Invention and Design: A Rhetorical Reader

Invention and Design: A Rhetorical Reader is intended to aid both teachers and students by providing models of effective writing in a sequence that makes pedagogical sense, by stimulating intelligent analysis of thc selections, and by encouraging the incorporation of the results of such analysis into progressively more sophisticated student writing.

By invention we mean the complex process of originating and discovering ideas, illustrations, comparisons, contrasts, and various forms of analysis through the working of reason and imagination upon the writer's accumulated knowledge -- including personal expericnce, perception, reading, and education. Design is the equally complex process of selecting, ordering, and structuring the results of invention into a coherent and effective finished product.

A third major rhetorical concept should also be mentioned here: style. Style is the accumulation of choices the writer makes in wording, sentence structure, paragraphing, and overall design. These choices grow out of the writer's unique personality and his or her attitudes toward both the subject and the reading audience.

At the end of the book are a Glossary of Terms and a list of Biographical Notes. The glossary includes definitions of all rnalor rhetorical terms. The biographical notes provide dates and other essential information about the authors of the individual selections. Some seventeen new selections were added in this edition.

The revision of the apparatus of the book has focused primarily on the introductions and applications. Our goal here has been to insist to a much greater degree on such important matters as aim and thesis, prewriting and journal writing, persona and audience, and writing as a process.