I’ve been out of grad school for 5 years now but I miss writing so much. My research was always centered around analyzing some aspect of popular culture through a rhetorical lens. So I thought I’d start writing again. But honestly, I don’t see a lot of people doing this kind of reading for fun and I’ve not really established myself in academia so I doubt anything I come up with would be worthy of journal publications.

The thing is I’ve had an idea that basically comes up with a term to describe how pop culture has drastically molded politics by meme-ifying our system of government which (at least to me) seems so distorted it has now entered some kind of uncanny valley realm.

I wrote an introductory piece on substack but I wonder if there are better avenues that would reach people with a genuine interest in rhetoric. Where are my fellow rhetoricians going to write or read rhetorical pieces.

In a couple weeks I will be teaching a program which teaches high schoolers rhetoric. I am doubting which of the ancient sources to read in preparing for the program. Currently deciding between Aristotle, Cicero and Quintillian. My students will most likely be beginners at rhet. Already thank you for the advice

Hi all! I had a random thought the other day when I was reading about Frederick Douglass. He chose his last name based on the knight Sir Douglass from the poem "Lady of the Lake" by Sir Walter Scott. The theme of that poem, from my understanding (note: I'm an undergrad student lol), is the inevitability of change.

That got me thinking about how prevalent change as a theme is in a lot of African American literature, specifically change toward something better. And THEN I started thinking about Afrofuturism and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and her character Lauren's philosophy of "god as change."

So, my question is: does any literature exist out there about the rhetoric of change as it relates to African American civil rights/Afrofuturism rhetoric? I've been searching all over the internet in various journals and I can't find anything making the connection between Parable of the Sower and Douglass's choice of surname.

I'd love to read it, if so! If not, my professor and I might be cooking up an essay of our own :)

Thanks!

A reasonable person should be able to criticize and admire elements of their culture and other cultures in specific ways.

For example:

1. The Western belief in Universal Values promotes the protection of fundamental rights and dignity for every individual.
2. The emphasis on Individualism in Western society increases the risk of social isolation and loneliness.
3. Collectivism in East Asia fosters strong community bonds and cooperation. By prioritizing the group, people learn to work together for the common good, which builds social stability and mutual support.
4. Rigid hierarchies in Japanese society can impede progress and reduce the efficiency of organizations.

It seems like the embrace of multiculturalism can get you immediately labeled as a "racist" if you criticize other cultures in ways that are important if you want to understand the world.

Lately, I've seen a trend in breaking these taboos, but sadly, breaking the taboo does seem to open the door to actual bigotry and prejudices.

Another example might be the idea that there is no free will how it relates to issues of personal responsibility. The embrace of the truth (assume for me that it's true for the moment) may lead to worse outcomes in many contexts.

So what do you think about how discoursive third rails should be handled while maintaining civil society?

I made this post on the Kill Tony subreddit. It quickly got a lot of views (50K), comments (126), and upvotes (96) in a few hours but was deleted by the moderators. Why, I don't know. But I'll share it here (written for a generalist audience):

I've read a lot of smart and not-so-smart comments about the blowback from Tony Hinchcliff's MSG rally "set." As a professor of writing and rhetoric, this is a teachable moment that I am talking with my students about. A few major mismatches in rhetorical context, audience, timing, and the purpose and perception of the speaker (Tony) account for the shitstorm that has blown in:

Context: As many people, including AOC, have pointed out, the rhetorical context between the Comedy Mothership, the Comedy Store, or any other comedy club is very different from that of a political rally. These are vastly different rhetorical situations. Maybe Tony missed this because big crowds at MSG and the energy seemed familiar to him from the KT live shows at MSG, which he alluded to. But he was wearing a suit and not a dumb vest (that one person noted made him look like a Lamborghini seat), which should have been his first clue. Beyond the immediate context of the rally (the in-person attendees and participants) is the media hyperventilation of the final weeks of a presidential election season, including networks and publications and pundits ramping up their attention. Add to this the widely-reported anxiety that I and many other citizens are feeling because of the election, and you could hardly have a bigger mismatch of rhetorical contexts.

