Talk:Rhetoric and Composition

About

 * Started: 27 April 2005
 * Size: 86,000 words. (22 August 2008)
 * Headings Case: title case.
 * Headings Case: title case.
 * Headings Case: title case.

Project information
For background information on the start of this wikibook, read this first blog or the second one by MattBarton.exe on Kairosnews. As best as I can see it, it started as a class collaboration. liblamb 18:25, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

We are also discussing this project at the computers and writing forum at mattbarton.net.

Project Discussion
~I am thinking a handbook would be the place to start. After rifling through about a dozen of them, I really can't stand the thought of students paying 50 and now sixty bucks for these things. It only looks like it's going to get worse...

And I agree with Matt that it will be easier to put the theory aside for now and just work with the mechanics.

After some sifting then, I found a couple that had interesting ways of organizing or presenting
 * The Everyday Writer by Andrea Lundsford
 * Prentice Hall Reference Guide by Muriel Harris
 * {other that are in my office, will post soon}

These seem to be the super-sized handbooks (they more resemble textbooks)&mdash; maybe more than we need to cover, but maybe not

Boy, wouldn't it be great to have them involved in our project? Which reminds me, we do need to get a woman's voice in all of this, the sooner the better.

~v

Front-page image
New image seems to be taking. No complaints as of yet. - Luke

I think I speak for the class when I say that we want the front-page title image to stay. Some of the comments people in class have made are:

-It is a great introduction for the book. -It sets the book apart from others. -Makes the book more visually appealing. -It defines the goal of our book.

I am putting the image back up.


 * I personally, despite liking the Wikibook, thought the cover was cheesy. For a better cover, perhaps you could scan a sheet of paper, switch to Courier New, and type out the title?--Cyberman 00:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Currently, the following two images are being used. The light one is used in the print version of the book, the brown one on the front page. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I propose a different image: Link I made it using Inkscape, so there's an SVG source to it, and the pen is a public domain image from openclipart.org. If anyone's in favour of using it, I'll put up an SVG version in the public domain. --Rotw (talk) 17:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions
~ I've noticed that this project doesn't seem to be paying attention to the recent moves I've seen in composition away from writing prose that will earn an A in History 201 to really interrogating how we compose--always within a rhetorical context for an envisioned audience and not most effectively in the five-paragraph theme. Why not make a move toward looking at multimodal composing from a rhetorical standpoint at least in addition to your current presentation? ~

Discussion about the body who created this project
This is a really interesting class project. I'm wondering, what kinds of follow-on writing or discussions are you all having as a class? Electricbody 05:05, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

We've been discussing it in class quite regularly. Many of these discussions have been quite interesting and insightful, ranging from design issues to matters of tone and clarity. --Mattbarton.exe 18:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This is absolutely fantastic. Thanks for all your work, and organizing it. This stage of the work may be even more interesting. How can your next class improve the work to an even higher level? Improving something that is already pretty good is more challenging than bringing something up to decent. Can a class, working together create a book better than any of the expensive textbooks out there? So far the results look great, without reading through the whole thing. Keep up the great work. - Taxman 16:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

--I sure hope so, Taxman. Only time will tell! Mattbarton.exe 19:37, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Critiques
Bravo. I liked this Wikibook. I read a few pages and skimmed through. I instantly saw it had something more intelligent to say than other books on writing. --Cyberman 00:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC) (AKA: Kamisama@Writingforums.com)

Page numbers on PDF version
The PDF version does not have page numbers. It is not part of the writing process, but still would be nice to have, if possible, thanks. Ervinn 14:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

PDF version seems corrupt
Repeated attempts to download the pdf gives only a 0 bytes file. This is the only book which I tried which did that.--Motorhead 04:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

AP English
this is designed for first year college but would it work for me in AP English? Ugluk 03:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Might work even better in that context. --Mattbarton.exe 16:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Another module to merge here
It seems that Media book:Writing a Press Release might be a good fit here. Uncle G 16:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

PDF version seems corrupt
This book's PDF version doesn't work. It's a good book, so please do something... do anything!NOt registered 15:51, 1 July 2007 (What is UTC?!)

I downloaded it recently, and it seemed to work fine. What's the problem, exactly?--Mattbarton.exe 22:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

New Parts of book
I've added some new sections that will hopefully be completed soon. The teacher's handbook is meant to explain how to use this wikitext with students as well as general concerns about teaching writing. The Writing for the Web section should talk about blogs, discussion boards, and wikis, as well as more general advice about making web pages. It won't be specifics about how to use Frontpage or HTML code; just an introduction to these environments.--Mattbarton.exe 21:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

SUGGESTION
I have been teaching composition and rhetoric at the college level for 15 years. I am sick of the expensive and, usually, old school approach of many writing/reader textbooks. So, I am interested in using this wikibook next fall for my two english composition courses. However, I use the writing as process with a portfolio, and I am trying to move to the e-portfolio to cut down on paper. I noticed, however, that you don't have a section on portfolios. Can you add a section on the portfolio in composition, but also as a learning assessment tool for any course? I would love to help put it together. Thanks, Rebecca

Issues
Issues: I am adding a table for issues in the book to be solved, and entering an issue in there. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Heading Case
This book uses title case in its headings, in preference over sentece case, all caps, and small caps. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Intended Audience
The intended audience of this book - a textbook - is the college writer - a college student in his freshman course of English composition.

