Rhetorical
Theory

Persuasion begins by making a course of action worth considering.

A student asks the college to extend library hours. One version of the request gives a closing time and asks for a change. Another begins with a commuter reaching a locked door, explains the study needs involved and proposes a small evening pilot.

The second version connects an experience with a reason and a feasible response. Its force depends on who speaks, which audience can act, what evidence supports the proposal and how the case is presented.

The field includes theories of public speaking, argumentation, audience, style, identification, narrative and digital communication. It also supplies practical resources for composing a message and methods for examining how that message works.

Rhetoric as a practical art

Aristotle approaches rhetoric as the capacity to identify the means of persuasion available in a particular case. This directs attention towards choices: which reasons, examples, forms of expression and ways of addressing the audience fit the occasion?

Consider a public-interest appeal, a classroom explanation, a political speech, a documentary or a social media campaign. Each arranges material so that an audience can recognise a problem, adopt a perspective or consider a response.

What a rhetorical reading asks

A rhetorical reading follows the relationship among a communicator, an audience, a discourse and its setting. It examines the judgement being invited and the resources used to make it persuasive.

The same study can assess the quality of the appeal. Ask whether its evidence supports its claim, whether it represents others fairly and whether the audience has a meaningful opportunity to examine the reasons.

A question to carry through the chapter

How does this communication make a particular understanding or action appear credible, desirable and appropriate? Begin there, then follow the details that give the appeal its force.

Follow a continuing inquiry into discourse, judgement and public life.

Classical Greek and Roman traditions developed rhetoric through assemblies, courts, education and ceremonial speech. Aristotle gave a systematic account of persuasion; Roman writers elaborated the work of preparing and delivering discourse.

Cicero and Quintilian became important figures in this educational tradition. The anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium also preserves an influential account of invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery. Read the classical text ↓

Later approaches enlarged the inquiry through argumentation, identification, narrative, visual communication and networked media. The field now examines how people construct public meanings across many kinds of symbolic activity.

Its place in communication theory

Robert T. Craig’s account of communication theory presents the rhetorical tradition through the practical art of discourse. It focuses attention on communication problems that arise when people need to deliberate, address an audience and act together. Read the article record ↓

A rhetorical approach can therefore study both a finished message and the practical choices through which it was composed.

An appeal gains meaning through the circumstances it addresses.

A proposal enters an occasion. A student speaks at a committee meeting, a mayor addresses residents after a flood, or a creator responds to a public dispute. The situation shapes what needs explaining and which responses are possible.

Exigence: the issue calling for a response

In Lloyd Bitzer’s account, an exigence is an urgent imperfection or problem that discourse can help modify. It supplies a reason to communicate.

In the library example, the issue is the gap between students’ study needs and the hours during which a facility is available. A proposal can invite a decision that changes the arrangement.

Audience: people who can help bring about change

Bitzer gives the rhetorical audience a particular role: its members can mediate the change sought. Identify who can decide, influence a decision or carry an agreed response into practice.

For the library proposal, committee members may authorise a pilot, library staff may organise it and students may help establish the need. Different participants require different information.

Constraints: conditions shaping the response

Resources, rules, beliefs, relationships and earlier decisions can affect what a speaker and audience are able to do. Some provide support; others make a proposal harder to carry through.

Staffing and transport arrangements matter to an evening library pilot. An existing commitment to student access can support it. A persuasive proposal works with these conditions. Read Bitzer’s essay ↓

Kairos: the fitting moment and manner

Kairos concerns the opportunity and appropriateness of a response within a particular moment. Timing interacts with what is said, how it is expressed and what the audience can presently consider.

A library-hours proposal may receive close attention before examination preparations. A carefully chosen occasion can make its relevance easier to recognise.

How discourse helps define the situation

Richard Vatz emphasises the communicator’s role in selecting events and giving them meaning. A rhetorical account makes some matters salient and connects them through a particular interpretation. Read the essay record ↓

Calling the library issue a matter of convenience invites one response; presenting it through educational access invites another. Examine both the material circumstances and the account through which they become a public concern.

Credibility, feeling and reasoning can work together within one appeal.

Aristotle identifies three modes of persuasion available through discourse. Each directs attention towards a relationship among the speaker, the audience and the case being made. Read Rhetoric, Book I ↓

Ethos: credibility made available to the audience

A speaker can establish practical understanding by explaining the problem accurately, acknowledging relevant concerns and offering a workable proposal. The discourse itself gives the audience reasons to assess the speaker’s judgement and intentions.