Audience: Kill Tony or roast special audiences seek out this experience and are typically familiar with the brand of comedy they will experience at Kill Tony. Even bearing this in mind, you still see people losing their shit and walking out, at which point Tony comes after them, to the delight of other attendees. If you come to a comedy show, you expect to have boundaries pushed, including in ways that may not align with your views on race, immigration, etc. You are aware that you may even become part of the show in the case of comics that do crowd work. Having your boundaries pushed and taking the risk of inclusion in the show may even be why you are there. At a big political rally with tons of media coverage, the audience becomes enlarged beyond the actual attendees (and beyond the KT fanbase) to include both political parties, social and mainstream media, the American public, and even international audiences. Many in these audiences have no idea who Tony is or what he does, and even people like AOC who have seen KT live understand and can exploit this. Understanding your audience and how to present a message to them is arguably the most important concept in rhetoric.

Timing: Aristotle called the element of timing Kairos. The timing here is the 11th hour of a contentious campaign season, with candidates and campaigns making their final arguments. This timing is not at all conducive to a broader public dismissing Tony's musings on latinos, black folks, and Puerto Rico in particular. The element of timing could hardly be worse here; I tell my students to avoid cliches, but fire, meet oxygen.

Character of Speaker: Tony brings credibility to comedy audiences because of the popularity of what he's created as well as his growing profile. This credibility and the role of "comedian" doesn't automatically follow him to different contexts like some super power. To center to center-left KT fans like me (in particular) a shitstorm like this was entirely predictable. When I saw his name included for Trump's MSG rally, I thought, what could go wrong?! The "these are just jokes" gambit doesn't work here both because of the mismatch in rhetorical context and because there is alignment between the spirit of Tony's "jokes" and MAGA rhetoric in general. The Trump campaign is trying to distance themselves from what Tony said, but if you actually pay attention to MAGA rhetoric, there is synergy here.

Purpose: A lot of people have asked what Tony's goal was. Some have speculated that he was primarily out for the attention. As a close watcher of the show, it is no secret that he is a Trump advocate, and was personally probably thrilled to be asked to "perform." By speaking at this rally with other of his heroes, like Musk, his purpose inevitably becomes advocating for Trump. There is simply no way around that. His "set" was a genre hybrid of comedy and political advocacy--leveraging jokes to make people laugh while also advocating for Trump. As people have pointed out, this is a hard line to walk, and the "these are just jokes" excuse doesn't work well if the purpose is obviously political.

Evaluation: This outcome was entirely predictable--and predicted. Maybe Tony didn't know or didn't care. Seeing himself as part of the MAGA community, as he obviously is, Tony was probably honored to have been asked. However, Tony's purpose as a speaker at a Trump rally is inevitably to improve Trump's chances at election. In this case, he was likely ineffective. This inability to use familiar rhetorical techniques (comedy) across contexts is hardly unique to Tony. We see similar issues when Trump takes his MAGA rally rhetoric and talking points to debates and non-partisan town halls. The "they're eating the dogs/cats/pets" and "Kamala just became black" that work with his rally audiences do not work in a debate for broader audiences. It makes him seem deranged and xenophobic. I see a similar issue with how Tony tried to take his comedic repertoire into the political context. Certainly, some in MAGA will love Tony's contribution to this event, and if you imagine him having told these jokes in a comedy club, it's just a mediocre set and nothing more. But this wasn't a comedy club, the broad audience hearing about this now did not elect to be an audience for comedy, and Tony's purpose, beyond being edgy and trafficking in racial stereotypes like black people liking watermelon, latinos not using birth control--and the part that is getting the most attention--that Puerto Rico is a floating pile of garbage, does not come across clearly. Regardless, many people who may not have read any coverage of this rally nor heard Tony's name, will now be aware of both. If all attention is good attention, then congratulations Tony and MAGA. Otherwise, stand back and stand by

Below is a news site comment I found effective:

"Separate laws for Jews and non-Jews apply both in Israel (“Law of Return” excludes non-Jews) and the ‘67 Israeli-occupied territories (civil law for Jews, military law for Palestinians).

There’s a name for that."

The author ends by alluding to an argument without delivering it. I wondered why this is effective, rhetorically. Is this a well-described device in argument? Is it because the reader produces the argument, or reaches the argument unled, that it's more persuasive?

A little while ago there was a discussion on a different subreddit and the OP asked people to name their favorite "forgotten composers". Inevitably, someone did the shmuck thing and pointed out that you can't list the names of people if they are indeed forgotten. The somewhat annoying faux-naivite aside, I wondered what this rhetorical device is called. I understand the meaning that "forgotten" is not meant to be understood literally but is there a name for this?

Edit: Is it a hyperbole maybe? A composer is nearly forgotten but instead you exaggerate to say they are (completely) forgotten?

does anyone know of any particular works that display the use of flattery well? or alternatively, any authors of classical rhetoric that notoriously relied on flattery in their works?

