WRIT 250 Presentation 1.1

1. CRITICAL THINKING
THE RHETORICAL SITUATION
WRIT 250
Advanced Composition
Week 1

2. WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING?
Adapted from The Online Writing Lab @ Purdue and From Critical Thinking to Argument, Bedford: 2010.
Critical thinking is directly linked to skepticism. Part of being critical is never accepting
anything as truth without careful analysis:
You should develop a skeptical attitude towards:
 Your own attitude
 Your own assumptions
 Your own evidence

3. WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING?
You must question your own attitudes, assumptions, and evidence before you begin to
question the arguments of others.
The first step in skeptical criticism is INVESTIGATION. On a basic level, investigation
needs a structure to be effective and useful. We call that structure a heuristic.
A Heuristic is a method or process of adopting ideas. The emphasis here is on the
process: one idea leads to another, and so on.

4. HEURISTICS AND TOPICS
In order to develop an effective heuristic for analysis of an idea, you should try to establish
its topic, or topos. In the classical tradition, these topics are:
1.
Definition
2.
Comparison
3.
Relationship
4.
Testimony
In writing, these topics loosely translate to genres.

5. WHAT IS RHETORIC?
Rhetoric is the practical application of critical thinking.
Rhetoric: using language to persuade, inform, educate, or entertain.
Language is a broad term. What do you think counts as language?

6. THE RHETORICAL SITUATION
LOGOS
PATHOS
ETHOS

7. THE RHETORICAL SITUATION
•
The most fundamental part of the rhetorical situation is the writer (or the speaker, the
actor, or the artist). As you develop heuristics to interrogate and criticize your attitudes
and assumptions, consider how these affect your perception:
• Age
• Experience
• Gender
• Location
• Culture
• Politics
• Religion
• Education
Can you think of ways these things might influence your perspective on an issue?

8. THE RHETORICAL SITUATION
•
The writer is just the first piece of the rhetorical situation. The others are:
• Purpose
• Audience
• Genre
• Stance
• Media/Design
We’ll talk about the other parts in the coming days and weeks.