The Rhetorical Act: Thinking, Speaking, and Writing Critically (with InfoTrac) (Wadsworth Series in Speech Communication)

THE RHETORICAL ACT: THINKING, SPEAKING AND WRITING CRITICALLY, Third Edition teaches liberal arts students how to craft and critique rhetorical messages that influence. The text is a compelling invitation to students of Communication and Language Arts to become articulate rhetors and critics of their symbolic universe. Consistent with the first two editions, the third edition takes as its starting point a traditional humanistic approach to rhetoric. The book reaffirms the ancient Aristotelian and Ciceronian relationships between art and practice - that you cannot master rhetorical skills without an understanding of the theory on which such skills are based. THE RHETORICAL ACT, Third Edition departs from traditional textbooks in several ways. It treats rhetorical action as the joint effort of rhetor and audience, emphasizing the audience's active, collaborative role. Students will encounter critical models for recognizing the opportunities and constraints of rhetorical action. This book will help your students become discerning speakers and critics who can assess situations, conceive rhetorical possibilities, examine and produce actual rhetorical messages, and compare their efforts and those of fellow students to the discourse of journalists, politicians, advertisers and other public persuaders.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell (PhD, University of Minnesota) is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of MAN CANNOT SPEAK FOR HER: A CRITICAL STUDY OF EARLY FEMINIST RHETORIC (1989) and co-author of DEEDS DONE IN WORDS: PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC AND THE GENRES OF GOVERNANCE (1990), PRESIDENTS CREATING THE PRESIDENCY (2008), and THE INTERPLAY OF INFLUENCE: NEWS, ADVERTISING, POLITICS, AND THE MASS MEDIA (6th ed., 2006). She is editor of CRITIQUES OF CONTEMPORARY RHETORIC (1997, 2003), WOMEN PUBLIC SPEAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1800-1925 (1993), and WOMEN PUBLIC SPEAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1925-present (1994). Awards include a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center of the Kennedy School at Harvard, the National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar Award, the Lauren Ecroyd outstanding teacher award, the Woolbert Award for scholarship of exceptional originality and influence, Golden Anniversary Monograph Award, and the University of Minnesota 2002 Distinguished Woman Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences. She has taught at Macalester College; The British College at Palermo, Italy; California State University at Los Angeles; SUNY at Brockport and at Binghamton; City University of New York; University of Kansas; and Dokkyo University, Tokyo, Japan.

Susan Schultz Huxman (PhD, University of Kansas) is President and Professor at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario. Her first academic appointment as director of the Public Speaking program was with Wake Forest University. She won numerous teaching awards in her twenty-year career at Wichita State University (WSU). Before accepting the presidential post in Canada, she served as Director of the Elliott School of Communication at WSU and regularly taught honors public speaking, rhetorical criticism, research methods, and strategic communication in organizations. In her current post, as time permits, she teaches special courses and workshops in rhetorical theory and criticism and leadership and crisis communication. An active scholar, she has published in the field of rhetorical criticism and U.S. public address. A new book, LANDMARK SPEECHES IN U.S. PACIFISM, is in press with Texas A & M University Press. She engages in a range of professional speaking and consulting opportunities each year to advance the discipline, develop support for the college, and showcase scholarship in action.