Understanding Rhetoric A Graphic Guide To Writing

Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing

Introduction:

Ever felt lost in the labyrinth of persuasive writing? Unsure how to craft arguments that truly resonate with your audience? You're not alone. Many struggle to master the art of rhetoric, the powerful tool that underpins effective communication. This comprehensive guide will demystify rhetoric, providing a clear, visual, and practical approach to understanding and implementing its core principles in your writing. We'll move beyond theoretical jargon, offering actionable strategies and graphic examples to enhance your persuasive power. Get ready to transform your writing from bland to brilliant!


What this post offers:

This in-depth guide will unpack the fundamentals of rhetoric, including:

A clear definition of rhetoric and its key components.
An exploration of the three Aristotelian appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) with practical examples.
Guidance on identifying and analyzing rhetorical devices in various texts.
A step-by-step process for incorporating rhetorical techniques into your own writing.
Visual aids and diagrams to enhance understanding.
Examples across different writing styles (academic, persuasive, creative).


1. Defining Rhetoric: More Than Just Persuasion

Rhetoric isn't just about manipulating people; it's about crafting effective communication that achieves its intended purpose. It's the art of persuasion, yes, but also encompasses informing, entertaining, and inspiring. Think of it as a toolbox filled with strategies for crafting compelling messages across various mediums – from speeches and essays to marketing materials and social media posts. Effective rhetoric requires understanding your audience, your purpose, and the context in which you're communicating.


2. The Aristotelian Appeals: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Aristotle, the father of rhetoric, identified three fundamental appeals that underpin persuasive communication:

Ethos (Ethical Appeal): This focuses on establishing credibility and trust. It involves demonstrating your expertise, good character, and goodwill towards your audience. Think of a doctor recommending a treatment – their expertise builds ethos. In your writing, this means using authoritative sources, acknowledging counterarguments fairly, and maintaining a consistent, professional tone.

Pathos (Emotional Appeal): This involves connecting with your audience on an emotional level. It's about evoking feelings like empathy, anger, joy, or sadness to resonate with their values and beliefs. A powerful advertisement might use images of starving children to evoke pathos and encourage donations. In your writing, this might involve using evocative language, storytelling, and relatable examples.

Logos (Logical Appeal): This relies on reason and logic to persuade. It involves presenting evidence, facts, statistics, and logical reasoning to support your claims. A scientific report relies heavily on logos. In your writing, use clear arguments, well-structured paragraphs, and supporting evidence to build a logical case.


3. Rhetorical Devices: Tools of the Trade

Rhetorical devices are specific techniques used to enhance the effectiveness of communication. They add layers of meaning, create emphasis, and make your writing more engaging. Some common examples include:

Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things (e.g., "The world is a stage").
Simile: A comparison using "like" or "as" (e.g., "He fought like a lion").
Analogy: An extended comparison to explain a complex idea (e.g., comparing the human brain to a computer).
Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds (e.g., "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers").
Repetition: Repeating words or phrases for emphasis.
Anaphora: Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.


4. Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in Existing Texts

Before you can effectively use rhetoric in your own writing, you need to learn to identify it in others' work. Analyze texts by asking:

What is the author's main argument?
What appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) are being used?
What rhetorical devices are employed?
Who is the intended audience?
What is the overall effect on the reader?

By practicing this critical analysis, you'll develop a keen eye for effective rhetorical strategies.


5. Incorporating Rhetoric into Your Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Know your audience: Understand their values, beliefs, and level of knowledge.
2. Define your purpose: What do you want your writing to achieve?
3. Choose your appeals: Decide which appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) are most appropriate for your audience and purpose.
4. Select your rhetorical devices: Use them strategically to enhance your message.
5. Structure your argument: Organize your points logically and provide supporting evidence.
6. Revise and refine: Ensure your writing is clear, concise, and persuasive.


Graphic Guide Overview:

Name: The Rhetorician's Toolkit: A Visual Guide to Persuasive Writing

Contents:

Introduction: What is rhetoric and why is it important?
Chapter 1: Understanding the Three Appeals (Ethos, Pathos, Logos): Detailed explanations with visual representations (e.g., Venn diagrams, flowcharts).
Chapter 2: Masterclass in Rhetorical Devices: A categorized list of devices with clear definitions and examples. Includes visual aids like mind maps and tables.
Chapter 3: Deconstructing Persuasive Texts: Step-by-step guide on analyzing rhetorical strategies in various texts, including visual examples.
Chapter 4: Crafting Your Own Persuasive Pieces: A practical guide with templates and exercises to help readers apply what they've learned. Includes examples of successful rhetorical strategies across various writing styles.
Conclusion: Key takeaways and resources for further learning.


(The following sections would expand on each chapter of the graphic guide outlined above, providing detailed explanations and examples. Due to the word count limitations, these sections are omitted here. Each chapter would be a substantial section, filled with practical examples, charts, and visual aids illustrating each concept.)


FAQs:

1. What is the difference between rhetoric and propaganda? While both involve persuasion, rhetoric aims for ethical and effective communication, whereas propaganda often uses manipulative tactics to promote a specific agenda.