Suppose a student representative has consulted library staff, gathered study schedules and explained the costs of a pilot. These choices help present competence and concern for the people involved.

Previous reputation can also affect reception. In analysis, examine both what an audience already knows about the speaker and how credibility is constructed in the message.

Pathos: making the stakes felt

Emotion helps an audience recognise what an issue means for people. Hope, concern, gratitude, indignation or compassion can direct attention towards different aspects of a case.

A brief account of a commuter finding the library closed can make an access problem tangible. Its rhetorical force comes from the relationship between the experience and the decision being requested.

Ask which feelings are invited, what gives rise to them and how they contribute to judgement.

Logos: connecting a conclusion with reasons

Logos concerns the reasoning within the appeal. Facts, examples, comparisons and explanations acquire force through the way they support a claim.

For the library proposal, a speaker could connect documented study needs with available staffing, a limited pilot and a review of attendance. The argument explains why the proposed response fits the identified problem.

Read their interaction

The student’s preparation can build ethos; the commuter’s experience can supply pathos; the pilot’s rationale can supply logos. Together, they make the proposal intelligible and worth considering.

Follow the relationship in the actual message. A single passage may invite trust, evoke concern and advance a reason at the same time.

Make the bridge between the evidence and the conclusion visible.

A persuasive case connects what an audience can accept with a judgement it is being asked to make. Studying that connection reveals the assumptions doing the work.

The enthymeme

Aristotle’s enthymeme is a rhetorical form of reasoning. It often draws on premises an audience can supply from shared knowledge or accepted probabilities.

Consider: “Students need access after classes, so the library should open later.” An underlying assumption is that extending opening hours is an appropriate and workable way to meet that need.

Bring the assumption into view. The audience can then examine the connection, compare alternatives and judge whether the proposed response follows.

Examples and analogies

An example brings a general point into a particular case. Several relevant examples can support a wider inference. An analogy asks the audience to consider a relationship in one setting through a relationship in another.

Comparing library access with access to a laboratory might clarify a shared educational purpose. Examine which features make the comparison useful and which differences affect its force.

Topoi: places to discover arguments

Topoi are recurring routes for finding reasons. Ask about definition, comparison, cause, consequence, possibility or value.

• Definition: what should count as adequate access?
• Consequence: what would change if opening hours were extended?
• Comparison: how do comparable arrangements work?
• Feasibility: which staffing and resource conditions would make the proposal workable?

Toulmin: the layout of a practical argument

Stephen Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument examines how claims are justified. Its layout distinguishes grounds, claim, warrant, backing, qualifier and rebuttal. Use these questions to inspect the support and conditions of a particular argument. Read the book record ↓

Questions that strengthen the case

Check the relevance and quality of the grounds. Explain why the proposed action follows, address a substantial objection and match the strength of the claim to its support.

In the library example, a survey of one class can help identify a concern. A college-wide proposal becomes stronger when it also examines the needs of other users and the practical conditions of operation.

Test the support

Common errors in argument give names to connections that need examination. Locate the precise move and explain why the offered grounds support a narrower or different conclusion.

• Hasty generalisation: a conclusion about the whole college rests on an inadequately chosen group of respondents.
• False dilemma: a case presents two choices while overlooking relevant alternatives.
• Irrelevant personal attack: a criticism of the speaker takes the place of assessing the reason offered.
• False cause: the sequence of two events is treated as sufficient evidence of a causal connection.
• Weak analogy: a comparison depends on similarities that do little to support the proposed inference.

Rebuild the argument by improving the evidence, making the connecting assumption explicit or revising the claim. This makes criticism part of a better account of the issue.

Build the case, shape its movement and prepare its delivery.

The five canons organise the work involved in preparing persuasive discourse. They give a practical vocabulary for moving between ideas, structure, expression and performance.

Invention: find what deserves to be argued

Begin with the audience’s decision and the knowledge needed to make it. Gather material that establishes the issue, supports the response and addresses likely objections.

The work may change the proposal. A consultation could reveal that a morning extension serves the intended users better than an evening one.

Arrangement: give the audience a route through the case

A classical arrangement connects an opening, an account of the situation, a statement of the case, supporting arguments, a response to objections and a conclusion.

Style: make the ideas clear and memorable

Concrete verbs, well-chosen comparisons and varied sentences help an audience follow the argument. A repeated phrase can join several points; a precise definition can settle an ambiguity.

