Hello, my name is Sarah and I am a senior studying Architecture at Clemson University. At the moment, in my English 314 class, we are studying what rhetoric means. I have heard that word thrown around a lot, but I was never sure exactly what it meant. More importantly, why are we talking about it in a technical writing class? Through my readings I have learned a lot about rhetoric, and I am starting to realize why it is important in technical writing.
I have found that rhetoric is the art of using a language to communicate with other people effectively. Just recently has rhetoric become an important topic. For many years, it was condemned and looked down upon. This is where I was surprised. How can rhetoric, basically persuading people to change their views, be bad? In my opinion, the more people change their views, the more our societies grow; and if people are persuaded to change their view, there is nothing wrong with that. The only conclusion I can come up with is that people get irritated when other people try to persuade them of something; we want to believe that we are right all the time.
Rhetoric is extremely ubiquitous. While most people do not realize it, rhetoric is seen in athletics, medicine, romance, at the marketplace, during our social lives and so on. People plan to use rhetoric in these situations to persuade someone else of a point, or to do something. Since there are so many outlets to use rhetoric in, the rhetor must consider the audiences feelings. I believe that rhetoric is perfectly acceptable, as long as it does not persuade someone of evil, or cause someone to hurt themselves.