2. Can rhetoric be used in all forms of writing? Yes, rhetorical principles can be applied to any form of writing, from fiction to academic papers to marketing copy.

3. Is it ethical to use rhetoric? Yes, when used ethically, rhetoric is a valuable tool for effective communication. However, manipulation and dishonest tactics should be avoided.

4. How can I improve my rhetorical skills? Practice analyzing persuasive texts, study rhetorical devices, and actively apply these principles in your writing.

5. Are there different types of rhetoric? Yes, different contexts call for different rhetorical approaches. For instance, forensic rhetoric is used in legal settings, deliberative rhetoric in political contexts, and epideictic rhetoric in ceremonial speeches.

6. What is the role of audience analysis in rhetoric? Understanding your audience's values, beliefs, and knowledge is crucial for tailoring your message and choosing the appropriate appeals.

7. How can I identify fallacies in rhetorical arguments? Learn to recognize common logical fallacies (e.g., straw man, ad hominem, slippery slope) to critically evaluate arguments.

8. Can visual elements enhance rhetoric? Absolutely! Visuals like images, graphs, and videos can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your message by engaging multiple senses.

9. Where can I find more resources on rhetoric? Explore books on rhetoric, online courses, and academic journals focused on communication and persuasion.


Related Articles:

1. The Power of Storytelling in Persuasive Writing: Explores the use of narrative techniques to engage audiences emotionally.
2. Mastering the Art of Argumentation: Provides a step-by-step guide to constructing well-supported arguments.
3. Analyzing Rhetorical Devices in Political Speeches: Offers a practical approach to analyzing the persuasive techniques used by politicians.
4. The Ethics of Persuasion: Avoiding Manipulation: Discusses ethical considerations in using rhetorical strategies.
5. Rhetoric in Advertising: A Case Study: Examines how rhetorical techniques are employed in effective advertising campaigns.
6. Using Visual Rhetoric to Enhance Communication: Explores the use of images and other visuals to support persuasive arguments.
7. Rhetoric and Social Media: Building an Online Presence: Discusses how to leverage rhetorical principles to engage audiences on social media platforms.
8. The Role of Rhetoric in Academic Writing: Highlights the importance of effective communication in academic papers and presentations.
9. Rhetoric Across Cultures: A Comparative Approach: Examines how rhetorical strategies vary across different cultural contexts.


