Have you ever tried to communicate a point to an audience? Whether you were giving a speech, writing an essay, or simply talking to a friend, you were engaging in practices of rhetoric.
To put it one way, rhetoric is:
The art of using language effectively so as to persuade or influence others, esp. the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques to this end; the study of principles and rules to be followed by a speaker or writer striving for eloquence, esp. as formulated by ancient Greek and Roman writers. (Oxford English Dictionary Definition)
However, since so many people engage in and study rhetoric, it can be approached in a variety of angles by scholars. Here are a few more definitions, which have been taken from websites that you can find in the resources section of this LibGuide.
Rhetoric, according to Aristotle, is the art of seeing the available means of persuasion. Today we apply it to any form of communication (TedEd Blog).
In brief, “rhetoric” is any communication used to modify the perspectives of others (Purdue Owl).
Rhetoric is the study of effective speaking and writing. And the art of persuasion. And many other things (BYU).
As these definitions allude to, rhetoric is a broad concept that takes time to understand fully. Our guide provides resource so that you are able to learn about or research rhetoric in depth.
Credit: Butler University Libraries
Description from TedEd: How do you get what you want, using just your words? Aristotle set out to answer exactly that question over 2,000 years ago with a treatise on rhetoric. Below, Camille A. Langston describes the fundamentals of deliberative rhetoric and shares some tips for appealing to an audience’s ethos, logos, and pathos in your next speech.
Description from Purdue Owl: Understanding and being able to analyze rhetorical situations can help contribute to strong, audience-focused, and organized writing. The PowerPoint presentation in the Media box above is suitable for any classroom and any writing task. The resource below explains in more detail how to analyze rhetorical situations.
Description from Virtual Salt: This book contains definitions and examples of more than sixty traditional rhetorical devices, (including rhetorical tropes and rhetorical figures) all of which can still be useful today to improve the effectiveness, clarity, and enjoyment of your writing.
Description from RSA: The following websites provide useful resources for students and scholars of rhetoric.
Description from BYU: This online rhetoric, provided by Dr. Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University, is a guide to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric. Sometimes it is difficult to see the forest (the big picture) of rhetoric because of the trees (the hundreds of Greek and Latin terms naming figures of speech, etc.) within rhetoric. This site is intended to help beginners, as well as experts, make sense of rhetoric, both on the small scale (definitions and examples of specific terms) and on the large scale (the purposes of rhetoric, the patterns into which it has fallen historically as it has been taught and practiced for 2000+ years).
