Advice For A Rhet/Comp Hopeful?

[rococo_realism]

Hey, all, I'm a lurker who has finally decided to participate in this wonderful community!

 

I was wondering if any of you who are in the rhet/comp world could give me some advice vis-a-vis immersing myself in that world. That is, tell me about some intro-level/rudiments-type texts I can read to familiarize myself with it all. I went to a university that had just one rhet./comp course, and it was a graduate-level course! How on earth are undergraduates able to become acquainted with rhet/comp if they don't even have access to it as an undergraduate? Lunacy, I tell you!

 

Anyway, any advice would be welcome. I'm planning on applying in the Fall 2016 season. (Under breath: Just as I turn 30. Grumble, grumble...) Thanks!

[bhr]

What do you want to do? There are a lot of tracks you can take in RhetComp, from a cultural rhetoric base to more of a pw or digital rhet track. Honestly, you aren't going to be expected to come in to rhetcomp with foundational texts, because, as you said, there aren't undergraduate programs in it. I'm only in my first year (and older than you), but I was no more acquainted with the theory than you are (In fact, I spent my first three months telling people that I didn't get their Foucault jokes, right up until the day that someone called me on it and handed me the books).

[iExcelAtMicrosoftPuns]

In fact, I spent my first three months telling people that I didn't get their Foucault jokes

Very similar experience here - I thought I had an idea of Rhet going in and boy was that naive.

[rococo_realism]

What do you want to do? There are a lot of tracks you can take in RhetComp, from a cultural rhetoric base to more of a pw or digital rhet track. Honestly, you aren't going to be expected to come in to rhetcomp with foundational texts, because, as you said, there aren't undergraduate programs in it. I'm only in my first year (and older than you), but I was no more acquainted with the theory than you are (In fact, I spent my first three months telling people that I didn't get their Foucault jokes, right up until the day that someone called me on it and handed me the books).

That's the thing: I find that I'm unfamiliar with research areas within the greater rhet/comp field. I know that it's relatively new, and that it's interdisciplinary, and that it's mainly about literacy and writing from a sociological perspective, but I know nothing about major research areas. I find that I'm interested in how various occupational fields...talk. I'm interested in their dialogues and jargon. I'm particularly interested in the language and writing of advertising. Thinking about the class/racial/gender/"moral" implications of advertisements fascinates me. I'm also interested in meta-discourses.

 

As you can see, I have lots of research interests; I'm just not sure if they fit within the rhet/comp sub-field. BTW, I'm looking at MA programs. I'm not really interested in getting a Ph.D.

 

Thanks for your response!

[bhr]

Start with anything from Henry Jenkins. http://henryjenkins.org/. I just finished Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture, and it was filled with theory while still being a fun read. Participatory culture rubs right up against advertising (which I don't know well), so it should give you some stuff to go off of. Also look at digital rhetoric (anything by Selfe/Hawisher is a good start), visual rhetoric. I would guess that if your nd goal isn't teaching at a 4 year (or, even if it is), that you look at PW or Tech Comm programs, which will give you a good mix of theory and practical applications.

 

Someone more steeped in the coursework can probably offer other suggestions. I'm tackling my two theory seminars next semester.

[ComeBackZinc]

I'm in my fourth and final year, and I'm 33. Many of my  classmates are older than me. Starting your PhD at 30 is not at all unusual so don't feel bad about it. 

 

I would recommend Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Rhetoric and Thomas Conley's Rhetoric in the European Tradition, both of which are brief and accessible. Unfortunately there's no individual text that performs the same functions for composition. 

 

I will say that anyone getting in this field should be aware that the job market, while much better than for lit, is still the academic job market. Which means it's tight. Really tight. Whatever sense some people have that an R/C job guarantees you a job should have gone away following the financial crisis. It's also my opinion that we've overexpanded, with too many doctoral-granting programs now. (Of course, the problem cannot be solved at the supply side.) I'm not saying this to discourage you or anyone else, just to make sure people have a realistic sense of what the rhet/comp advantage means and doesn't mean now. Lots of impressive students from good programs struggle to get placed. That's just a fact.