  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Understanding Rhetoric Elizabeth Losh, Jonathan Alexander, Kevin Cannon, Zander Cannon, 2020-09-11 After shaking up writing classrooms at more than 550 colleges, universities, and high schools, Understanding Rhetoric, the comic-style guide to writing, has returned for a third edition! Understanding Rhetoric encourages deep engagement with core concepts of writing and rhetoric. With brand-new coverage of fake news, sourcing the source, podcasting as publishing, and support for common writing assignments, the new edition of the one and only composition comic covers what students need to know—and does so with fun and flair.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Understanding Rhetoric Eamon M. Cunningham, 2020-01-01 Understanding Rhetoric: A Guide to Critical Reading and Argumentation is a composition textbook that outlines three essential skills – rhetoric, argument, and source-based writing – geared towards newcomers and advanced students alike. Though comprehensive in its coverage, the book’s focus is a simple one: how to move beyond a gut reaction while reading to an articulation of what is effective and what is not, while explicitly answering the most important question of Why? This text gets at this central concern in two fundamental ways. First, the text teaches composition as a cumulative process, coaching you how to question, challenge, and expand on not just the readings you hold in your hands, but also how to interrogate the internal processes of writing and thinking. The book's blend of composition methods detail the cross-point of product and process to turn reading and writing from a matter of coming up with answers to questions to learning what type of questions need to be asked in the first place. The right questions, the text argues, are fundamentally rhetorical in nature. Second, the content of the practice-based chapters is framed into a larger mesh of intellectual history to show how the writing and thinking you are doing today is continuous with a long history of writing instruction that goes back to the ancient world. This book provides equal representation from classical and contemporary theory with the recognition that theory cannot be fully grasped without practice, and practice cannot be fully understood without its theoretical antecedent. After all, you can’t write outside the box until you know where the box is and what it looks like.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Information Now Matt Upson, C. Michael Hall, Kevin Cannon, 2015-10-26 Every day researchers face an onslaught of irrelevant, inaccurate, and sometimes insidious information. While new technologies provide powerful tools for accessing knowledge, not all information is created equal. Valuable information may be tucked away on a shelf, buried on the hundredth page of search results, or hidden behind digital barriers. With so many obstacles to effective research, it is vital that higher education students master the art of inquiry. Information Now is an innovative approach to information literacy that will reinvent the way college students think about research. Instead of the typical textbook format, it uses illustrations, humor, and reflective exercises to teach students how to become savvy researchers. Students will learn how to evaluate information, to incorporate it into their existing knowledge base, to wield it effectively, and to understand the ethical issues surrounding its use. Written by two library professionals, it incorporates concepts and skills drawn from the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education and their Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Thoroughly researched and highly engaging, Information Now offers the tools that students need to become powerful consumers and creators of information. Whether used by a high school student tackling a big paper, an undergrad facing the newness of a university library, or a writer wanting to go beyond Google, Information Now is a powerful tool for any researcher’s arsenal.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Hashtag Elizabeth Losh, 2019-09-19 Best Books of 2019-Scholarly Kitchen Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Hashtags can silence as well as shout. They originate in the quiet of the archive and the breathless suspense of the control room, and find voice in the roar of rallies in the streets. The #hashtag is a composite creation, with two separate but related design histories: one involving the crosshatch symbol and one about the choice of letters after it. Celebration and criticism of hashtag activism rarely address the hashtag as an object or try to locate its place in the history of writing for machines. Although hashtags tend to be associated with Silicon Valley invention myths or celebrity power users, the story of the hashtag is much longer and more surprising, speaking to how we think about naming, identity, and being human in a non-human world. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: A Stranger in the Village Farah J. Griffin, Cheryl J. Fish, 1999-05-01 Dispatches, diaries, memoirs, and letters by African-American travelers in search of home, justice, and adventure-from the Wild West to Australia.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Bound Fast with Letters Richard H. Rouse, Mary A. Rouse, 2013 This work brings together many of the significant contributions that Richard and Mary Rouse have made over the past 40 years to the study of medieval manuscripts through the prism of textual transmission and manuscript production. The book focuses on the close ties between the physical remains of literate culture and their social and economic context.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Constitutive Visions Christa J. Olson, 2013-11-15 In Constitutive Visions, Christa Olson presents the rhetorical history of republican Ecuador as punctuated by repeated arguments over national identity. Those arguments—as they advanced theories of citizenship, popular sovereignty, and republican modernity—struggled to reconcile the presence of Ecuador’s large indigenous population with the dominance of a white-mestizo minority. Even as indigenous people were excluded from civic life, images of them proliferated in speeches, periodicals, and artworks during Ecuador’s long process of nation formation. Tracing how that contradiction illuminates the textures of national-identity formation, Constitutive Visions places petitions from indigenous laborers alongside oil paintings, overlays woodblock illustrations with legislative debates, and analyzes Ecuador’s nineteen constitutions in light of landscape painting. Taken together, these juxtapositions make sense of the contradictions that sustained and unsettled the postcolonial nation-state.