Memory: prepare access to the case

Know the sequence, the main reasons and the evidence that supports them. Rehearsal, a clear outline and accessible supporting material can help a speaker respond when the discussion changes direction.

Delivery: give the argument a usable form

Voice, pace, pauses, posture and visual presentation shape the encounter. In a recorded or online setting, sound, captions and the arrangement of material also matter.

Work across the canons as the message develops. Rehearsing a passage can reveal a structural gap; explaining a difficult term can sharpen the argument.

The judgement sought helps shape the discourse.

Aristotle distinguishes deliberative, forensic and epideictic rhetoric. The genres direct attention towards different purposes, time orientations and standards of judgement.

Deliberation: choosing a course of action

A deliberative appeal offers reasons for a future choice. It examines expected consequences, feasible alternatives and the purposes the action would serve.

The library proposal belongs primarily here. Its audience needs enough information to assess both the need and the proposed arrangement.

Forensic judgement: evaluating an account of the past

A forensic appeal connects evidence with an assessment of an earlier action. Definitions, records, competing accounts and standards of responsibility become central.

In communication analysis, examine how a public inquiry, institutional response or dispute arranges its account of what occurred.

Epideictic rhetoric: articulating shared values

A commemorative speech can make care, courage or public service visible through a person’s actions. Praise and blame help a community express what deserves recognition.

A eulogy commemorates someone who has died. An encomium praises a person or subject as exemplary. Both can connect particular lives or actions with values.

Apologia: defending a person, action or position

Apologia presents a defence or justification. It can explain motives, contest an accusation, acknowledge responsibility or support a revised course of action.

Classify the discourse through the work it performs. A public response may defend earlier conduct, express shared values and propose future changes within the same address.

A choice of expression can make an idea visible, memorable and open to judgement.

Style gives the argument its particular texture. It shapes which words carry emphasis, how ideas connect and what an audience is invited to picture.

A short sentence can bring a point into focus. Repetition can join a sequence. A metaphor can make a difficult relationship easier to grasp. Examine what the device does within the whole discourse.

Follow the relationship a figure creates

Calling a library a doorway emphasises access and the possibilities beyond it. Calling it a storehouse emphasises preservation and accumulation. The choice makes particular aspects of the institution available to thought.

For analysis, identify the comparison and explain what it brings into view. Then examine how that emphasis supports the wider case.

Rhythm and arrangement

Anaphora can join several needs into a collective appeal. Antithesis can make a choice appear sharply divided. A restrained sentence can invite the audience to supply the scale of an event.

Read the figure through its wording, placement and occasion. A device gains force through the relationship it establishes with the audience.

Clarity as a rhetorical achievement

A useful explanation gives readers concrete actions, recognisable examples and clear connections. Vary sentence length, place the main claim where it can be found and let each paragraph carry a connected movement of thought.

During revision, read the passage aloud. Listen for where emphasis falls and where an audience may need a definition, example or pause.

Persuasion can connect a case with a sense of who “we” are.

Modern rhetorical approaches explore how people establish common ground, address particular audiences and make experience intelligible through stories. They widen the study of persuasion across everyday and public communication.

Burke: identification

Kenneth Burke’s A Rhetoric of Motives (1950) examines persuasion through identification. Communicators can invite people to recognise shared interests, experiences or commitments while occupying different positions. Read the book record ↓

Suppose a teacher addresses students as fellow readers working through a difficult text. The expression establishes a relationship through a shared activity. Analyse the language that builds this connection and the differences that remain within it.

Public uses of “we” also establish boundaries. Ask who receives a place in the proposed community and which experiences that collective voice represents.

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca: audiences and adherence

The New Rhetoric examines how arguments seek an audience’s adherence through starting points such as accepted facts, values and priorities. A speaker needs to understand what the addressed audience can recognise as a reason. Read the book record ↓

A particular audience consists of the people being addressed. The idea of a universal audience directs attention towards reasons a speaker presents as acceptable to reasonable and competent judgement more broadly.

A library committee may share a concern for effective educational access while debating cost and staffing. An argument can build from that common concern and explain why its proposal deserves acceptance.

Fisher: narrative reasoning

Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm studies how people make judgements through stories. Narrative coherence concerns how a story holds together; narrative fidelity concerns its relationship with values, experience and what counts as a good reason. Read the essay record ↓

A public-interest film may follow a student’s journey from a distant home to a place of study. Its sequence, characters and choices can invite an audience to recognise perseverance or an access problem.