Please, correct the previous paragraph if I'm wrong. It seems that some of the chapters go beyond this audience. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Related Books
None of the listed books matches in quality and scope Rhetoric and Composition. However, some have a different focus and different coverage. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Size
The book has currently some 86,000 words. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:52, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Editing and revising
There has been a shift in the definition of the contrast between editing and revising. Quoting the current introductory chater[1]:


 * You can't edit what hasn't been written. That's why editing comes after drafting. For our purposes, it's important to distinguish between deciding what needs to be improved and actually making the changes. We'll call the decision-making process "editing" and making the changes the "revising" process.

As I understand it, here, editing refers to the process of collecting issues while revising to the process of fixing issues.

The current setup of later chapters has a different concept, one, in which editing refers to making stylistic changes within the scope of single paragraph, including the choice of words and sentence structure, while revising refers to making larger changes such as changing the order of chapters, their division or focus.

Yet another section of the book has three level model:
 * revising - audience, organization, content, support, concision
 * editing - usage, word choice, transitions, mechanics
 * proofreading - spelling, punctuation, typography

Whatever the preferred concept, the parts will need to be aligned at some point.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 08:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Merger of Writer's Handbook
From what I understand and can see in the page history, Writer's Handbook has been merged around December 2005 into this book, after this book has been written. It seems like an unfortunate decision to me, but what do I know.

The focus of Rhetoric and Composition was on the college writer, as suggested by the title, while the focus of Writer's Handbook was on anyone who writes for living, isn't it? There are overlaps between Rhetoric and Composition and Writer's Handbook. While the content of Rhetoric and Composition is outlined in detail on the front page, the Writer's Handbook, containing valuable material, is mentioned only as a single item.

I find it hard to imagine that someone would have the skill and time here to really merge and integrate the two materials together, instead of just concatenating them, one next to the other.

I don't know whether I should propose to divorce the two books again. In any case, even without the divorce, these two books are best viewed as separate ones. What I can imagine is that instead of the concatenation, the books can be continually enriched from one another, as if they were two forks of a past project, but each keeping its own structure.

Admittedly, though, Writer's Handbook has the coverage of mechanics, including grammar, punctuation, comma splice and the like, which Rhetoric and Composition does not have. So they indeed seem kind of complementary.

Well, said enough. I wonder what other views there are

--Dan Polansky (talk) 10:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Looking again at Rhetoric and Composition/Detailed TOC, the Writer's Handbook could be renamed to Grammar and Mechanics, and given the space on the front page that it deserves. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As regards the proposed renaming, given mechanics refers to spelling and punctuation, we can safe the reader one new word to learn and name it Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation, or Conventions, as it is called somewhere, although I do not rememer where.


 * This renaming would encourage a moving of the section on Citations and the section on Giving Feedback from the Writer's Handbook to the Rhetoric and Composition proper. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Renaming of "Writer's Handbook"
I have renamed the "Writer's Handbook" part to "Grammar and Mechanics", to let the title tell more about its contents. From what I understand, "Writer's Handbook" was the title of the part when it was a separate book, before it was merged into Rhetoric and Composition. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Featured book
This book has been a featured book for some time.

Granting the status of a featured book:
 * It has been a book of the month of October 2006.
 * It has been switched from a book of the month to a featured book on 18 April 2007.

Removing the status of a featured book:
 * Nominated for removal by Geoff Plourde on 7 August 2009
 * There is a conversation on removing the featured status at Wikibooks:Featured books, as of 1 July 2010
 * The status of a featured book has been removed on 1 July 2010

--Dan Polansky (talk) 09:53, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Ideas for New Sections - ENGL 656
In looking at the big picture of this e-book, I wondered what everyone would think of adding more genres. Specifically, I think it would be valuable to add the topics of memoirs, reviews, commentaries and proposals. Within one semester, I will not be able to tackle all of these sections, but I could begin to develop skeletons and suggestions for each topics content. What do you think? --63.230.83.127 (discuss) 03:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Project abandoned?
Has development on this wikibook stopped? I'm looking at teaching composition next year, and I'd much rather use a free text than ask my students to shell out fifty bucks or more for a book they'll never finish anyway. I'd been hoping to use this book for my courses, as it's the best one I've found so far, but it's been "incomplete" for a long time now, and it looks like no fresh edits/revisions have been made within the last two years. Should I start looking elsewhere?

74.194.183.109 (discuss) 14:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)