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: The Essential Guide to Rhetoric William M. Keith, Christian O. Lundberg, 2008-02-22 Gaining an understanding of rhetorical theory and its practical applications is a critical component to effective and competent communication. The Essential Guide to Rhetoric provides an accessible and balanced overview of the core historical and contemporary theories. It uses concrete, relevant examples and jargon-free language to bring these concepts to life. The guide helps students move from concept to action with discussions of invention, the traditions of trope, argument and speech, among others. This handy guide is an excellent addition to the public speaking class, extending and deepening crucial concepts, and an indispensable supplement to the rhetorical theory class.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Lissa Hamdy, Sherine, Nye, Coleman, 2017-11-15 As Anna and Layla reckon with illness, risk, and loss in different ways, they learn the power of friendship and the importance of hope.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Scientific American: Presenting Psychology Deborah Licht, Misty Hull, Coco Ballantyne, 2021-10-27 Written by two teachers and a science journalist, Presenting Psychology introduces the basics to psychology through magazine-style profiles and video interviews of real people, whose stories provide compelling contexts for the field’s key ideas.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Stylish Academic Writing Helen Sword, 2012-04-02 Elegant data and ideas deserve elegant expression, argues Helen Sword in this lively guide to academic writing. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions, and for specialists who want to write for a larger audience but are unsure where to begin, here are imaginative, practical, witty pointers that show how to make articles and books a pleasure to read—and to write. Dispelling the myth that you cannot get published without writing wordy, impersonal prose, Sword shows how much journal editors and readers welcome work that avoids excessive jargon and abstraction. Sword’s analysis of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles across a wide range of fields documents a startling gap between how academics typically describe good writing and the turgid prose they regularly produce. Stylish Academic Writing showcases a range of scholars from the sciences, humanities, and social sciences who write with vividness and panache. Individual chapters take up specific elements of style, such as titles and headings, chapter openings, and structure, and close with examples of transferable techniques that any writer can master.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Voices from the Rust Belt Anne Trubek, 2018-04-03 “Timely . . . [the collection] paints intimate portraits of neglected places that are often used as political talking points. A good companion piece to J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.”—Booklist The essays in Voices from the Rust Belt address segregated schools, rural childhoods, suburban ennui, lead poisoning, opiate addiction, and job loss. They reflect upon happy childhoods, successful community ventures, warm refuges for outsiders, and hidden oases of natural beauty. But mainly they are stories drawn from uniquely personal experiences: A girl has her bike stolen. A social worker in Pittsburgh makes calls on clients. A journalist from Buffalo moves away, and misses home.... A father gives his daughter a bath in the lead-contaminated water of Flint, Michigan (from the introduction). Where is America's Rust Belt? It's not quite a geographic region but a linguistic one, first introduced as a concept in 1984 by Walter Mondale. In the modern vernacular, it's closely associated with the Post-Industrial Midwest, and includes Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York. The region reflects the country's manufacturing center, which, over the past forty years, has been in decline. In the 2016 election, the Rust Belt's economic woes became a political talking point, and helped pave the way for a Donald Trump victory. But the region is neither monolithic nor easily understood. The truth is much more nuanced. Voices from the Rust Belt pulls together a distinct variety of voices from people who call the region home. Voices that emerge from familiar Rust Belt cities—Detroit, Cleveland, Flint, and Buffalo, among other places—and observe, with grace and sensitivity, the changing economic and cultural realities for generations of Americans.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: An Insider's Guide to Academic Writing Susan Miller-Cochran, Roy Stamper, Stacey Cochran, 2018-09-12 Valued for its clear, accessible presentation of disciplinary writing, the first edition of An Insider’s Guide to Academic Writing was celebrated by adopters at two-year and four-year schools alike. With this second edition, the authors build on that proven pedagogy, offering a series of flexible, transferable frameworks and unique Insider’s video interviews with scholars and peers that helps students to adapt to the academic writing tasks of different disciplinary discourse communities - and helps instructors to teach them. New to the second edition is additional foundational support on the writing process, critical reading, and reflection, to give students stronger tools to apply to their disciplinary writing. An Insider’s Guide to Academic Writing is based on the best practices of a first-year composition program that has trained hundreds of teachers who have instructed thousands of students. Use ISBN 978-1-319-05355-0 to get access to the online videos for free with the brief text and ISBN 978-1-319-05354-3 for the version with readings.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: The Little Seagull Handbook with Exercises Richard Bullock, Michal Brody, Francine Weinberg, 2014 Includes model student research papers demonstrating four academic styles: MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Introduction to Law Jaap Hage, Antonia Waltermann, Bram Akkermans, 2017-08-07 This book is exceptional in the sense that it provides an introduction to law in general rather than the law of one specific jurisdiction, and it presents a unique way of looking at legal education. It is crucial for lawyers to be aware of the different ways in which societal problems can be solved and to be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different legal solutions. In this respect, being a lawyer involves being able to reason like a lawyer, even more than having detailed knowledge of particular sets of rules. Introduction to Law reflects this view by focusing on the functions of rules and on ways of arguing the relative qualities of alternative legal solutions. Where ‘positive’ law is discussed, the emphasis is on the legal questions that must be addressed by a field of law and on the different solutions which have been adopted by, for instance, the common law and civil law tradition. The law of specific jurisdictions is discussed to illustrate possible answers to questions such as when the existence of a valid contract is assumed.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Digital Writing Daniel Lawrence, 2022-02-09 This concise guidebook offers a rhetorical framework for writing and analyzing content for social media and the web. In the age of disinformation and hyper-targeted digital advertising, writers and teachers of writing must be prepared to delve into the digital world with a critical and strategic perspective. