| Instructor’s Notes: Rhetoric and Reports |
Instructor’s introduction to reading assigned for the February 14 MOO discussion:
Aristotle, On Rhetoric, Book I, Parts 1-4, pp 1-11; Book II, Parts 18-20, pp 22-21; parts 22, 23, pp. 29-32
Miller and Selzer, "Special Topics of Argument in Engineering Reports"
Page references are to the Roberts translation at the MIT Classics site
Also see "Silva Rhetorica," a site with clear and succinct definitions of rhetorical terms.
| Rhetoric: types, purposes |
Aristotle’s "rhetoric"
concerns the use of discourse in civic affairs. He identified three major roles for
rhetoric in society:
(Book I, Part 3, p. 8) Aristotle contrasts rhetoric with science and to philosophy, other ways of knowing for different types of problems. (Aristotle was himself a scientist and philosopher as well as rhetorician.) In his view, science and philosophy both produced certain knowledge that had universal application. By contrast, rhetoric is always situated and contingent. For example, a decision about war does not apply to all time and to all places, though Aristotle would believe in a universal "truth" that war is sometimes justified. |
| Canons of rhetoric | Although rhetoric deals with situations
that are bound by their contexts and cannot depend on universal or certain knowledge, the
civic functions that Aristotle identifies require knowing something in order to reach the
right conclusions. Thus, "invention" or "discovery" is the
first of his five canons of rhetoric. Before an orator can speak, he (he then; he
or she now) must investigate. These are the other four canons: Arrangement refers to the organization of ideas. Style refers to word choices, sentence structure, and ornaments of speech. Memory was important when the discourse was spoken (as it is in Aristotle’s rhetoric). Delivery refers to the speaker’s voice, gestures, pauses, and so forth |
| Special topics | The sections of the Rhetoric that you
are reading introduce these views broadly, but I have selected them because they also
explain Aristotle’s concepts of "special topics," important in invention.
These special topics (in contrast with common topics) are issues that are particular to
specific problems. Aristotle reviews, for example, the topics that the orator must
investigate in order to reach decisions about ways and means, peace and war, and national
defense. (The common topics apply to all issues.) Bk I, Part 3, p. 10; Bk II, Part 23, pp
30 ff. Miller and Selzer (p. 316) define special topics as patterns of thought deriving from specific genres, institutions, or disciplines. |
| "Topoi" | Aristotle’s "topics" are "topoi," places where one can find arguments. Think "topography." |
| Rhetoric as persuasion | The idea of rhetoric as "persuasion" comes from the realization that if knowledge is not certain, it is reached because people become convinced that it is right. For example, free societies believe that "people are endowed with certain unalienable rights." These societies believe that principle to be "true" because they have been convinced (persuaded) of its truth. It is not a fact that exists in nature (and some evidence is that most societies over time have not been free). Speech (or writing) is the means by which people become convinced of a principle, policy, or course of action. Rhetoric is a means of persuasion (but first the facts must be right, they must be arranged appropriately, the style must be right for the topic and audience, and delivery must engage the audience). |
| Three types of persuasive
appeals (Book I, Part 2, p. 4) |
Aristotle defines three ways to
persuade: Character of the speaker (ethos); credibility Response of the audience (pathos); emotions Arguments (logos); logic |
| Inductive and deductive
reasoning Enthymemes and paradigms |
Logical argument may be deductive or
inductive. Deductive reasoning uses syllogisms and enthymemes. The enthymeme is a truncated syllogism, with one of the premises being unstated because the speaker assumes the audience knows and accepts it. (Book I, p. 5, middle paragraph; also middle of p. 6; Book II, Part 20, pp. 23-25) Examples (similar cases) are used in inductive reasoning and become paradigms, or patterns. (A pattern predicts repetition.) |
| Current applications of rhetoric | Although the Rhetoric concerns civic affairs and spoken discourse, the theory remains powerful 2400 years later and is widely applied to written discourse and in a variety of settings, including technical communication. The Miller-Selzer article on engineering reports is an example. |
| Decision making: deliberative
rhetoric Bk 1, p. 8: "political speaking urges us either to do nor not to do something" Bk 2, p. 22 |
My article on reports (which you read in the second week) draws on this theory. (Decision making reports fall into Aristotle’s deliberative or political category. They deal with situated problems, and rhetoric provides some guidance about how to acquire and present the necessary information.) |
| Heuristic for document development and review | The canons (with the possible exception of memory) apply to possibly all written work: invention (getting your information), arrangement (organization), style, and delivery (which in print materials is often equated with graphic design and navigational devices). These canons become a heuristic for document development and review. |
| Reading Aristotle | The reading is not easy for several reasons. It’s 2 ½ millenia old, and some of the situations and values belong to that time, not ours. Translations may be slippery. The Rhetoric also seems to have been compiled from lecture notes rather than written as a book, and it is often elliptical as well as repetitious. |
This article illustrates an application of rhetoric to modern times and technical discourse. It also brings us back to our topic of genre. (Miller is the same Miller who wrote "Genre as Social Action.") Miller and Selzer argue that transportation reports (a genre) include the same types of topics, and in mostly the same order, no matter who writes them or where. They further argue that the genre considerations guide writers in the development of their arguments.
There are also special topics associated with institutions or organizations and with disciplines. These also influence written work.