Whenever I hear a college person use the word rhetoric, I feel like an imposter, like I don’t belong in college. Not sure why. Just do. In fact, the concept is more straightforward than you might think. Rhetoric is “a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action” (Bitzer, p. 4). That is, rhetoric is doing things in contexts and domains with texts.

When I think about rhetorical activity or maybe more simply doing things with texts, I think about two important ideas that are pretty “big.”

• discourse. No one gets to make any text she pleases. We all live in times and places in which what counts as issues that should be represented and even that are allowed to be represented have been determined. Text creators can push up against what has been decided, but things have always already been decided. I’ll use discourse (small “d”) to refer to the ways in which social and cultural institutions shape and limit what folks are allowed to say and who gets to say what. I’ll have a bunch to say about Discourse (big “D”) elsewhere.
• mode. People who influence each other over time come up with resources for creating texts. I’ll call these resources modes. I use mode to describe the stuff, the material out of which texts are made. You can sort of touch texts: print books, web sites, Instagram posts, conversations in a local brewery or coffee shop, dancing, and such. Don’t think you can touch a “conversation”? Think about it. One person makes sounds or signs that are transmitted to another’s ears or eyes. Even conversations are stuff. Each of these modes of representation includes some common structures that we might think of as its grammar. Each of these modes is good at passing along some kinds of meanings and less good with other kinds; that is, each mode has some affordances. These modes are all mixtures of other modes that were available: the modes I listed above include alphabetic text and image; Instagram can sort of be thought of as a web site; both Instagram and websites can make use of video and audio.

Rhetoric is activity; it is a lived process. Every text you send is rhetorical activity. Sometimes you stop and think about what words and images to use to change your audience, but usually, you just type and send. We will learn about the elements of rhetoric a little. Mostly we will do rhetoric, create texts that respond to and create needs of audiences.

Want something simpler. Here’s an encyclopedia definition: “effective use of verbal and nonverbal communication designed to influence an audience” (Carron, 2005). Rhetoric is the use of communication to motivate action. Folks spend lots of time distinguishing persuasive and expressive aspects of rhetoric. I’m not sure I buy the distinction. Affecting change through texts. That will do for us.

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