Week 12_4/14/16_Changing Views on Rhetoric

In my earlier blog post, I looked at the words of Gideon Burton to help define what rhetoric meant. He said that “rhetoric is the study of effective speaking and writing. And the art of persuasion. And many other things.” I earlier agreed with this statement as in the syllabus for this course it stated that we would focus on creating a good argument, and the art of persuasion.

After having gone through this course, I would still agree with this statement because the general purpose of writing anything is to convince the intended audience to agree with you and what you are saying. While I do agree with that definition, I think that there are some things that need to be added in to further enhance the meaning of the word ‘rhetoric’. On our vocabulary list, it is defined as the “art of effective expression”. I think that this needs to be added in as part of the definition because it defines the purpose of rhetoric as well as what it is. Rhetoric is communication to an audience, but the purpose of it is to effectively express what you are trying to say, and get your point across to fully convince the audience.

            The general idea of rhetoric has not changed, but the way that I now see it has changed. The two readings by George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, as well as On Rhetoric by Aristotle really opened up my eyes to the differences between the two and the different perspectives on writing. In Orwell’s essay, he gives examples of the bad uses of language we use in our writing such as meaningless words and pretentious diction to show what we are doing wrong in our writing. Orwell is trying to be prescriptive and show how you should write. Aristotle on the other hand shows that every person is entitled to their own opinion about how things work and how the specific audience thinks. He is being more descriptive and is not trying to convince the writer of anything except that rhetoric is for expression of ideas and does not need to be in a certain format.

            One thing that has changed for me since the beginning of the semester was how I approached rhetoric. I also thought that sitting down and writing an essay was a scary thing and that I was not capable of doing that. However, learning simple tips and tricks on how to organize an essay, how to plan and then how to start writing made it so much easier that I was no longer timid to try to write anything. One thing that has not changed for me is quoting and using outside sources in my writing. I have always liked to pull from other sources to further my own claim and this class has only enhanced my knowledge, not changed my perspective on that issue. I found that there are easier and better ways to incorporate quotes, but the importance of them has not changed for me.

Burton, Gideon. “The Forest of Rhetoric.” Silva Rhetoricae. Brigham Young University, March     2001. Web. 14 February 2016