 

For that reason, I recommend that you be somewhat mercenary in your career, in the sense that you pay attention to the market and what it's currently rewarding. I'm not saying that you should chase every fad. I am saying that you should think strategically about how you get credentialed and what you write your dissertation about. I also think that people should expand their definition of job success. There's lots of great non-TT jobs out there-- writing center jobs, administrative jobs, jobs in various teaching and learning and research centers. These can be very satisfying, rewarding careers and shouldn't be dismissed because they don't come with the potential for tenure. And look for more outs. Try to build the kind of resume that could help you apply to positions in related fields. There are great jobs out there in industry, working in areas like technical and business communication, environmental communication, etc. Keep that stuff in mind as you move forward.

[rococo_realism]

Start with anything from Henry Jenkins. http://henryjenkins.org/. I just finished Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture, and it was filled with theory while still being a fun read. Participatory culture rubs right up against advertising (which I don't know well), so it should give you some stuff to go off of. Also look at digital rhetoric (anything by Selfe/Hawisher is a good start), visual rhetoric. I would guess that if your nd goal isn't teaching at a 4 year (or, even if it is), that you look at PW or Tech Comm programs, which will give you a good mix of theory and practical applications.

 

Someone more steeped in the coursework can probably offer other suggestions. I'm tackling my two theory seminars next semester.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! That's what I need: recognizable people in the field. I'm gong to work on reading more of his work. I love it when the quotidian (like pop culture) and the academic converge. (In fact, another area of interest is the rhetoric of television sitcoms.)  And, yes, I'm not necessarily interested in teaching. Well, unless it's first-year writing or adult literacy, but I know that it would obviously have to be supplemented by another job. (That's just the reality...)

 

I'm really interested in becoming an academic advisor or working in an administrative department of a university. I know that many require only a B.A., but these days, they really want someone with an educational-related graduate degree. Again, thanks!

 

I'm in my fourth and final year, and I'm 33. Many of my  classmates are older than me. Starting your PhD at 30 is not at all unusual so don't feel bad about it. 

 

I would recommend Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Rhetoric and Thomas Conley's Rhetoric in the European Tradition, both of which are brief and accessible. Unfortunately there's no individual text that performs the same functions for composition. 

 

I will say that anyone getting in this field should be aware that the job market, while much better than for lit, is still the academic job market. Which means it's tight. Really tight. Whatever sense some people have that an R/C job guarantees you a job should have gone away following the financial crisis. It's also my opinion that we've overexpanded, with too many doctoral-granting programs now. (Of course, the problem cannot be solved at the supply side.) I'm not saying this to discourage you or anyone else, just to make sure people have a realistic sense of what the rhet/comp advantage means and doesn't mean now. Lots of impressive students from good programs struggle to get placed. That's just a fact.

 

For that reason, I recommend that you be somewhat mercenary in your career, in the sense that you pay attention to the market and what it's currently rewarding. I'm not saying that you should chase every fad. I am saying that you should think strategically about how you get credentialed and what you write your dissertation about. I also think that people should expand their definition of job success. There's lots of great non-TT jobs out there-- writing center jobs, administrative jobs, jobs in various teaching and learning and research centers. These can be very satisfying, rewarding careers and shouldn't be dismissed because they don't come with the potential for tenure. And look for more outs. Try to build the kind of resume that could help you apply to positions in related fields. There are great jobs out there in industry, working in areas like technical and business communication, environmental communication, etc. Keep that stuff in mind as you move forward.

I know that 30 is still relatively young. I was just whining. Thanks for those recommendations. I do want some foundation readings to get into in the next couple of months.

 

As I mentioned to bhr, I'm not looking into getting into teaching upper-level courses at a 4-year university. I'm mainly interested in studying various approaches to literacy and rhetoric so that I can apply it to a job that's not necessarily academic. (Read: teaching.)  I'm well aware of the squeeze within the academic job market today, and I hope to avoid it. To prepare for teaching, I've recently applied for an adult ed. teaching position. I'd be teaching subjects besides non-English-related subjects, but it would give me experience in teaching. So we'll see.

