ARISTOTLE’S FIVE TRADITIONAL CANONS OF RHETORIC:

A “MUST-KNOW” FOR RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

and ARGUMENT WRITING

INVENTION – a shift from having to say something to having something to say

  1. From Latin “invenire,” meaning “to find”
  2. Definition: the art of finding and developing materials; the ability to discover ideas
  3. SYSTEMATIC/FORMAL: journalists’ questions (who, what, when, where, why) or mode of development (definition, cause and effect, process analysis, etc.)
  4. INTUITIVE: free writing, journals, brainstorming, reading, discussion

ARRANGEMENT – putting things together for rhetorical effect

  1. Organization
  2. Selecting evidence and ordering it with purpose
  3. When we talk about genre, method of development, and functional parts (thesis, background information, evidence, etc.) we are talking about arrangement
  4. Basic 4-part Argument Structure:
  5. Assertion (I believe…)
  6. Concession (Others may think…)
  7. Evidence/Rebuttal (However, here is why I’m right…)
  8. Conclusion (Therefore…agree with me)
  9. Aristotle’s Classical Arrangement:
  10. Excordium – introduction
  11. Narration – background information/context
  12. Partition – outlines and defines the scope of the argument
  13. Confirmation – offers evidence; the body of the argument
  14. Refutation – other points of view/counter arguments
  15. Peroration – conclusion

STYLE –how things are presented

  1. Every piece of writing has style
  2. Good style always depends on the situation
  3. Resources: figurative language, diction, punctuation and grammar, levels of formality, syntax, allusion

MEMORY – cultural literacy: what you know or can access

  1. In Aristotle’s time, literally memorizing/learning elaborate mnemonics
  2. In our time, focus on getting it on paper
  3. What a student KNOWS, CAN ACCESS, and USE.
  4. Pairs with Invention
  5. College Board’s “Mature Academic Perspective”

DELIVERY – used to create emphasis and support meaning

  1. In Aristotle’s time, the art of public speaking, enunciation, gestures, eye contact, cadence, pacing
  2. In our time, how text looks on the page
  3. How it is “delivered”: font size and style, use of white space, insertion of visuals, layout (columns, bullets, boxes, etc.), hypertext links, emphasis on techniques like italics, bold, dashes, etc.
  4. Mrs. Davidson’s Delivery Requirements for on-demand writing:
  5. One side of the paper
  6. One-inch margins on all sides
  7. Pen (blue or black)
  8. Writing large enough for human eyes to read
  9. Standard use of letter height (“a” and “d” are not the same height on a page)
  10. Writing neat enough for old eyes to read

Adapted from: Valerie Stevenson’s “Informal Teacher Notes.” Ideas fromEveryday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing by Hephzibah Roskelly and David Jolliffe.