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to writing scenarios, with insights from classical and contemporary rhetoric, the philosophy of technology, and digital media theory. Special emphases are also placed on preparing for writing, marketing, and communications careers in the digital space, and on ethical issues related to digital and social media.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Rhetorical Analysis Mark Garrett Longaker, Jeffrey Walker, 2011 Rhetorical Analysis: A Brief Guide for Writers, walk students through the process for doing different kinds of analyses -- argument analysis, structure analysis, style analysis, and more. Shows how to analyze a range of texts, print, visual, and multimedia. Includes authors' own analyses as models for students, as well as 4 complete student model papers. Introduces students to rhetorical concepts (both classical and modern) that are relevant to rhetorical analysis.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: The Cruelty Is the Point Adam Serwer, 2021-06-29 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From an award-winning journalist at The Atlantic, these searing essays make a powerful case that “real hope lies not in a sunny nostalgia for American greatness but in seeing this history plain—in all of its brutality, unadorned by euphemism” (The New York Times). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • “No writer better demonstrates how American dreams are so often sabotaged by American history. Adam Serwer is essential.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates To many, our most shocking political crises appear unprecedented—un-American, even. But they are not, writes The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer in this prescient essay collection, which dissects the most devastating moments in recent memory to reveal deeply entrenched dynamics, patterns as old as the country itself. The January 6 insurrection, anti-immigrant sentiment, and American authoritarianism all have historic roots that explain their continued power with or without President Donald Trump—a fact borne out by what has happened since his departure from the White House. Serwer argues that Trump is not the cause, he is a symptom. Serwer’s phrase “the cruelty is the point” became among the most-used descriptions of Trump’s era, but as this book demonstrates, it resonates across centuries. The essays here combine revelatory reporting, searing analysis, and a clarity that’s bracing. In this new, expanded version of his bestselling debut, Serwer elegantly dissects white supremacy’s profound influence on our political system, looking at the persistence of the Lost Cause, the past and present of police unions, the mythology of migration, and the many faces of anti-Semitism. In so doing, he offers abundant proof that our past is present and demonstrates the devastating costs of continuing to pretend it’s not. The Cruelty Is the Point dares us, the reader, to not look away.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Good Talk Mira Jacob, 2019-03-26 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “beautiful and eye-opening” (Jacqueline Woodson), “hilarious and heart-rending” (Celeste Ng) graphic memoir about American identity, interracial families, and the realities that divide us, from the acclaimed author of The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing. ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, The New York Public Library, Publishers Weekly • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, BuzzFeed, Esquire, Literary Journal, Kirkus Reviews “How brown is too brown?” “Can Indians be racist?” “What does real love between really different people look like?” Like many six-year-olds, Mira Jacob’s half-Jewish, half-Indian son, Z, has questions about everything. At first they are innocuous enough, but as tensions from the 2016 election spread from the media into his own family, they become much, much more complicated. Trying to answer him honestly, Mira has to think back to where she’s gotten her own answers: her most formative conversations about race, color, sexuality, and, of course, love. Written with humor and vulnerability, this deeply relatable graphic memoir is a love letter to the art of conversation—and to the hope that hovers in our most difficult questions. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD “Jacob’s earnest recollections are often heartbreaking, but also infused with levity and humor. What stands out most is the fierce compassion with which she parses the complexities of family and love.”—Time “Good Talk uses a masterful mix of pictures and words to speak on life’s most uncomfortable conversations.”—io9 “Mira Jacob just made me toss everything I thought was possible in a book-as-art-object into the garbage. Her new book changes everything.”—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Teaching Arguments Jennifer Fletcher, 2015 No matter wherestudents' lives lead after graduation, one of the most essential tools we can teach them is how to comprehend, analyze, and respond to arguments. Students need to know how writers' and speakers' choices are shaped by elements of the rhetorical situation, including audience, occasion, and purpose. In Teaching Arguments: Rhetorical Comprehension, Critique, and Response, Jennifer Fletcher provides teachers with engaging classroom activities, writing prompts, graphic organizers, and student samples to help students at all levels read, write, listen, speak, and think rhetorically.Fletcher believes that, with appropriate scaffolding and encouragement, all students can learn a rhetorical approach to argument and gain access to rigorous academic content. Teaching Arguments opens the door and helps them pay closer attention to the acts of meaning around them, to notice persuasive strategies that might not be apparent at first glance. When we analyze and develop arguments, we have to consider more than just the printed words on the page. We have to evaluate multiple perspectives; the tension between belief and doubt; the interplay of reason, character, and emotion; the dynamics of occasion, audience, and purpose; and how our own identities shape what we read and write. Rhetoric teaches us how to do these things.Teaching Arguments will help students learn to move beyond a superficial response to texts so they can analyze and craft sophisticated, persuasive arguments-;a major cornerstone for being not just college-and career-ready but ready for the challenges of the world.