhetoric to convince consumers to buy their products.  Even if a person does not intend to write or speak publicly, it is important to be able to recognize the use of rhetoric by others.  Rhetoric is essential in education for these reasons. 

It could span beyond the obvious subject matter like text and speech.  In another blog post (link) I explored the effects of rhetorical choices made by a gaming company and how those choices were viewed by a group of students.

Rhetoric as a Profession:

                Rhetoric continues to be a field of interest to scholars even after centuries of study.  It includes the study of composition as it relates to rhetoric; something I explored as a student of the field myself (link).  Further study in that field expands to how the use of symbols—commonly language—can be used to influence culture as a whole.  Some examples of works done by professionals in the field include:

Gender and Games in a First-Year Writing Class
by Rebekah Shultz Colby of University of Denver

The Movement of Composition: Dance and Writing

by Kathryn Perry of the University of Louisville

Deleuze: (Neo)Expressivism in Composition

by Joshua Hilst of Utah Valley State University

Further Reading:

Wikipedia Article on Rhetoric

Classical Rhetoric 101: A Brief History

The Forest of Rhetoric

American Rhetoric: Rhetorical Figures in Sound

Hello Bloggers!  The text I I’m going over today is “Gender and Gaming in a First Year Writing Class” by Rebekah Shultz Colby.  It seemed interesting because it mentioned World of Warcraft, an online video game with millions of players.  That will soon be a subject I will study in a digital diversity course I’m taking so I thought the text would make a good introduction.

The text was essentially a study of a class involving this game and writing.  The students would study this game, and find subjects within that they found interesting to investigate further; like “why high level player like to combat low level players” or things like that.  Colby began a case study on her female student and their experiences with games and how that affected their ability to participate in the class.  She found that many of them lacked “gaming literacies” which restricted their ability to fully explore the game and limited their scope of writing on the subject, as a result.  This game is built upon what would have been learned in previous games.  The female students tended to have fewer experiences with video games than their male counterparts, and thus a higher barrier to entry for this one.  This is theorized to be due to video games traditionally being designed and marketed exclusively to a male audience.

So what can we learn from this in the field of rhetoric and composition?  This teaches us a lot about catering to our audience and making it accessible to others.  As seen in this article, World of Warcraft fails to teach “gaming literacy” to groups unaccustomed to gaming in general.  Similarly, a writing or speech could be ineffective to a general audience if it fails to provide a background or context necessary for the audience to understand the subject matter.

Hello, fellow bloggers.  Today I will be writing about rhetoric and composition, as well as a brief history on how the subjects have evolved over the years. 

As one might expect, composition and rhetoric are closely related and usually are used in conjunction with one another.  Composition, be it in writing, speaking or visual element, relates to the placement and the arrangement of the elements within the work.  Composition is the structure of the work, in other words.  It could be the way words are arranged in a sentence or the order of sentences and paragraphs.  In art it could be the use of colors or the use of perspective to create a point of focus.  Rhetoric, however, is how these pieces come together in order to persuade the audience of its argument.  The three most crucial elements of rhetoric are pathos, ethos and logos.  Pathos is where a piece tries to get an emotional response from the audience.  Ethos is the attempt of the author, speaker or artist to establish credibility.  Logos, finally, is the use of logic through proof of their ideas or arguments.   Even my choice of font in this blog could be a rhetorical choice; it could appeal to ethos.  My choice of a font could be elegant and give an impression of credibility as a writer or appear that this was written by a child or uninformed individual if I chose “Comic Sans MS.”     

So, how do these relate?  Well, as I see it the use of composition is essentially a rhetorical choice.  The choice of a verb in a sentence could dramatically affect the power it would hold for the audience and appeal to pathos.  The citing of a source in a paper could establish ethos, and a graph or set of statistics could appeal to logos. 

 Ancient Greece is often credited as the birthplace of rhetoric and the philosophers (Aristotle, Plato, others) of that time provided the still standing basis for the study.  It was primarily studied for its use in speech at the time.  Rhetoric in the middle shifted from a political focus to that of a religious focus.  Instead of rhetoric being a tool to lead the state, it became a means of saving souls.  Universities adopted rhetoric as a field of study alongside grammar and logic.  By the 18^th and 19^th centuries, universities had devoted entire departments to the study of rhetoric.  By this time rhetoric was once again a political tool; spreading democratic ideals through American and European colonies.  By the 20^th century the study of rhetoric had expanded to include the study of visual arts as well in large part due to the influence of television and other visual mediums.