A Reaction to "The Rhetorical Stance" by Wayne C. Booth

To begin, I really appreciated the succinct definition which appears early in Booth's essay: "... rhetoric is thought of as the art of 'putting it across,' considered as quite distinct from mastering an 'it' in the first place." He follows this with aptly chosen rhetorical questions: "Is there such an art? If so, what does it consist of? Does it have a content of its own? Can it be taught? Should it be taught? If it should, how do we go about it, head on or obliquely?" These questions get to the heart of the issue; we have to find ways to help students (after they arrive at an informed point of view on a given topic) to master "the art of putting it across."

On page 141 Booth provides us with the essential elements of the rhetorical stance: 1) the available arguments about the subject itself, 2) the interests and peculiarities of the audience, and 3) the voice, the implied character, of the speaker. A successful piece of writing, Booth asserts, strikes a balance between these elements.

Ironically, Booth's fails to strike the proper balance in his own essay: he spends several pages digressing, describing in detail perversions of imbalances in composition, "corruptions" -- and he devotes only the last page to discussing a balanced rhetorical stance. On page 145, however, he refocuses himself and tells us that an accomplished piece of rhetoric comes from a writer who "knows more about the subject than we do, and if he then engages us in the process of thinking -- and felling -- it through... in the company of an audience."

There is a final comment of Booth's that resonated with me: "Much of what is now considered irrelevant or dull can, in fact, be brought to life when teachers and students know what they are seeking." If a writer and teacher know the desired affect, the bottom-line purpose, then both the drafter and adviser can revisit each word, sentence, paragraph, or section in terms of its rhetorical balance and ask whether the desired persuasion could be better achieved by perhaps writing it differently.

It occurs to me that even in the pre-writing stage, the teacher should direct the writer to consider the three essential elements of the rhetorical stance as the writer formulates a plan. After a first draft, during conferences between writer and peer or between writer and teacher, the primary guiding question should be, "Does this portion of the essay accurately articulate what the writer is seeking?" If all critical readers approach the draft in terms of its desired affect and its bottom-line purpose, the suggestions and revisions should ultimately enable it to achieve proper balance in its rhetorical stance.