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Rhetoric
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What is Rhetoric?

Rhetoric is the study of how language is used to persuade, inform, and influence audiences, and it sits at the center of communications, English, political science, and philosophy curricula. Its academic interest lies in the tension between language and reality, form and meaning, power and reason. Students engage with foundational questions about what makes an argument effective and how speech shapes public life. Core thinkers and frameworks that appear across coursework include Aristotle's definition of rhetoric, Plato's critique of false rhetoric as it relates to democracy, Foucault's contributions to rhetoric and ideology, and the competing positions of Bitzer and Vatz on how rhetorical situations are constructed.

Papers on this topic take several distinct approaches. Some are historically oriented, tracing classical and modern rhetorical theory to compare how ideas about persuasion have evolved. Others focus on close analysis of specific texts or speeches, such as Carmichael's Black Power speech or George Orwell's political writing, using rhetorical frameworks to examine how language and power operate together. Additional papers explore rhetoric within specific domains — religion, education, and political ideology — while others work through theoretical debates about the relationship between knowledge and rhetoric or the role of rhetorical education in shaping civic life.

A strong essay on rhetoric grounds its thesis in a clear claim about how a specific use of language achieves — or fails to achieve — a persuasive effect. Evidence drawn from the text, speech, or theoretical framework under analysis carries the most weight. The most common pitfall is treating rhetoric as merely a list of devices; effective essays instead connect those devices to broader questions of audience, power, and meaning.

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Research Paper Doctorate

Narratology and Proust's In Search of Lost Time

Narratology and Proust: An Essay on the Narrative Form

Research Paper Doctorate

The Iraq War: U.S. Justifications, Aftermath, and Hidden Interests

The drums of war once again echo in my ears. I am disgusted seeing Donald Rumsfeld on television defending the U.S. invasion of Iraq. CNN shows old footage of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand, made in the late…

Paper Undergraduate

U.S. Government Deficits: Causes, Scale, and Impact

U.S. Government Deficits Introduction Why is it that the U.S. Government can spend more than it brings in through taxes and other revenue? What are the specific reasons why the U.S. can consistently and constantly operate its programs and conduct official business while running a huge deficit? These questions and others will be reviewed in this paper. The Deficit – why and by how much is the U.S. in debt? A May, 2012 article in the Economist quotes Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying that the U.S. Government has "…a moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in" (Economist, 2012, p. 1). The article reminds Romney that if what he is saying is true then America is "…a thoroughly depraved and immoral country" because in 76 of the past 100 years "the US government has spent more than it has taken in" (Economist, p. 1). In fact in 26 of the past 30 years the government has spent more than it received in taxes.

Paper Doctorate

Olaudah Equiano's Path to Freedom Through Skill and Faith

Oladuh Equiano's narrative is an important historical text detailing the different types of slavery throughout the world. Equiano's experiences are unique, because he sails around the world with a Captain from the British Royal Navy. On board, he learns ship navigation and seafaring but more importantly, how to read and write. He learns how to talk his way into freedom eventually.

Equiano, The Prince, and Douglass: Slave Narratives Compared

Equiano / Prince – Slave Stories Introduction The story of Olaudah Equiano began in Nigeria in 1745, when he was born; by the age of 11 Equiano was a victim of kidnapping and was sold to slave traders. His fate was not to be nearly as harsh as millions of other African natives that were seized and put into bondage, as his own writing reveals. But he was a slave and suffered the indignities that accompany slavery. The remarkable part of this story is the way that he tells his own story, written descriptively and in professional narrative, and what happens to him along the way. This paper references his tale, and also the paper reviews the life of a Muslim Prince who became a slave – Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (referred to in this paper as The Prince). In summary, the paper will conclude with the writing of Frederick Douglass, which offers perspective on slavery and is in contrast to the lives of Equiano and The Prince.

Research Paper Doctorate

Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and German Unification

Columbia historian Fritz Stern gathered thousands of previously unpublished documents, letters, and correspondences between the two foremost shapers of German unification, Otto von Bismarck and Gerson von Bleichrder.

Paper High School

Sex Education Models in Public Schools: Annotated Bibliography

One of the most divisive topics in education is undoubtedly the debate over the degree to which sexual health education should be incorporated into public schools. The topic attracts a great deal of impassioned argument…

Paper Undergraduate

Book Review: Revisiting America by Susan Wyle

Susan Wyle's book Revisiting America: Readings in Race, Culture, and Conflict explores the history of the America through the lens of the political, racial, social, and cultural issues that make up the population.

Research Paper Doctorate

Justice and Eudaimonia in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

¶ … Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's attempts to come to an understanding of human nature ultimately lead him to an understanding of justice. He attempts to understand how humans can reach true happiness, and delves…

Paper Doctorate

Rhetorical Techniques: Ideals, Norms, and Moral Appeals

People use various rhetorical techniques in order to have an impact on their audience. Four of these are: (a) conveying a sense of their own reality by invoking ideals (b) reverting to cultural norms to teach a lesson /…

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