Hi all! So—in my experience there are two ways I’ve seen universities approach first-year writing programming.

1. Teaching Rhet Comp as a field using readings from this field. -exp: reading something by, say, John Swales, Stuart Green, or Elizabeth Wardle and talking about rhet comp as a widely applicable field. They can use these skills elsewhere is the idea.

2. Teaching the skills of rhet comp through another field/subject -exp: teaching a content based course (like any content—from environmental justice to Beauty and the Beast, to Ghostly South’s, to borderland politics—but through a rhet comp lens. As in, students read, learn, and write about these specific topics but have specific goals in line with rhet comp. They still discuss writing as a process, have drafts, talk about audience and genre, etc, but so through a specific topic.

My question is, what are these two approaches called? Do they have specific names?

In Germany where I come from, we have a Startup on the verge of bankruptcy looking for tax money to survive. The most prominent investor posted on linkedin saying "... we have to decide how we want to proceed with the future of Lilium and Germany as a deep-tech location".

Connecting the startup (Lilium) with Germanys general role as a deeptech location makes no sense whatsover but is a rhetoric method to try to deflect criticism against Lilium by pulling back to the larger and harder to attack statment. Can anyone of you tell me what that rhetoric device is called?

I'm currently reading Jay Henrich's Thank You for Arguing. I really like the tone he sets in the book, which perhaps isn't wildly chocking considering his area of expertise;) His sense of humor really works for me as well. Anyhow this isn't mean to be a praise thread but rather I wondered if you could shed some light on a matter.

Regarding decorum he writes the following:

Decorum is the art of the appropriate, and an ethos that fails to fit your actual personality is usually indecorous. People pick up on it.

I think it makes a lot of sense. You notice when people are acting fake, or at least I think I can figure it out, but in reality I suppose there are never any guarantees. But how does that statement go with the aphorism "Fake it till you make it"? - and the myriad of iterations of this aphorism which writers have offered us over time.

Maybe they aren't contrasting sentiments, maybe they are, what are your thoughts?

I have always been skeptical of Ethos (credibility) being separated from Pathos (emotion) and wanted to know other people's thoughts on this. Isn't trust fundamentally emotional? I think Ethos is often discussed in terms of expertise, but that is separate from trust. I trust my doctors on medicine because they have expertise in that area. But there are plenty of people who distrust doctors precisely because of their expertise. But the foundation of that trust/distrust from both parties is fundamentally emotional ---is it not?

Not sure if this is the right group to ask, but I have ADHD and really struggle with articulation. It’s like when I am speaking, I have a lot of thoughts that are about 10% formed and it just comes out as a mishmash of sentiments. Despite this, I have always been a very articulate and effective writer, so I know it’s an articulation issue. Sure it wouldn’t hurt to study and better inform my thoughts and ideas, but this is even an issue if I’m telling someone about my week. It’s getting to the point where I often feel embarrassed expressing my ideas. I feel like any intelligence I’ve gained doesn’t come across in conversation. Has anyone dealt with this? Short of taking medication, what has helped? If you have ADHD and do take medication, have you noticed a difference?

I was hoping the group could give me some feedback on a process I created to help me learn argumentation and rhetoric using data analysis. I'm currently working my way through it for the first time, but I want to make sure it's comprehensive so that I don't have to go back and redo the steps. You can get an overview of the speech-related process I'm currently doing here: https://reasonrainbow.org/rhetorical-modeling-speech-analysis/

Here are my questions:

1. Did I miss any concepts that will help me learn argumentation and rhetoric? The concept(s) would also need to be data friendly...rhetorical appeals are a perfect example of data friendly (ethos pathos logos).
2. Does the current order of the process make sense?

I've redone it a couple of times and each time I have to re-fiddle the data which gets a bit tedious. I've definitely learned a lot in a short amount of time though. Thanks much for any feedback!