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: The War on Learning Elizabeth Losh, 2014-04-25 An examination of technology-based education initiatives—from MOOCs to virtual worlds—that argues against treating education as a product rather than a process. Behind the lectern stands the professor, deploying course management systems, online quizzes, wireless clickers, PowerPoint slides, podcasts, and plagiarism-detection software. In the seats are the students, armed with smartphones, laptops, tablets, music players, and social networking. Although these two forces seem poised to do battle with each other, they are really both taking part in a war on learning itself. In this book, Elizabeth Losh examines current efforts to “reform” higher education by applying technological solutions to problems in teaching and learning. She finds that many of these initiatives fail because they treat education as a product rather than a process. Highly touted schemes—video games for the classroom, for example, or the distribution of iPads—let students down because they promote consumption rather than intellectual development. Losh analyzes recent trends in postsecondary education and the rhetoric around them, often drawing on first-person accounts. In an effort to identify educational technologies that might actually work, she looks at strategies including MOOCs (massive open online courses), the gamification of subject matter, remix pedagogy, video lectures (from Randy Pausch to “the Baked Professor”), and educational virtual worlds. Finally, Losh outlines six basic principles of digital learning and describes several successful university-based initiatives. Her book will be essential reading for campus decision makers—and for anyone who cares about education and technology.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Bodies of Information Elizabeth Losh, Jacqueline Wernimont, 2019-01-08 A wide-ranging, interconnected anthology presents a diversity of feminist contributions to digital humanities In recent years, the digital humanities has been shaken by important debates about inclusivity and scope—but what change will these conversations ultimately bring about? Can the digital humanities complicate the basic assumptions of tech culture, or will this body of scholarship and practices simply reinforce preexisting biases? Bodies of Information addresses this crucial question by assembling a varied group of leading voices, showcasing feminist contributions to a panoply of topics, including ubiquitous computing, game studies, new materialisms, and cultural phenomena like hashtag activism, hacktivism, and campaigns against online misogyny. Taking intersectional feminism as the starting point for doing digital humanities, Bodies of Information is diverse in discipline, identity, location, and method. Helpfully organized around keywords of materiality, values, embodiment, affect, labor, and situatedness, this comprehensive volume is ideal for classrooms. And with its multiplicity of viewpoints and arguments, it’s also an important addition to the evolving conversations around one of the fastest growing fields in the academy. Contributors: Babalola Titilola Aiyegbusi, U of Lethbridge; Moya Bailey, Northeastern U; Bridget Blodgett, U of Baltimore; Barbara Bordalejo, KU Leuven; Jason Boyd, Ryerson U; Christina Boyles, Trinity College; Susan Brown, U of Guelph; Lisa Brundage, CUNY; micha cárdenas, U of Washington Bothell; Marcia Chatelain, Georgetown U; Danielle Cole; Beth Coleman, U of Waterloo; T. L. Cowan, U of Toronto; Constance Crompton, U of Ottawa; Amy E. Earhart, Texas A&M; Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, U of Colorado Boulder; Julia Flanders, Northeastern U Library; Sandra Gabriele, Concordia U; Brian Getnick; Karen Gregory, U of Edinburgh; Alison Hedley, Ryerson U; Kathryn Holland, MacEwan U; James Howe, Rutgers U; Jeana Jorgensen, Indiana U; Alexandra Juhasz, Brooklyn College, CUNY; Dorothy Kim, Vassar College; Kimberly Knight, U of Texas, Dallas; Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson U; Sharon M. Leon, Michigan State; Izetta Autumn Mobley, U of Maryland; Padmini Ray Murray, Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology; Veronica Paredes, U of Illinois; Roopika Risam, Salem State; Bonnie Ruberg, U of California, Irvine; Laila Shereen Sakr (VJ Um Amel), U of California, Santa Barbara; Anastasia Salter, U of Central Florida; Michelle Schwartz, Ryerson U; Emily Sherwood, U of Rochester; Deb Verhoeven, U of Technology, Sydney; Scott B. Weingart, Carnegie Mellon U.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: How to Read Now Elaine Castillo, 2022-07-26 “How to Read Now explores the politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories.” “A book that doesn’t seek to shut down the current literary discourse so much as shake it up.” (The New York Times Book Review) Offering “its audience the opportunity to look past the simplicity we’re all too often spoon-fed into order to restore ourselves to chaos and complexity — a way of seeing and reading that demands so much more of us but offers even more in return. (Los Angeles Times) I gasped, shouted, and holler-laughed while reading these essays from the phenomenal Elaine Castillo. What powerful writing, what a rigorous mind. For as long as I live, I want to read anything Castillo writes, and you probably do, too. —R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries How many times have we heard that reading builds empathy? That we can travel through books? How often have we were heard about the importance of diversifying our bookshelves? Or claimed that books saved our lives? These familiar words—beautiful, aspirational—are sometimes even true. But award-winning novelist Elaine Castillo has more ambitious hopes for our reading culture, and in this collection of linked essays, “she moves to wrest reading away from the cotton-candy aspirations of uniting people in empathetic harmony and reposition it as thornier, ultimately more rewarding work.” (Vulture) How to Read Now explores the politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories. Smart, funny, galvanizing, and sometimes profane, Castillo attacks the stale questions and less-than-critical proclamations that masquerade as vital discussion: reimagining the cartography of the classics, building a moral case against the settler colonialism of lauded writers like Joan Didion, taking aim at Nobel Prize winners and toppling indie filmmakers, and celebrating glorious moments in everything from popular TV like The Watchmen to the films of Wong Kar-wai and the work of contemporary poets like Tommy Pico. At once a deeply personal and searching history of one woman’s reading life, and a wide-ranging and urgent intervention into our globalized conversations about why reading matters today, How to Read Now empowers us to embrace a more complicated, embodied form of reading, inviting us to acknowledge complicated truths, ignite surprising connections, imagine a more daring solidarity, and create space for a riskier intimacy—within ourselves, and with each other.