Examine the story’s organisation and the values through which it asks to be judged. Establish the evidence for factual claims when evaluating an account of actual events.

Bring the approaches into a reading

Choose the question that fits the material. Identification helps examine the invitation to common ground; audience-centred argumentation helps examine reasons and accepted values; narrative analysis helps examine how a story makes an experience meaningful.

Explain the relationship in the passage itself. Show how particular words, events or arrangements support the interpretation.

Persuasion travels through images, interfaces, voices and acts of circulation.

A rhetorical appeal can take the form of a speech, poster, video, website or interactive service. Words work alongside framing, colour, sound, sequence and opportunities to respond.

Visual rhetoric

A poster can position a person as confident, vulnerable or authoritative through distance, angle, expression and setting. A headline supplies one account of the image; its placement directs the eye.

Suppose an educational campaign shows an open doorway with light falling across a desk. Examine how the visual arrangement invites an understanding of access, opportunity or welcome.

Connect the interpretation with details in the image and its context of use. Audience discussions can reveal which features people notice and how they understand them.

Digital rhetoric

Douglas Eyman’s Digital Rhetoric examines the theories, methods and practices through which rhetoric operates in digital and networked environments. It connects the analysis of digital texts with the making of persuasive communication. Read the open-access book ↓

An online appeal is shaped by links, layout, captions, buttons, comments and circulation. A message may reach new settings as people quote, remix or attach a response to it.

Study the path of the appeal: what appears first, what information a reader can inspect and how the proposed action becomes available.

Credibility across a network

Profiles, endorsements, institutional links and visible interaction can contribute to an impression of authority. A reader may encounter the message through someone they already trust.

Examine how credibility is presented and which grounds support the specific claim. A visible count records a kind of activity; its significance depends on the question being asked.

Accessibility as part of delivery

Readable text, usable contrast, captions, clear navigation and accessible formats help people encounter and examine an argument. They are practical choices about who can participate.

For a short video, allow enough time to read an important claim and provide a route to the supporting material. The design can help the audience move from attention to considered judgement.

Responsible persuasion

A persuasive message earns scrutiny through the reasons it makes available. Check the evidence, represent other positions fairly, explain consequential conditions and preserve the audience’s capacity to choose.

• Accuracy: make factual claims that the available evidence can support.
• Relevance: connect the emotional and verbal choices with the issue being decided.
• Fairness: address a substantial objection in terms its supporters can recognise.
• Transparency: make authorship, interests and important conditions available to the audience.
• Proportion: match the strength of the appeal with the strength of its grounds.
• Agency: give people usable information and space for judgement.

These criteria also help assess misleading appeals. A moving story can be checked against records; a confident claim can be examined through its reasoning; a memorable slogan can be tested against the proposal it supports.

Reason, suggestion and aesthetic experience open connected questions about communication.

Indian traditions offer substantial resources for studying how an expression conveys meaning, how an argument becomes intelligible and how a performance moves its audience. Nyāya, Sanskrit poetics and theories of dramatic experience bring different questions into this inquiry.

Nyāya: make the reasoning available to another person

The Nyāyasūtra identifies five members of an inferential presentation: pratijñā, hetu, udāharaṇa, upanaya and nigamana. The sequence states a proposition, gives its reason, supplies an illustrative connection, applies it and draws the conclusion. Read sūtra 1.1.32 ↓

The reasoning depends on establishing the smoke–fire relation and correctly identifying the sign in the particular case. It invites attention to the ground, the connection and the application.

Alaṅkāra: the work of figurative expression

Alaṅkāra concerns figures that give expression a distinctive force. Comparison and other patterned uses of language can make relationships vivid and memorable.

Study what the figure enables an audience to recognise. In a media appeal, an image of a seed becoming a tree can connect learning with growth, time and care.

Dhvani: suggested meaning

Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka, elaborated through Abhinavagupta’s Locana, explores suggested meaning and its place in poetic experience. The wording can carry an import that emerges through context and expression. Read the edition record ↓

Consider an account ending, “Her chair remained beside the window.” The sentence describes an arrangement; its context may suggest absence, remembrance or waiting. Examine which details support the suggested import.

Rasa: the audience’s aesthetic experience

In Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, rasa concerns the aesthetic experience made available through represented situations, expressive responses and associated states. The audience encounters an organised performance through words, gesture and other expressive resources. Read the chapter on rasa ↓

A film may draw a viewer into compassion or wonder through its arrangement of character, action, sound and image. A rasa-oriented inquiry follows how the work brings that experience into view.

