According
to my post from week two, I defined rhetoric as using various resources to
persuade somebody. Likewise, I described rhetoric as using these ploys in one's
speeches or writings. When the class was two weeks along, I mainly thought of
rhetoric as a separate entity from the rest of my life. Rhetoric, to me, was a
completely different tool used for only one or two courses, which both revolved
around communication. Now, I could describe rhetoric as a more general
principle of communicating that is not subject to only certain areas of one's
life. Undoubtedly, the biggest shift in my previous way of thinking happened
when I discovered that I was trying to incorporate tools used in my rhetoric
class to other classes or other aspects of life. It was then, while working in
a completely different sphere of my life, that I realized rhetoric can be used
any time, any day, and in any subject. Rhetoric could actually be described as
a principle of living.
Today,
I've come to associate rhetoric with critical thinking. It's hard to describe
how exactly rhetoric and critical thinking are different since they both stem
from the same principles of communication. Both depend on credibility to carry
the weight of the message. However, while critical thinking and rhetoric both
depend on rooting one's message in irrefutable or strong reasoning, rhetoric is
more about transforming your message for your audience. Critical thinking
delivers you to your conclusions and strengthens while editing your reasoning
and overall message. Rhetoric is all about tailoring the message to give the
biggest impact possible. For example, critical thinking comes first, but it may
be too complex or complicated for your audience to understand. In order to best
deliver this message to your audience, you use rhetoric to make the message
more understandable so that your audience will even understand it.
A
couple of assignments helped me to develop this new mindset about rhetoric. Firstly,
any of the Fight Club debates helped to improve my faith in good research. When
I started the class, I thought that researching was a huge pain and never
really made much of a difference. It wasn't until I actually argued and needed
to rely on my research that I realized how much research can enhance what you
say. Facts and reasoning give your message that extra punch of authenticity and
impact on your audience. When it came time to write the paper, I could easily
translate the skills I learned in fight club to a real life situation, such as
writing a research paper for a college class. When I realized how these
essentials could make or break your writing, I became determined to write
everything else in my future college career from the same point of view that I
approached Fight Club with.
Some
of the readings particularly helped. For example, analyzing the articles about
political correctness really put rhetoric into perspective and emphasized how
rhetoric had been there all along, but we had never really known it. Again, the
benefits of rhetoric were directly drawn to real life situations, like having
to relay information and analyze readings assigned for classes. After learning
about rhetoric, it was beyond helpful to have the ability to deconstruct an
entire argument to the skeleton and then copy or criticize that style. Simply, the
backbone of the paper is the critical thinking but what holds the backbone
together is rhetoric.
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