Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

by Jay Heinrichs

Thank You for Arguing is your master class in the art of persuasion, taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill. The time-tested secrets the book discloses include Cicero’s three-step strategy for moving an audience to actionÑas well as Honest Abe’s Shameless Trick of lowering an audience’s expectations by pretending to be unpolished. But it’s also replete with contemporary techniques... (more)

The Rhetoric of Fiction

by Wayne C. Booth

The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and... (more)

The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present

The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present

by Patricia Bizzell, Bruce Herzberg

The Rhetorical Tradition — the first comprehensive anthology of primary texts covering the history of rhetoric — examines rhetorical theory from classical antiquity through the modern period. Extensive editorial material makes it an essential text for the beginning student as well as the professional scholar.

A Rulebook for Arguments

by Anthony Weston

Updated examples, streamlined text, and the chapter on definition reworked in a rule-based format strengthen this already strong volume. Readers familiar with the previous edition will find a text that retains all the features that make Rulebook ideally suited for use as a supplementary course book-including its modest price and compact size. Unlike most textbooks on argumentative writing, Rulebook is... (more)

How to Argue and Win Every Time: At Home, at Work, in Court, Everywhere, Every Day

How to Argue and Win Every Time: At Home, at Work, in Court, Everywhere, Every Day

by Gerry Spence

The Laws of Arguing According to Gerry Spence 1. Everyone is capable of making the winning argument. 2. Winning is getting what we want, which also means helping "others" get what they want. 3. Learn that words are a weapon, and can be used hostilely in combat. 4. Know that there is always a "biological advantage" of delivering the TRUTH. 5. Assault is not argument. 6. Use fear as an ally in pubic speaking or in... (more)

Gorgias (Clarendon Plato Series)

by Robin Waterfield, James H. Nicholas, Plato, Terence Irwin, E. R. Dodds

Taking the form of a dialogue among Socrates, Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles, the Gorgias debates crucial questions about the nature of government. While the aspiring politician Callicles propounds the view that might is right, and the rhetorician Gorgias argues that oratory and the power to persuade represent "the greatest good," Socrates insists on the duty of politicians to consider the welfare of... (more)

Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times

Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times

by George Alexander Kennedy

Since its original publication by UNC Press in 1980, this book has provided thousands of students with a concise introduction and guide to the history of the classical tradition in rhetoric, the ancient but ever vital art of persuasion. Now, George Kennedy offers a thoroughly revised and updated edition of Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition . From its development in ancient Greece and... (more)

The Rhetoric and the Poetics of Aristotle (Modern Library College Editions)

The Rhetoric and the Poetics of Aristotle (Modern Library College Editions)

by Aristotle

This new edition of George A. Kennedy's highly acclaimed translation and commentary offers the most faithful English version ever published of On Rhetoric. Based on careful study of the Greek text and informed by the best modern scholarship, the second edition has been fully revised and updated. As in the first edition, Kennedy makes the work readily accessible to modern students by providing an insightful general... (more)

Cicero: On the Ideal Orator

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

In On the Ideal Orator, (De oratore), Cicero, the greatest Roman orator and prosewriter of his day, gives his mature views on rhetoric, oratory, and philosophy. Cast in the lively, literary form of a dialogue, this classic work presents a daring view of the orator as the master of all language communication while still emphasizing his role at the heart of Roman society and politics. Cicero's conception of the... (more)

Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the Rhetorical Tradition (Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy and Culture)

Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the Rhetorical Tradition (Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy and Culture)

by Andrea A. Lunsford

Women’s contribution to rhetoric throughout Western history, like so many other aspects of women’s experience, has yet to be fully explored. In pathbreaking discussions ranging from ancient Greece, though the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to modern times, sixteen closely coordinated essays examine how women have used language to reflect their vision of themselves and their age; how they have used traditional... (more)

The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction (3rd Edition)

The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction (3rd Edition)

by James A. Herrick

The History and Theory of Rhetoric offers an accessible discussion of the history of rhetorical studies in the Western tradition, from ancient Greece to contemporary American and European theorists. The origins and history of rhetoric, Plato, Aristotle, Roman society and rhetoric, rhetoric in Christian Europe, rhetoric in the Renaissance, Enlightenment rhetorics, and contemporary rhetoric issues. Rhetorical... (more)

Change We Can Believe In

Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise

by Barack Obama

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is a defining moment in American history. After years of failed policies and failed politics from Washington, this is our chance to reclaim the American dream. Barack Obama has proven to be a new kind of leader–one who can bring people together, be honest about the challenges we face, and move this nation forward. Change We Can Believe In outlines... (more)

The Ethics of Rhetoric

by Richard M. Weaver

Weaver's Ethics of Rhetoric, originally published in 1953, has been called his most important statement on the ethical and cultural role of rhetoric. A strong advocate of cultural conservatism, Weaver (1910-1953) argued strongly for the role of liberal studies in the face of what he saw as the encroachments of modern scientific and technological forces in society. He was particularly opposed to sociology. In... (more)

Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance

Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance

by Cheryl Glenn

After explaining how and why women have been excluded from the rhetorical tradition from antiquity through the Renaissance, Cheryl Glenn provides the opportunity for Sappho, Aspasia, Diotima, Hortensia, Fulvia, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Margaret More Roper, Anne Askew, and Elizabeth I to speak with equal authority and as eloquently as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine. Her aim is nothing less than... (more)

Orality and Literacy (New Accents)

by Walter J. Ong

This classic work explores the vast differences between oral and literate cultures and offers a brilliantly lucid account of the intellectual, literary and social effects of writing, print and electronic technology.

The Uses of Argument

by Stephen Edelston Toulmin

This reissue of the modern classic on the study of argumentation features a new Introduction by the author.

A Rhetoric of Motives

by Kenneth Burke

As critic, Kenneth Burke's preoccupations were at the beginning purely esthetic and literary; but after Counter-Statement (1931), he began to discriminate a "rhetorical" or persuasive component in literature, and thereupon became a philosopher of language and human conduct. In A Grammar of Motives (1945) and A Rhetoric of Motives (1950), Burke's conception of "symbolic action" comes into its own: all human... (more)

Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

by Sissela Bok

A thoughtful addition to the growing debate over public and private morality. Looks at lying and deception in law, family, medicine, government.

A Grammar of Motives

by Kenneth Burke

About this book Mr. Burke contributes an introductory and summarizing remark, "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it? An answer to that question is the subject of this book. The book is concerned with the basic forms of through which, in accordance with the nature of the world as all men necessarily experience it, are exemplified in the attributing of motives. These forms of... (more)

On Bullshit

by Harry G. Frankfurt

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: rhetoric

by Jay Heinrichs

by Wayne C. Booth

by Patricia Bizzell, Bruce Herzberg

by Anthony Weston

by Gerry Spence

by Robin Waterfield, James H. Nicholas, Plato, Terence Irwin, E. R. Dodds

by George Alexander Kennedy

by Aristotle

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

by Andrea A. Lunsford

by James A. Herrick

Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise

by Barack Obama

by Richard M. Weaver

by Cheryl Glenn

by Walter J. Ong

by Stephen Edelston Toulmin

by Kenneth Burke

by Sissela Bok

by Kenneth Burke

by Harry G. Frankfurt