This document discusses writing and rhetoric. It defines writing as a tool for thinking, learning, communication and knowledge creation. It discusses the history of writing from its origins over 30,000 years ago to early forms in Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica. The development of writing systems including Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese oracle bone script are summarized. The invention of printing and its impacts are noted. The document also briefly discusses the role of writing in knowledge development and the digital age. It provides definitions and discussions of rhetoric including Aristotle's appeals of logos, pathos and ethos and Cicero's functions of oratory.

1. Writing and Rhetoric

2. “Writing---the art of
communicating
thoughts to the mind,
through the eye---is
the great invention of
the world.”
Abraham Lincoln

3. What is writing?
Writing is a tool of thinking
Writing is a means of learning
Writing is a tool for communication
Writing is a method of self-representation
Writing is a tool of knowledge creation
Across space and time …

4. What counts as writing?

5. Process
Domain Specific
Content Knowledge
Rhetoric
Genre
Knowledge
Discourse Community Knowledge

7. College Board. (2000). Writing a ticket to work...or a ticket out: A survey of business leaders. Retrieved
December 3, 2009, from http://www.writingcommission.org/prod_downloads/writingcom/writing-ticket-to-
work.pdf

8. The History of Writing
• De-familiarizing the familiar

11. 30,000 BC

12. Chauvet Cave, near the village of
Vallon-Pont-d’ Arc, France

13. The Origins of Writing
• The available evidence shows that writing
arose autochthonously in three places of the
world: in Mesopotamia, about 3200 BC, in
China about 1250 BC, and in Mesoamerica
around 650 BC.
– Autochthonously: Adj. Originating where found;
indigenous: autochthonous rocks; an
autochthonous people; autochthonous folktales.
See synonyms at native.

16. Sumerians created the first written
language based on abstract signs
around 3000 B.C.E. Imprints of the
signs, called cuneiform, were made
by pressing a wedge-shaped stylus
into wet clay.

17. • In China, the earliest written event, name of a
person or object was found marked on large
animal bones or tortoise shalls. The earliest of
marks on these bones date from about 1600BC.
These scratch marks are ideographs, similar in
principle but not related to Mesopotamian and
Egyptian symbols used for writing. These are the
so-called Chinese Oracle Bone Inscriptions
(jiaguwen) which were found at the site of the
last Shang capital near present-day, Henan
province.

19. This is the earliest form of Chinese writing, used probably
from the Middle to the Late Shang dynasty (approximately
1500 BC ?? to 1000 BC). Most of the time, this script was
etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were
then used for divination in the royal court.

20. Early Meso-American Writing
The Dresden Codex: circa 650
BCE

22. How Writing Started …

23. The Invention of Printing
• The invention of printing is considered to be
one of the defining inventions for the
advancement of civilization. Printing was
invented in China, possibly between the 4th
and 7th century AD. Gutenberg's movable
type printing press about 1450 AD is often
cited as the single greatest invention for world
civilization.

25. Writing and Knowledge

26. • The Fabrica filled revolutionary drawings of
human anatomy. This work
marks the turning point in the
understanding of the human body.

27. Leonard Fuch's New Kreiterbuch (1543) a text
on the medicinal properties of
plants "which marked the beginning of the
botanical textbook”.

28. Robert Hooke's Micrographia "the first great
work devoted to microscopical
observations (1665)

29. Writing in the Digital Age

30. What role do texts and writing play in
a networked world?

32. Three kinds of writing
• Knowledge telling
• Knowledge transforming
• Knowledge crafting

33. Rhetoric
Rhetoric can be used as
both analytic and
productive art
Analytic → Analysis
Heuristic → Production

34. Definitions
Aristotle: Rhetoric is “the faculty of discovering in any
particular case all of the available means of persuasion.”
Cicero: “Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five
lesser arts: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and
delivery." Rhetoric is "speech designed to persuade.”
Quintilian: “Rhetoric is the art of speaking well" or "...a
good person speaking well.”

35. Aristotle’s Rhetoric provides a solid foundation for practicing,
learning, and teaching communication, including writing
It Logos
(Text)
Purpose
Kairos
(Urgent and Non-Trivial)
I Ethos You Pathos
(Speaker) (Audience)

36. Persuasive Communication
• Rhetoric: The ability in any particular case to
see all the available means of persuasion
(Aristotle, The Rhetoric).
– Being persuasive is an ability
• It can be developed through study and practice
– Will give you more options to accomplish your communication
goals
– There are multiple means of persuasion
• But, first be clear about your purpose
• Know your audience
• Use ethos, logos, and pathos

37. Classical Rhetoric: Aristotle
Aristotle named three rhetorical appeals
Logos: logical appeal
Pathos: emotional appeal
Ethos: ethical appeal

38. Classical Rhetoric: Aristotle
Branch Time Purposes Topics
Judicial Past accuse or defend
justice/injustice
Deliberative Future exhort or
good/unworthy
dissuade
Epideictic Present praise or blame virtue/vice

39. In College Writing You Must Develop Your Logical
Argumentation Abilities
LOGOS = LOGICAL
ARGUMENTATION
Purpose
Kairos
(Urgent and Non-Trivial)
I Ethos You Pathos
(Writer) (Audience(s))

40. Contemporary research also adds a great deal to our
understanding of what works in communication, and writing in
particular

41. Cicero 3 functions of oratory – teach,
delight, and move
• INFORM: What do I want my audience to
know?
• ENTERTAIN: What do I want my audience to
feel?
• PERSUADE: What do I want my audience to
do?

42. Characteristics of rhetorical discourse
1. Planned
2. Adapted to an audience
3. Shaped by human motives
4. Responsive to a situation
5. Persuasion-seeking
6. Concerned with contingent issues

43. Social functions of the art of rhetoric
1. Rhetoric tests ideas
2. Rhetoric assists advocacy
3. Rhetoric distributes power
4. Rhetoric discovers facts
5. Rhetoric shapes knowledge
6. Rhetoric builds community

44. Ethos = credibility
• What counts as credibility differs among
groups of people
• O'Keefe (1990) defined credibility as
"judgments made by a perceiver concerning
the believability of a communicator"
• In other words “credibility is in the eye of the
beholder”

51. • The two most important elements in
establishing credibility are expertise and
trustworthiness

52. Credibility is subject to change over time

56. What will compromise
your credibility in the
short and long term?

57. • A single spelling error on a resume of cover
letter could seriously undermine your
competitiveness in applying for an internship
or job.

58. Two kinds of credibility

60. Extrinsic: what people know about
you before they read your work or
hear you speak

61. Intrinsic: what we do within a
communication setting through
our actions.

62. Putting ethos to work in your writing
• Know your material
• Cite evidence (Reinard, J.C. (1988) Human Communication Research,
15,3-59).
• Share your interest, experience, and expertise
• Have your reader’s best interest in mind
• Identify similarities with your reader
• If you lack extrinsic credibility increase your reader’s
involvement with the topic, which will help focus
them on the topic more than the messenger (Petty and
Cacioppa, 1986).

63. Definitions of rhetoric
shift in the 1700s:
Belletristic Rhetoric
Hugh Blair: Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles
Lettres
Alexander Jamieson: A Grammar of Rhetoric
and Polite Literature
Privilege the reader’s “taste” over the writer’s
“eloquence”: reading and study of literature
have more value than the production of
eloquent writing

64. Rhetoric and English Studies
• Focus on “Belletristic Rhetoric” in the
mid-1800s opens the way for the
establishment of the study of the literary
arts as a focus for English departments.
• Meanwhile, the first “tech writing” course
is offered in 1860, for specific situations:
English + Engineering = Technical
Writing