 

Trust me, I am more than mercenarial. (If I may invent such an adjective.) I'm always thinking more about finances than I am about what I want to do. Preferably, I can find work at the intersection of what pays the bills and what I love, again, we'll see. Thanks for your reply!

Edited December 25, 2014 by rococo_realism86

[mittensmitten]

For a sort of general understanding of what rhetoric is and how it came to be, I've been told by my professors that THE book is Bizzell and Herzberg's The Rhetorical Tradition. I've read excerpts of it for class and it's definitely very thorough about rhetoric and the people who influenced it (it starts with the classical period and goes all the way to modern times).

Another (cheaper) book that could help give you more education about rhetoric is Jay Heinrichs' Thank You for Arguing. I read just a few chapters for a presentation, but he has a great way of making rhetoric contemporary and giving plenty of examples.

As for some of the big names in the field, Andrea Lunsford is the first person that comes to mind. I've read a few of her articles and she's very influential in both shaping and defining the field.

And also, there ARE undergraduate programs that focus on this, but they're just not that common. I'm an undergraduate who attends one of these programs

[heja0805]

I feel like this might be a bratty comment, but it's 5 a.m. and I'm on a Grayhound bus, so forgive me if I seem a little rough around the edges--to me, I've grown to learn that rhetoric isn't always about what texts to read as it is about asking the right questions about texts, their motives, purposes, effects, & consequences.

So here's the bratty part: I think the discipline has had an ongoing identity crisis, and sometime around the 1960s, classical rhetoric was haled to strengthen the identity of a discipline that can't ever seem to situate itself like other disciplines can. Haling classical rhetoric as a basis for the field required sound, sophisticated arguments--and even today it's hard to avoid seeing some kind of theoretical underpinning that stems from Aristotle. You're going to come across texts as far ranging as the Greeks to Foucault (as bhr mentioned), Dewey to Derrida, Burke, Stuart Hall to bell hooks, Friere, De Certeau, Lacan, Latour, blah blah blah. We have to borrow theory from other places to make arguments, and that theory usually comes from disperate sources and disciplines, making ours rightfully muddled and confusing. Thus concludes history of the discipline, Pt. I. Lol kidding of course. And I have zero interest in producing a Pt. II.

Anyway the point of all that is you're likely going to encounter texts from said theorists, but it's important to ask the right questions while you read them. There are other, more practical ways of learning about this stuff, too. It's worth checking out an issue of College Composition and Communication, and just read the articles for the style of writing, the article structure, the kinds of research the authors present, and if they happen to present any sort of theoretical basis for the arguments they present. I think you'll find that the discipline is unique (apart from ed. and applied linguistics) in that teachig forms a strong core for the academic work in writing studies. There are open access journals I can point you to if you don't have institutional access to that one. I just feel that a brief skim of practical, recent scholarship can be a better way to get a sense of the field than delving into the theoretical stuff that gets thrown around. But regardless of what you read, it's always about really questioning those texts.

So idk if that's ranty or helpful at all? I hope it is. As a final note, don't bother with The Rhetorical Tradition. (For reasons I can elaborate if anyone asks or is intersted)

[iExcelAtMicrosoftPuns]

I really dig Heja's take on it. When I was getting my feet wet in rhetoric I searched out all of the Ph.D. reading lists I could find. I bought Johanek, Smagorinsky, Horner, Lunsford, etc. Freire, hooks, and Cushman made sense - but when reading the more theoretical stuff I just couldn't orient myself in it.

I was reading a lot of how to do "it"  without knowing what exactly "it" looked like when done. Or why "it" had to be done in the first place. (Well, that's a bit harsh on myself - I had a vague idea...)

I don't think my preparation prepared me for much. 

In hindsight I would have been better served developing a more interrogative style of reading (to which I can elaborate if so desired).

But your case is different. You've got different goals. 

