Rhetoric Notes to Myself

This post is not anything that has been assigned but a reference for myself that embodies key point of rhetoric that I would like to remember and be able to reference at any time. They may or may not be helpful to other students as they are not refined but written in a way that makes the most sense to me in a quick referenceable fashion.

This first part is just definitions of key words I wanted to greater explore and understand

·      Exigence- reason for communication, an obstacle to overcome or defect to fix, could come from a past event or to better the future

·      Discourse- language being used to accomplish something

o   Instance of language

o   The writing itself

·      Constraints- factors that limit or otherwise influence the persuasive strategies available to the rhetor

o   May make rhetor more or less sympathetic to the discourse

·      Interlocutor- reader or recipient of any form of rhetoric

·      Epistemic- activities that create new knowledge

·      Stases- pattern or questions that helps explain what issue is being addressed in a rhetorical situation

o   Commonly can be the five W’s and How?

·      Receptivity- the ability to be dynamic and change situationally

This next part is random notes I felt were crucial to rhetoric

·      Writing does not contain meaning until rhetors and interlocutors interact to create meaning and knowledge

·      Rhetorical activities create new knowledge

o   When you write you create new knowledge that did not exist when you began

o   Writing is epistemic

·      “Good” writing is situation and contingent to what you want to convey or achieve

·      All communication (i.e. writing or speech) has a motive whether it is obvious or not

o   Always has exigence

o   May be predetermined or spur of the moment

·      To understand any piece of writing you must see the motivation of it (i.e. purposes, needs, values, and expectations of the rhetor)

o   This parallels the rhetors discourse

·      A piece may have multiple exigencies, constraints, rhetors, or interlocutors

o   Opens possibility of multiple forms of discourse

o   A single rhetor can play multiple roles with different exigences