A comparative route into media analysis

Ask how a claim is supported, how expression suggests an import and how a work organises audience experience. Together, these questions can enrich a close analysis of public and cultural communication.

Follow the choices through which an appeal becomes persuasive.

Each case connects a rhetorical situation with a discourse, an audience and a judgement. Begin with the purpose, then examine the details that make the appeal work.

What rhetorical theory contributes

• It makes the practical choices within communication available for examination.
• It connects reasons and expression with a particular audience and occasion.
• It reveals assumptions, common ground and invitations to identification.
• It supplies resources for composing messages and assessing their quality.

Evaluation and audience response

A close reading can show how a message invites an interpretation. Interviews, viewing discussions or an appropriate comparison can investigate how people actually encounter it.

Evaluate the argument’s support, the fairness of the representation and the practical consequences of the response sought. Explain which evidence supports each judgement.

Hear the concepts, then trace them through a message of your choice.

In my lecture, Rhetoric Made Easy: The Art of Persuasion, I introduce the classical appeals, the five canons, speech genres, figures of expression and the rhetorical situation. Use the viewing guide to organise your notes and connect the terms with examples.

Watch my lecture on YouTube ↗

After viewing

Select a one-minute speech, a poster or a short video. Identify its purpose, audience and strongest appeal. Then explain one assumption in its argument and one stylistic choice that matters to its effect.

Connect each concept with the work it helps explain.

Choose one answer for each question. Explain the reason for your choice before revealing the answer.

Move between composing an appeal and examining how it works.

Rhetorical inquiry grows through close attention to a defined message. Preserve the material, establish its setting and show how the interpretation develops from its details.

Activity 1 · Read a public appeal closely

Choose a short speech, campaign poster, institutional statement or video. Record its source, date, intended setting and available context.

1. State the purpose: identify the judgement or response being invited.
2. Map the situation: identify exigence, audience, constraints and timing.
3. Examine the appeals: show how credibility, emotion and reasoning enter the discourse.
4. Reconstruct an argument: identify its claim, grounds and connecting assumption.
5. Analyse expression: explain one consequential choice of wording, image, structure or delivery.
6. Evaluate the case: assess its support, fairness and fit with the occasion.

Activity 2 · Compose and revise

Prepare a 150-word appeal for a feasible improvement in your college or community. Identify who can act and what information that audience needs.

Develop a clear claim, support it with a reason and evidence, address one substantial concern and end with a concrete request. Choose an expressive device that serves the argument.

Read the appeal aloud to a partner. Ask what they understood, what they found credible and which question remains. Use that response to revise the wording or reasoning.

Research extension · Match the evidence with the question

Write a grounded interpretation

Make the claim, show the detail and explain the connection. Compare a plausible alternative reading and state why your interpretation accounts for the material.

Explain the boundaries of the selected text and evidence. For participant research, obtain informed participation and preserve the context of people’s accounts.

Examination and seminar prompts

• Explain rhetorical theory through a public communication example.
• Discuss how ethos, pathos and logos interact within an appeal.
• Apply exigence, audience, constraints and kairos to a rhetorical situation.
• Explain the five canons and use them to plan a short speech.
• Reconstruct an enthymeme and analyse a practical argument.
• Compare deliberative, forensic and epideictic rhetoric.
• Discuss identification, audience or narrative in a modern rhetorical approach.
• Explore how Indian concepts of reasoning, suggestion or aesthetic experience can enrich media analysis.

Keep the concepts connected with their purposes and sources.

Use the glossary for revision and follow the readings into the arguments behind the chapter’s concepts.

Rhetoric

The practical art of finding and using persuasive resources in a particular case.

Rhetor

A communicator considered as the maker or presenter of a rhetorical appeal.

Discourse

An organised expression or exchange of meanings through speech, writing or other symbols.

Exigence

In Bitzer’s account, an urgent imperfection or problem that discourse can help modify.

Rhetorical audience

People who can mediate the change a discourse seeks.

Constraints

Conditions, resources and commitments shaping a rhetorical response.

Kairos

The fitting opportunity, timing and manner of a response.

Ethos

Persuasion through the credibility, character and goodwill presented to an audience.

Pathos

Persuasion through feelings and their contribution to judgement.

Logos

Persuasion through the reasoning, examples and support within the discourse.