Advice:

Clay Spinuzzi, writes some occupational/organization type stuff - check out his book Topsight. 
You'll want an understanding of Genre. Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) is a useful search term. Carolyn Miller is a good start there.
In advertisements you may want to consider thinking about Agency. 
You may find a lot of useful stuff under Linguistics.

 

Read bibliographies (I usually start there) they help point me to further research. Which will  help you develop your own mental database of search terms.

[rococo_realism]

I feel like this might be a bratty comment, but it's 5 a.m. and I'm on a Grayhound bus, so forgive me if I seem a little rough around the edges--to me, I've grown to learn that rhetoric isn't always about what texts to read as it is about asking the right questions about texts, their motives, purposes, effects, & consequences.

So here's the bratty part: I think the discipline has had an ongoing identity crisis, and sometime around the 1960s, classical rhetoric was haled to strengthen the identity of a discipline that can't ever seem to situate itself like other disciplines can. Haling classical rhetoric as a basis for the field required sound, sophisticated arguments--and even today it's hard to avoid seeing some kind of theoretical underpinning that stems from Aristotle. You're going to come across texts as far ranging as the Greeks to Foucault (as bhr mentioned), Dewey to Derrida, Burke, Stuart Hall to bell hooks, Friere, De Certeau, Lacan, Latour, blah blah blah. We have to borrow theory from other places to make arguments, and that theory usually comes from disperate sources and disciplines, making ours rightfully muddled and confusing. Thus concludes history of the discipline, Pt. I. Lol kidding of course. And I have zero interest in producing a Pt. II.

Anyway the point of all that is you're likely going to encounter texts from said theorists, but it's important to ask the right questions while you read them. There are other, more practical ways of learning about this stuff, too. It's worth checking out an issue of College Composition and Communication, and just read the articles for the style of writing, the article structure, the kinds of research the authors present, and if they happen to present any sort of theoretical basis for the arguments they present. I think you'll find that the discipline is unique (apart from ed. and applied linguistics) in that teachig forms a strong core for the academic work in writing studies. There are open access journals I can point you to if you don't have institutional access to that one. I just feel that a brief skim of practical, recent scholarship can be a better way to get a sense of the field than delving into the theoretical stuff that gets thrown around. But regardless of what you read, it's always about really questioning those texts.

So idk if that's ranty or helpful at all? I hope it is. As a final note, don't bother with The Rhetorical Tradition. (For reasons I can elaborate if anyone asks or is intersted)

Not ranty at all! I'll certainly check out College Composition and Communication. I'm actually happy that you brought up the idea of considering what's going on in the field rather than looking through dense, academic tomes. (Like I was considering.) As far as the Rhetorical Tradition, feel free to elaborate. (In either a PM or right here.) Thanks!

 

I really dig Heja's take on it. When I was getting my feet wet in rhetoric I searched out all of the Ph.D. reading lists I could find. I bought Johanek, Smagorinsky, Horner, Lunsford, etc. Freire, hooks, and Cushman made sense - but when reading the more theoretical stuff I just couldn't orient myself in it.

I was reading a lot of how to do "it"  without knowing what exactly "it" looked like when done. Or why "it" had to be done in the first place. (Well, that's a bit harsh on myself - I had a vague idea...)

I don't think my preparation prepared me for much. 

In hindsight I would have been better served developing a more interrogative style of reading (to which I can elaborate if so desired).

But your case is different. You've got different goals. 

Advice:

Clay Spinuzzi, writes some occupational/organization type stuff - check out his book Topsight. 

You'll want an understanding of Genre. Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) is a useful search term. Carolyn Miller is a good start there.

In advertisements you may want to consider thinking about Agency. 

You may find a lot of useful stuff under Linguistics.

 

Read bibliographies (I usually start there) they help point me to further research. Which will  help you develop your own mental database of search terms.

Thanks for the reading suggestions! So many of my undergrad professors used to stress key terms when doing this type of research, and I always just shrugged. :/

 

Feel free to explain your "interrogative style."