Have you always sort of wished you had read more of the literary classics but just assumed they took too long to read? Has it felt like a near impossible task get through thick books with daunting titles like The Odyssey and Crime and Punishment? To be sure, you’re not alone. But you might
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If there’s ever been a Top 10 List of Most Boring Documents, a course syllabus would most ceratinly be on it. It’s unfortunate, too, because syllabi have a unique ability–as much as a written document can, I suppose–to get students excited about course content. There are a lot of things
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What Is Ideological Criticism? Ideological criticism is a method of rhetorical analysis focused on discovering the values and ideologies of a person or organization by reviewing the artifacts they produce. The term “ideology” refers to any doctrine, belief, value, myth, or principle that essentially guides a person or organization to
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What Is Generic Criticism? Generic criticism is a method of analysis that seeks to understand how people respond to information that was communicated to them through a particular genre. For example, if you are a business owner and you are curious how the internal communications within your company have affected
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Every August, educators around the globe unite in a common purpose, a ritual as dull as scraping cuticle that we might as well blame on the late Cicero—we draft syllabi. While it’s true that that the tedium will often conjure flashes of euphoria as we experience the rush of designing
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WHAT IS FANTASY-THEME CRITICISM? Fantasy-theme criticism is a method of rhetorical criticism that seeks to understand how shared realities within a group shape the way people think and act (you might look up symbolic convergence theory, which is the theory that propels this criticism, and which explores how people come
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WHAT IS CLUSTER ANALYSIS? Cluster analysis, as a method of rhetorical criticism, is a process critics can use to evaluate the perspectives and worldviews of a person communicating something. The term “cluster” is used because we can learn a lot about what someone is thinking (even subconsciously) by “clustering” key
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What is Neo-Aristotelian Method of Rhetorical Criticism? Neo-Aristotelian is one of the original methods of rhetorical criticism; named after Aristotle, it is also known as neo-classical or traditional criticism. As may be inferred from these names, when you analyze an artifact (artifacts can be anything from political speeches to advertisements
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The SOAPSTone Strategy for Written Analysis is a simple method of rhetorical criticism designed to help with the process of analyzing texts, writing about written texts, and even planning for the writing of an original text. SOAPSTone is an acronym, standing for Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone. By
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When it comes to promoting and remembering messages, visual images are almost always the most powerful. Research has shown over and over and over again that nearly every human being is a visual learner–we learn faster, we remember more, and we process messages with more clarity when images are attached
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