BEAM is a schema for categorizing the rhetorical positions of authors according to the author's intention or purpose of the information. This Innovative Practices piece critiques common methods of teaching source evaluation and proposes that instruction librarians teach BEAM to students who may struggle using a source once they have located it. A…

Phishing e-mails deceive individuals into giving out personal information which may then be utilized for identity theft. One particular type, the Personal Solicitation E-mail (PSE) mimics personal letters--modern perversions of "ars dictaminis" (the classical art of letter writing). In this article, I determine and discuss 19 appeals common to the…

Examines Thomas Reid's philosophy of rhetoric and identifies the principles to which he was committed, including his classification of knowledge, emphasis on artistic expression, and theory of natural signification. (JMF)

A three-part study of the forms of rhetorical criticism is offered. Part one reviews the nature of genre criticism, enumerates several concepts of form and the types of genre criticism they produce, and discusses the implications of this relationship between form and genre. Part two is an essay on the methodological implications of form-grounded…

This article presents a sketch for a theory of the rhetorics involved in categorisation and the creation of culture in online communities. Persuasion, or shaping perceptions of the world, is never incidental to social life, but living online necessarily involves persuasion as it is difficult to bring force to bear, although people can be…

Although first enunciated in 1827 by Samuel Newman, the modes of discourse--narration, description, exposition, and argument--were not very popular until formulated in 1866 and presented in the United States in a rhetoric textbook in 1885. After 1890, they were gradually accepted by the most influential rhetoricians of the day, and their use in…

Discusses how proverbs provide insight into the nature of socio-logic as a body of principles to guide practical reasoning. English language proverbs reflect many of the rational principles found in argumentation textbooks, including: 1) a typology of arguments, 2) rules of correct inference, and 3) cautions about potential fallacies. (JMF)

Urges that the English teacher learn and use in class the formal outline to help students learn thinking skills that will help in composition and in computer programing. (CRH)

A historical review of theories of persuasion and its relationship to such areas as argument and propaganda indicates a number of inherent weaknesses in the definitions and taxonomies which have been proposed. Definitions and classifications have been sometimes circular in nature, have reflected the special interests of their authors, have been…

Provides a classification scheme for recognizing and analyzing the elements of graphic persuasion embodied in political cartoons. (PD)

The approach taken to discourse analysis that classifies text types according to isolated linguistic features is criticized, and an alternative approach to argumentative texts is proposed. This approach looks at the process of argumentation as an instance of the problem-solving process. The argumentative text is then seen as moving from the…

The nature and scope of eighteenth century rhetoric were defined by three dominant taxonomies of knowledge. In the oldest taxonomy, which clung to the liberal arts tradition, rhetoric was seen as a means of achieving social dominance, and its distinctive characteristic was the exercise of control through persuasion. Treatises representing this…

John Searle's treatment of declarations in his (1976) classification of speech acts is examined. Some acts that are classified as declarations by that theorist, especially certain ones relating to religious rituals and literary usage, do not fit the definition of that class and should be reclassified, either in another one of Searle's classes…