Office Of Assertion: An Art Of Rhetoric For Academic Essay

“In The Office of Assertion: the Art of Rhetoric Scott Crider has written a brief, elegant text on a topic all too often treated esoterically. He adjures readers, in a reference to Wendell Berry, to ‘stand by’ their words, proceeding to demonstrate the way in which clarity and conviction, logos and lexis, can be welded together in ‘soul-leading.’ The process makes of rhetoric a liberal art as well as a formidable instrument of persuasion. Particularly helpful is his chapter on revision, in which he makes clear that style is no mere decoration but a final result of both insight and labor.Though primarily intended for college students charged with creating that ‘small universe’ of the academic essay, The Office of Assertion becomes in the end a guide to truthful utterance on all levels, with skill in language leading to fuller participation in culture and a nobler concept of the human.”—Louise Cowan, Professor of English, University of Dallas, co-author of Invitation to the Classics

Author Bio: Scott F. Crider is Associate Professor of English at the University of Dallas, where he teaches courses in advanced composition and classical rhetoric. He has written extensively on Shakespeare and the English renaissance and is at work on a volume titled With What Persuasion: An Essay on Shakespeare and the Ethics of Rhetoric.

Chapters Include:Rhetoric as the Liberal Art of Soul-Leading in WritingInvention: The Discovery of ArgumentsOrganization: The Desire for DesignStyle: Words and SentencesRe-Vision: Products and ProcessesRhetoric as the Office of Assertion