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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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Essay Doctorate

Alain de Botton's Socratic philosophy and modern moral complacency

This paper is an analysis of The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton. It focuses on the author's analysis of the death of Socrates. De Bottom argues that philosophy's greatest strength is its ability to question conventional wisdom, given that so many of what we regard as 'truths' are really unspoken cultural assumptions. Socrates became unpopular because of his questioning of the definition of values such as piety, courage and virtue.

Paper Undergraduate

Balancing agency and stewardship theory in corporate governance

Corporate governance is generally regarded as a good and honest topic but some governments are accused of going too far. On the other side of the spectrum, there are those that say that corporations need to be reined in because of scandals like Enron. This study proposal relates to exploring where the proper balance is and should be.

Research Paper Doctorate

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle's influence on Western philosophy

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are the most famous of the ancient Greek philosophers. All three of them have left a deep impact on the Western philosophy. In this paper we will look at the main points of their…

Paper Undergraduate

Fascination and repulsion from Otherness in Song of Kali and The City of Joy

In this chapter, I examine similarities and differences between The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre (1985) and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons (1985) with regard to the themes of the Western journalistic observer of the Oriental Other, and the fascination-repulsion that inspires the Occidental spatial imaginary of Calcutta. By comparing and contrasting these two popular novels, both describing white men's journey into the space of the Other, the chapter seeks to achieve a two-fold objective: (a) to provide insight into the authors with respect to alterity (otherness), and (b) to examine the discursive practices of these novels in terms of contrasting spatial metaphors of Calcutta as "The City of Dreadful Night" or "The City of Joy." The chapter further argues that these spatial metaphors are redolent of what Peter Stallybrass and Allon White (1986) refer to as the "phobic enchantment" (p. 124) of the Occidental social imaginary for the poverty, squalor and the horror of the Third World.

Paper Doctorate

Rhetorical analysis of President Obama's second inaugural address

President Obama's "Second Inaugural Address:" Rhetorical analysis

Paper Doctorate

How institutions help states overcome barriers to cooperation

In her essay on the barriers to cooperation that limit effective communication between state actors within the international arena, Jennifer Sterling-Folker posits that three primary types of barriers to cooperation exist in the realm of international relations: Domestic, Structural, and Cognitive. According to Sterling-Folker, the domestic political climate within a pair of seemingly willing allies may preclude them from engaging in productive diplomatic negotiations, such as when impending national elections cause national policymaking to refocus on internal affairs. Structural barriers include the lack of common ground between communist and capitalist economies, and the gulf in understanding which separates dictatorships and democracies. Cognitive barriers are those which arise from ideological motivations, such as theocracies refusing to communicate with competing religions, or secular states scoffing at the religious norms of their neighbors. The liberal concept of interdependence, or providing a clear incentive to cooperate through the construction of complex institutions, is also discussed by Sterling-Folker, who observes that barriers to communication within world politics is due to the fact that nations invariably develop as autonomous entities with unique political, social, and economic structures.

Paper Undergraduate

Death and transcendence in Poe's "Annabel Lee"

A brief analysis of eight different poems written by Poe, Dickinson, Blake, Owen, Cummings, Thomas, and Silverstein. In each of the poems, a literary device was identified and it was demonstrated how one of the poems made use of the device. Devices included imagery, repetition, tone, style, metaphor, and theme.

Research Paper Doctorate

Herodotus and Thucydides in Donald Kelley's historical inquiry

Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder by Donald R. Kelley

Research Paper Doctorate

Tobacco industry deception and the public health crisis of smoking

Smoking is a factor, and an important factor, in the production of carcinoma in the lung," wrote Richard Doll and Bradford Hill some fifty years ago. It was this first study which would initiate all others.

Research Paper Doctorate

Congressional conflicts and presidential failure, 1865-1940

Unsuccessful Presidents Identified- 1865-1940

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