Table Of Content

- 0 T H E O F F I C E OF A S S E R T I O N A n a r t o f r h e t o r i c f o r t h e A c a d e m i c E s s a y S C O T T F. C R I D E R T he O ffice of A ssertion T he O ffice of A ssertion An Art of Rhetoric for the Academic Essay S co tt F. C rider LSI Books Wilmington, Delaware 2005 Copyright © ion5 1ST Books Sixth Printing. October 2015 All rights reserved. No pare of rhis publication may be reproduced nr Transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechan ical* including phococopy. or any information storage and re trieval system now known or ru be invented, without permission in writing from rhe publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written lor inclusion m a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast Crider. Score F The oftice of assertion : an art nf rhetoric for the academic essay Scott P Crider — 1st pel — W ilm ington, Del 1ST Bonks. 1005 p. . cm Includes bibliographical references. ISBN: 1932236457 1 Rhetoric, a. English languagc-Rhetonc. 3 Essay- Authorship 4. Academic writing. T Tide P30I.5.A27 C75 2005 2004:04558 808.4 dci2 0506 Published in rhe United States by: LSI Books Intercollegiate Studies Institute 3901 CentiTvillc Road Wilmington. DR 19807-1938 \\%vw. 1S1books.org Book design by Kara beer Manufactured in the United States of America Dedicated to David Beil. Mure dt'rtontmco. and John Briggs, i(ood men skilled in speaking We are speaking where we stand, and we shall stand afterwards in the presence of wliac we have said. Wendell Berry Standing by Words Table of Contents Preface.....................................................................\X Acknowledgments...............................................xm Chapter-Paragraph Outline ..........-.................._.xv 1 Introduction: Rhetoric as the Liberal Art of Sou]-Leading in Writing .......................1 2 Invention. The Discovery of Arguments..... 15 3 Organization: The Desire for Design...... 43 4 Style: Words and Sentences.....................-.73 5 Re-Vision: Products and Processes............107 6 Conclusion: Rhetoric as the Office of Assertion.................................119 Appendix 1 Student Essay: The Maturation of Telemachos...............................125 Appendix 2 Evaluation Standards for Essays .. 137 Appendix 3 Peer-Review Form................ 139 Works Cited.. 141 Preface Having looked unsuccessfully far and wide for a. very shorr rhetoric co use in my literature courses, I de cided to w rite one, l found mosc rhetorics, even those I still very much admire, overly long, developed, and encyclopedic—that is, better consulted than read all the way through. J wanted a shorter treatment: a long essay, not a textbook. Too many others were written with far too low a view of both students’ intellects and rhetoric’s nature. You have in your hands, then, a brief but serious rhetoric, one which can be read profitably in a weekend and which, for die interested student, can be used as an introduc tion to the classical art of rhetoric and composition. The works cited form a select Iibran* for the more advanced student to pursue. I think this book could be used as the rhetoric in any humanities course, including first-year composition, supplemented per haps only with a handbook. Though I do think that advanced high school students, homeschoolers.and even professional writers will find the book profit able. it has been wricren primarily to the first-year college student. IX T he O fhct of A ssertion Font of the book’s characteristics require com ment. First, ir is informed both by the classical rhe torical tradition and more recent discoveries con cerning the writing process. Second, because I teach literature in a school with a core curriculum founded on great books, the approach is admittedly old-fash ioned and assumes chat the reader is interested in writing about those texts which have proven to be essential for anyone who wishes co understand, rather than simply dwell within, the contemporary world. One of the reasons I have used a student es say on Homer j$ my belief that students write better when they write about difficult and important texts, especially chose, central to so many other texts. I hope the Homeric material will not be distracting for a general reader who may nor yet have read Homer. Indeed, my desire is that such a reader will be in spired to read Homer's foundational poems. The end here is in no way reactionary. What both celebrants and critics of multicultural education have failed to understand js this; culture has always already been multicultural. There is no avoiding either the past or i he present, because the important texts of our own present culture are themselves intertextual re sponses to past ones. One of the contemporary world’s most important poems, Derek Walcott’s OmvroSy for example, is a poem which at once relies upon and redefines its Homeric mrertexts. I shall ignore the culture war over curriculum because I believe it to be one long eitheror fallacy. Third, the book discusses only one kind of writing: the aca- \ P refute domic essay. This is certainly not the only form of the genre, and 1 applaud the attempt to enlarge the kinds of writing we ask students to produce. 1 have assigned dramatic scenes, poems, and journals my self Even so, most classes require an academic es- sav. My vision of what rhetoric is would certainly encompass many other forms of writing, perhaps even all, bur the focus here is quite limited and highly practical. Last, the book assumes and argues that the writing that students do for teachers matters, that in itself such writing is perhaps one of the most important intellectual* emotional, and spiritual ex periences in the life that students and teachers share. Whatever the soul mav be exactly, it must be ac- knowledged by anyone, teacher or student, who hopes to be a good rhetor. M