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Writing Spaces Dana Driscoll, Matthew Vetter, 2020-03-07 Volumes in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing offer multiple perspectives on a wide range of topics about writing. In each chapter, authors present their unique views, insights, and strategies for writing by addressing the undergraduate reader directly. Drawing on their own experiences, these teachers-as-writers invite students to join in the larger conversation about the craft of writing. Consequently, each essay functions as a standalone text that can easily complement other selected readings in first year writing or writing-intensive courses across the disciplines at any level. Volume 3 continues the tradition of previous volumes with topics such as voice and style in writing, rhetorical appeals, discourse communities, multimodal composing, visual rhetoric, credibility, exigency, working with personal experience in academic writing, globalized writing and rhetoric, constructing scholarly ethos, imitation and style, and rhetorical punctuation.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: A People's History of American Empire Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, Paul Buhle, 2008-04-01 Adapted from the bestselling grassroots history of the United States, the story of America in the world, told in comics form Since its landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has had six new editions, sold more than 1.7 million copies, become required classroom reading throughout the country, and been turned into an acclaimed play. More than a successful book, A People's History triggered a revolution in the way history is told, displacing the official versions with their emphasis on great men in high places to chronicle events as they were lived, from the bottom up. Now Howard Zinn, historian Paul Buhle, and cartoonist Mike Konopacki have collaborated to retell, in vibrant comics form, a most immediate and relevant chapter of A People's History: the centuries-long story of America's actions in the world. Narrated by Zinn, this version opens with the events of 9/11 and then jumps back to explore the cycles of U.S. expansionism from Wounded Knee to Iraq, stopping along the way at World War I, Central America, Vietnam, and the Iranian revolution. The book also follows the story of Zinn, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, from his childhood in the Brooklyn slums to his role as one of America's leading historians. Shifting from world-shattering events to one family's small revolutions, A People's History of American Empire presents the classic ground-level history of America in a dazzling new form.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Reconnecting Reading and Writing Alice S. Horning, Elizabeth W. Kraemer, 2013-09-06 Reconnecting Reading and Writing explores the ways in which reading can and should have a strong role in the teaching of writing in college. Reconnecting Reading and Writing draws on broad perspectives from history and international work to show how and why reading should be reunited with writing in college and high school classrooms. It presents an overview of relevant research on reading and how it can best be used to support and enhance writing instruction.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Displacement Kiku Hughes, 2020-08-18 A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in Displacement, a historical graphic novel from Kiku Hughes. Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II. These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself stuck back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive. Kiku Hughes weaves a riveting, bittersweet tale that highlights the intergenerational impact and power of memory.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Digital Rhetoric Douglas Eyman, 2015-06 A survey of a range of disciplines whose practitioners are venturing into the new field of digital rhetoric, examining the history of the ways digital and networked technologies inhabit and shape traditional rhetorical practices as well as considering new rhetorics made possible by current technologies
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli, 2024-10-14 It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. The Prince, written by Niccolò Machiavelli, is a groundbreaking work in the genre of political philosophy, first published in 1532. It offers a direct and unflinching examination of power and leadership, challenging conventional notions of morality and ethics in governance. This work will leave you questioning the true nature of authority and political strategy. Machiavelli's prose captures the very essence of human ambition, forcing readers to grapple with the harsh realities of leadership. This is not just a historical treatise, but a blueprint for navigating the political power structures of any era. If you're seeking a deeper understanding of political leadership and the dynamics of influence, this book is for you. Sneak Peek Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. In The Prince, Machiavelli draws on historical examples and his own diplomatic experience to lay out a stark vision of what it takes to seize and maintain power. From the ruthlessness of Cesare Borgia to the political maneuvering of Italian city-states, Machiavelli outlines how a leader must be prepared to act against virtue when necessary. Every decision is a gamble, and success depends on mastering the balance between cunning and force. Synopsis The story of The Prince delves into the often brutal realities of ruling. Machiavelli provides rulers with a pragmatic guide for gaining and sustaining power, asserting that the ends justify the means. The book is not just a reflection on how power was wielded in Renaissance Italy but a timeless manual that offers insight into political consulting, political history, and current political issues. Its relevance has endured for centuries, influencing leaders and thinkers alike. Machiavelli emphasizes that effective rulers must learn how to adapt, deceive, and act decisively in pursuit of their goals. This stunning, classic literature reprint of The Prince offers unaltered preservation of the original text, providing you with an authentic experience as Machiavelli intended. It's an ideal gift for anyone passionate about political science books or those eager to dive into the intricacies of power and leadership. Add this thought-provoking masterpiece to your collection, or give it to a loved one who enjoys the best political books. The Prince is more than just a book – it's a legacy. Grab Your Copy Now and get ready to command power like a true Prince. Title Details Original 1532 text Political Philosophy Historical Context
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Finding Out Michelle A. Gibson, Deborah T. Meem, Jonathan Alexander, 2013-02-14 By combining accessible introductory and explanatory material with primary texts and artifacts, this text/reader explores the development and growth of LGBT identities and the interdisciplinary nature of sexuality studies. Authors Meem, Gibson, and Alexander clearly situate debates and readings within clear contexts (History, Literature and the Arts, Media and Politics), providing students with a coherent framework and comprehensive introduction to LGBT studies. While this emerging field is complex, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary (and therefore often inaccessible to students), Finding Out - through its instructional apparatus, primary texts, and organization - provides the ideal introduction for today's students. Contents: I. HISTORY 1. Before Identity: The Ancient World through the Nineteenth Century 2. Sexology: Constructing the Modern Homosexual 3. Toward Liberation 4. Stonewall and Beyond II. POLITICS 5. Nature, Nurture, and Identity 6. Inclusion and Equality 7. Queer Diversities 8. Intersectionalities III. LITERATURE AND THE ARTS 9. Homo-sexed Art and Literature 10. Lesbian Pulp Novels and Gay Physique Pictorials 11. Queer Transgressions 12. Censorship and Moral Panic IV. MEDIA 13. Film and Television 14. Queers and the Internet 15. The Politics of Location: Alternative Media and the Search for Queer Space