This is a question of rhetoric, but also of critical thinking. It seems to me that English speakers are significantly stymied when it comes to assessing half-truths, insofar as there's not much we can say about them. For example, this is the opening sentence of the 2024 Republican party platform (this is not a political post; this is just an example of what I'd say is problematic rhetoric): "Our Nation's History is filled with the stories of brave men and women who gave everything they had to build America into the Greatest Nation in the History of the World." Let's bracket the weird capitalizations. Let's also bracket the claim that the US is in any sense "the Greatest Nation in the History of the World." I think it is uncontroversial to say that Early American history is a story of three peoples: the millions of AmerIndians who lived here, the European settlers, and the enslaved people that the European settlers brought. OK, back to the quoted sentence above: what's wrong with it? It seems to me the "brave men and women who gave everything they had" must refer solely to European settlers because while enslaved people were no doubt "brave," bravery implies consent, which enslaved people, by definition, did not give. (Again, not a post on politics, but rhetoric.) So I'd say the sentence in question is one-third true, inasmuch as it omits two other populations that are integral to the story. The problem with the sentence, imo, is the word "filled," and I think it's the word that makes the sentence untrue. I do, of course, think that "Our Nation's History includes the stories of brave men and women who gave everything they had to build America...." But just changing the "includes" to "is filled with" (yes, I know, politicians like hyperbole) changes the sentence from being true to being false. But here's the reason I'm posting this: I think half-truths are not true, but I also think most English speakers will say "of course they're true... partially." But that (usually unspoken) "partially" is, imo, extremely important. How can I assess half-truths in such a way as to convey how pernicious they can be?

Is this a Zeugma?: She moved on and made her own way, as well as his to follow.

I wanted to share my story in hopes that it could be helpful to someone seeing this.

I'll start off my saying that I am by no means a natural public speaker. When I started out, I was an incredibly introverted person. I would get in front of an audience and feel awkward in my own shoes. I couldn't deliver a single sentence on stage, forget an entire speech.

Predictably, when I attended my first speaking competition, I flopped. I placed 148th out of 150 people. (The other two people didn't show up.) Over the years, I went to more and more competitions ... and saw similar results. I remember seeing my friends being able to confidently deliver 5-minute long speeches. Meanwhile, I would struggle to reach the 2-minute mark without running out of things to say.

The results were slow at first. After months of practice, instead of ranking, say, 148th out of 150 people, I was now ranking 100th place -- better, but still significantly below average. I started feeling very despondent. What was I doing wrong? What did other people have that I didn't?

And then a few months later, everything changed. In the same competition where I ranked 148th place ... two years later, I ranked 5th place. I remember feeling my knees become weak when my name was announced in the award ceremony, because I was genuinely convinced that they had announced the wrong name.

Fast forward a few months, I was selected for the Canadian National Debate Team. I was lucky to be one of 5 people to rep Canada at the 2018 World Schools Debating Championships, where I ranked top 10 individually.

From all this, I want to highlight the following message: Public speaking is not an innate talent which you either have or don't have. It is a skill. With the right work, you *can* get better at it.

Just like any skill, you need to make it a part of your daily routine. You need to practice it daily, record yourself speaking, and self-reflect. You also need to get external feedback on your speaking. And most importantly, when you fail (which in speaking is par for the course), you need to get up and try again.

If this resonates with you, I'll be covering this and more through a series of free online workshops I’ll be hosting this month. Some sample topics I'll cover:

• Building confidence when speaking in public
• Daily practices you can implement right now to get better at speaking
• Getting rid of filler words
• Techniques for improving at impromptu speaking

Click here to sign up for the workshop. And don’t be intimidated - we’re all here to learn! I'm also happy to answer any questions in the comments, so feel free to ask down below.

Hey, are you like me in that you often use eh... and um... when speaking? I would like to become more sensitive to such words so that I can consciously avoid them. Such words tend to come across as insecure and make the statement less clear. But I, and I'm sure you too, want to express ourselves as precisely and clearly as possible.

If you have the same problem as me, I would be very happy if we could practise together! I set up a Discord server with the intention of talking about topics and pointing out when we use filler words. The aim is to make statements that are as precise as possible.

Here is the invitation link. Feel free to join:
https://discord.gg/pwJSQKDUBb

If you know of another Discord community that also deals with speaking as clearly as possible, I would be very grateful for recommendations:)

Hi all, what are some methods you use to help students create more nuanced arguments?

In short, how do you get students to craft a unique central claim and not overused common topics?

For example, instead of a student arguing that elementary students should be given more resources (something most people wouldn’t disagree with), have them move a step beyond and consider who should be the one giving/funding these resources. This subtle nuance allows for more involved arguments, but I’m trying to find ways to facilitate such arguments.

I figure stasis theory could help, but I feel as though there are other manners to get them to recognize how to create nuance more “naturally.”

How do you speak and write in a way where you can ensure that you are being accurate in formal and informal settings? How do you vary your speech depending on your level of confidence on a given topic?