Enthymeme

Rhetorical reasoning that often draws on premises supplied through an audience’s accepted knowledge or probabilities.

Topos / topoi

A recurring place or route for discovering an argument; topoi is the plural.

Warrant

The connection or principle through which grounds support a claim.

Qualifier

An indication of the strength or scope with which a claim is advanced.

Rebuttal

In Toulmin’s layout, an exception or condition that affects the application of the claim.

Five canons

Invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery as dimensions of rhetorical preparation.

Deliberative rhetoric

Discourse primarily inviting a judgement about a future course of action.

Forensic rhetoric

Discourse primarily assessing a past action or event.

Epideictic rhetoric

Discourse of praise or blame through which values receive public expression.

Apologia

A discourse defending or justifying a person, action or position.

Identification

Burke’s concept of the common ground or shared identity a discourse helps establish.

Narrative coherence

The way a story holds together as an intelligible account.

Narrative fidelity

The relationship of a story to values, experience and good reasons for judgement.

Digital rhetoric

The study and practice of persuasion in digital and networked environments.

Alaṅkāra

Figurative resources that give expression a distinctive form and force.

Dhvani

Suggested meaning as explored in Sanskrit poetics.

Rasa

Aesthetic experience made available through the organisation of expressive representation.

Core and further readings

1. Aristotle. (n.d.). Rhetoric (W. Rhys Roberts, Trans.). The Internet Classics Archive. (Original work composed in the fourth century BCE). Source record ↗

   Read Book I for persuasive means, argument and genres; continue with the later books for emotions and expression.

2. Anonymous. (1954). Rhetorica ad Herennium (H. Caplan, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work composed in the first century BCE). Source record ↗

   A classical account of the five canons and the preparation of discourse, available through LacusCurtius.

3. Bitzer, L. F. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 1(1), 1–14. Source record ↗

   The influential account of exigence, audience and constraints.

4. Vatz, R. E. (1973). The myth of the rhetorical situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 6(3), 154–161. Source record ↗

   An intervention emphasising the selection of events and the rhetorical creation of salience and meaning.

5. Toulmin, S. E. (2003). The uses of argument (Updated ed.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1958). Source record ↗

   A foundational account of practical reasoning and the layout of arguments.

6. Burke, K. (1969). A rhetoric of motives. University of California Press. (Original work published 1950). Source record ↗

   A major source for identification and the range of persuasion in symbolic life.

7. Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation (J. Wilkinson & P. Weaver, Trans.). University of Notre Dame Press. (Original work published 1958). Source record ↗

   Examines audience, values and the reasons through which an argument seeks adherence.

8. Fisher, W. R. (1984). Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51(1), 1–22. Source record ↗

   Introduces the narrative paradigm through an account of public moral argument.

9. Eyman, D. (2015). Digital rhetoric: Theory, method, practice. University of Michigan Press. Source record ↗

   An open-access book linking digital rhetoric with research and composition.

10. Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory, 9(2), 119–161. Source record ↗

    Locates the rhetorical tradition within a wider account of communication theory.

11. Gautama. (n.d.). Nyāyasūtra, 1.1.32 (G. Jha, Trans.). Wisdom Library. Source record ↗

    The primary passage listing the five members of an inferential presentation, with translated commentaries.

12. Ānandavardhana, & Abhinavagupta. (1990). The Dhvanyāloka of Ānandavardhana with the Locana of Abhinavagupta (D. H. H. Ingalls, J. M. Masson, & M. V. Patwardhan, Trans.; D. H. H. Ingalls, Ed.). Harvard University Press. Source record ↗

    The translated work and commentary on suggestion and poetic experience; linked to the Bibliothèque nationale de France edition record.

13. Bharata. (1951). The Nāṭyaśāstra (M. Ghosh, Trans.; Vol. 1). Asiatic Society. Chapter 6: Sentiments. Source record ↗

    A primary account of rasa and its relationship with expressive representation.

My lecture: Rhetoric Made Easy: The Art of Persuasion ↗

The chapter in six statements

1. Rhetorical theory studies the choices through which discourse invites understanding, judgement and action.
2. A persuasive appeal connects a communicator, an audience and a case with a particular situation.
3. Ethos, pathos and logos can work together through credibility, feeling and reasoning.
4. The five canons organise invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery.
5. Modern and comparative approaches enlarge the inquiry through identification, audience, narrative, reasoning and aesthetic experience.
6. A strong analysis explains the appeal through details and evaluates its support, fairness and fit with the occasion.