WRIT 210 - The Rhetoric of Style

In ancient Greece and Rome, teachers of rhetoric taught style (elocutio) as one of five essential canons, or rules, for effective and persuasive communication. By this rule, an effective communicator reaches an audience not just through the content of speech, but also through its artful expression. This course studies how writers’ stylistic choices can profoundly influence the reception and interpretation of texts. With the goal of practicing new stylistic techniques in their own writing, students closely analyze published authors’ diction, sentence structure, punctuation, and figures of speech. Readings for the course include short sample pieces from a variety of genres, written by a variety of authors, as models. Because an understanding of prescriptive English grammar is essential to experiments in style, students review the parts of speech and study the parts of sentences, principles of syntax, and punctuation conventions. This course does not meet the writing requirement.

Credits: 1.00
Corequisite: None
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: None
Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts CORE: None

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