When starting English class this year I never fully
understood what rhetoric was. In the past, I was always taught that rhetoric
was a skill that many public speakers possess, but I was never told exactly
what it is. In addition, the word rhetoric always had the same connotation to
me as the word rhetorical, which now I know they aren’t the same. Throughout
the course of English 1900, I believe that I’ve been able to create my own
definition of the word. I believe that rhetoric is art of effective speaking
and presenting. The issue with the definition is that the word deserves so much
more than a simple definition. Throughout the course we’ve learned how to
effectively express our own arguments through writing and in speech. Through
fight club we were able to organize our own list of pros and cons and then were
given the task of arguing for a certain side. This allowed us to effectively
formulate an argument and be able to clearly and effectively explain it to our
adversary. As we had more and more fight clubs, we as a class were able to
learn to skills in the art of argumentation. Through time we were able to
explicitly explain ourselves instead of babbling about a topic we barely know.
I know that by the end of the year, I was able to articulate my side of
argument clearly and was able to have solid conversations with my opponent that
helped find a correct answer for the conversation. In addition to doing well
with rhetoric in the public speaking aspect, we also improved our rhetoric
throughout the paper. When we started the paper, we basically wrote down what
we believed was a correct argumentative paper. In reality, as we went along in
the year, we took our paper brick by brick. We began with finding who the
correct audience was. We learned how to clearly propose what our solutions are.
We learned how to correctly research and find information to support our
clearly proposed solution. In addition, we learned through They Say, I Say to tie all of work together in order to fully flow
and correctly combine our argument into one perfect essay. Once we finished
these steps, the purpose was to easily be able to fully address our solution
clearly, to the right audience, with resourceful and purposeful tasks, while
being able to fully flow to the point that others fully understand what you are
trying to say. That is what I believe is the definition of rhetoric. I believe
the course was set up to help learn this definition in a long but successful
class. Most of us didn’t know what the word meant but by the end of the
semester, everyone in the class is able to define what rhetoric means. Now and
days, everyone in the world needs to be fluent in rhetoric, because that is a
concept that we are involved with every day. We must be fully prepared to
express ourselves and our words correctly and effectively.
Hey Jack! I As usual, I really enjoyed your post. It is good to see that you have learned a lot about the rhetoric process over the course of the semester. Fight Club was definitely beneficial as it helped us develop our arguments. I also enjoyed how you tied in They Say, I Say. I agree that it did benefit the flow of our paper. Overall, good job with the post and an even job this semester.
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