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Writer/Designer Cheryl E. Ball, Jennifer Sheppard, Kristin L. Arola, 2018-01-05 Grounded in multimodal theory and supported by practice in the classroom, Writer/Designer streamlines the process of composing multimodally by helping students make decisions about content across a range of modes, genres, and media from words to images to movement. Students learn by doing as they write for authentic audiences and purposes. The second edition of Writer/Designer is reimagined to clarify the multimodal process and give students the tools they need to make conscious rhetorical choices in new modes and media. Key concepts in design, rhetoric, and multimodality are illustrated with vivid, timely examples, and new Touchpoint activities for each section give students opportunities to put new skills into practice. Based on feedback from instructors and administrators who incorporate multimodality into their classroom—or want to—this brief, accessible text is designed to be flexible, supporting core writing assignments and aligning with course goals in introductory composition or any course where multimodality matters.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Writing Unleashed Sybil Priebe, Dana Anderson, 2017 Welcome to Writing Unleashed, designed for use as a textbook in first-year college composition programs, written as an extremely brief guide for students, jam-packed with teachers' voices, students' voices, and engineered for fun.--Foreword.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Composing Research Cindy Johanek, 2000-04 Cindy Johanek offers a new perspective on the ideological conflict between qualitative and quantitative research approaches, and the theories of knowledge that inform them. With a paradigm that is sensitive to the context of one's research questions, she argues, scholars can develop less dichotomous forms that invoke the strengths of both research traditions. Context-oriented approaches can lift the narrative from beneath the numbers in an experimental study, for example, or bring the useful clarity of numbers to an ethnographic study. A pragmatic scholar, Johanek moves easily across the boundaries that divide the field, and argues for contextualist theory as a lens through which to view composition research. This approach brings with it a new focus, she writes. This new focus will call us to attend to the contexts in which rhetorical issues and research issues converge, producing varied forms, many voices, and new knowledge, indeed reconstructing a discipline that will be simultaneously focused on its tasks, its knowledge-makers, and its students. Composing Research is a work full of personal voice and professional commitment and will be a welcome addition to the research methods classroom and to the composition researcher's own bookshelf. 2000 Outstanding Scholarship Award from the International Writing Centers Association.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Oregon Writes Open Writing Text Jenn Kepka, 2018
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Patterns for College Writing with 2021 MLA Update Laurie G. Kirszner, Stephen Mandell, 2021-08-17 This ebook has been updated to provide you with the latest guidance on documenting sources in MLA style and follows the guidelines set forth in the MLA Handbook, 9th edition (April 2021). Patterns for College Writing provides instruction, visual texts, diverse essays, and student writing examples to help you develop your writing skills using rhetorical patterns like narration, description, argumentation, and more.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: On Multimodality Jonathan Alexander, Jacqueline Rhodes, 2014 Winner of the 2015 CCCC Outstanding Book Award As our field of composition studies invites students to compose with new media and multimedia, we need to ask about other possibilities for communication, representation, and making knowledge--including possibilities that may exceed those of the letter, the text based, the composed. In this provocative look at how composition incorporates new forms of media into actual classrooms, Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes argue persuasively that composition's embrace of new media and multimedia often makes those media serve the rhetorical ends of writing and composition, as opposed to exploring the rhetorical capabilities of those media. Practical employment of new media often ignores their rich contexts, which contain examples of the distinct logics and different affordances of those media, wasting the very characteristics that make them most effective and potentially revolutionary for pedagogy. On Multimodality: New Media in Composition Studies urges composition scholars and teachers to become aware of the rich histories and rhetorical capabilities of new media so that students' work with those media is enlivened and made substantive.
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: About Writing Robin Jeffrey, 2016
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: The Lost Tools of Writing Level One CiRCE Institute, 2015-01-01
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: How to Argue with a Cat Jay Heinrichs, 2018-03-01 If you can persuade a cat ... you can persuade anyone. This is the essential guide to getting your way. Jay Heinrichs, award-winning author of Thank You for Arguing and advisor to the Pentagon, NASA and Fortune 500 companies, distils a lifetime of negotiating and rhetoric to show you how to win over anyone - from colleagues and bosses, to friends and partners at home (and even the most stubborn of feline adversaries). You'll learn to: Perfect your timing - learn exactly when to pounce Get your body language, tone and gesture just right Think about what your opponent wants - always offer a comfy lap Lure them in by making them think they have the power The result? A happy, hopefully scratch-free, resolution. 'Jay Heinrichs knows a thing or two about arguing' The Times 'A master rhetorician and persuasion guru' Salon 'You got a bunch of logical engineers to inject pathos into their arguments ... it works!' NASA engineer
  understanding rhetoric a graphic guide to writing: Everything's an Argument Andrea A. Lunsford, John J. Ruszkiewicz, 2021-11-11 Everything’s an Argument helps students analyze arguments and create their own, while emphasizing skills like rhetorical listening and critical reading. The text is available for the first time in Achieve, with downloadable e-book, grammar support, interactive tutorials, and more.