Talk:Rhetoric and Composition/What is Rhetoric

A few problems I see with this chapter: I'm also wondering to what extent this stuff should be moved to the chapter on writing argumentative papers. --Mattbarton.exe 20:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The chapter jumps straight into a definition of rhetoric. I'd step back a bit and try to write a little about rhetorical situations, then address rhetoric as the formal study of how to address these situations. Why should people care about something if they have no idea what it is?
 * Second, the pathos/ethos/logos are from Aristotle's rhetoric, primarily. They are widely used, but there are other models (Toulmin schemes, for instance). There's also the "rhetorical triangle" or various forms of it. Do we want to go exclusively with Aristotle here?
 * Finally, I'm not sure what the logic stuff is doing here. Some might argue that these concerns are logic or dialectic rather than rhetoric. It's not a fallacy to use an ad hominem attack in a political speech, for instance, particularly if it works!