Core Concepts
This rhetorical concept refers to a question that doesn't have a single answer but can be approached differently depending on the disciplinary perspective.
What is a "wicked question"?
Information about audience categories and characteristics that tell us who the audience members are and what they value
What are demographics?
Well-written sources with accessible language and timely, engaging content, published for audiences expected to have minimal expertise on the subject
What are popular sources?
This term refers to revisions that address issues of argument style and sophistication, engagement with sources, ethical use of sources and citations, clear sense of audience and purpose, logical argument, genre.
What are higher order concerns?
This argument style focuses on establishing common ground, making compromises, and acknowledging complexity.
What is Rogerian argument?
This term refers to the process of discerning the available means of persuasion in any given context (Aristotle).
What is rhetoric?
This concept can be broadly described as the goal of the author to inform, entertain, and/or persuade the audience.
What is purpose?
High-quality sources written by experts for others invested in the field, emphasizing some key content knowledge but not inaccessible for audience members wishing to learn
What are trade/professional sources?
This term refers to bringing sources into conversation with each other
What is synthesis?
This argument style works from objective to subjective, focusing on establishing agreement and moving forward through the stages of facts, definitions, evaluations, and proposals.
What is stasis theory?
Quintillian describes this person as "the good [person] speaking well."
Who is the rhetorician?
The rhetorical appeal associated with credibility and the audience’s interpretation of the author (“Aristotle’s Rhetorical Situation”).
What is ethos?
Original research subject to peer-review processes, disseminating new understandings and extensive references for other experts
What are scholarly sources?
This term refers to establishing the urgency of the argument within its rhetorical context.
What is exigency?
“scenes of shared public life where shared meaning is made using images, artwork, and memes” (Hallsby)
What is visual culture?
This term describes healthy intellectual practices for approaching challenges in our academic work
What are habits of mind?
The rhetorical appeal associated with values and emotions and the argument’s relationship to the audience (“Aristotle’s Rhetorical Situation”).
What is pathos?
The three times when we're required to cite our sources.
What are summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting?
This multimodal argument style combines research and text with visuals to make a compelling claim.
What is an infographic?
This term refers to the vocal effects and body language within an oral presentation.
What is delivery?
This concept refers to avoiding plagiarism but also to the larger practice of treating ourselves, our work, and our citations with honesty, fairness, and respect.
What is academic integrity?
The rhetorical appeal associated with logic and the organizing principles of the text itself (“Aristotle’s Rhetorical Situation”).
What is logos?
The angle or perspective from which an author or source approaches a topic, often referring to a political or subjective stance.
What is media bias?
These four concepts by Robin Williams guide our understanding of effective design within visual rhetoric.
What are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity?
This strategy helps us balance the arguments from our sources with our own analysis, by putting us into a dialogue.
What is They Say/I Say?