A Rhetoric of Argument: A Text and Reader

by Jeanne Fahnestock, Marie Secor

The stasis approach pioneered by Fahnestock and Secor distinguishes among four basic questions that arguments are written to answer:

What is it? (Definition arguments)
How did it get that way? (Causal arguments)
Is it good or bad? (Evaluation arguments)
What should we do about it? (Proposal arguments)

These four questions, now standard in many argument texts, give students a constructive, engaging way to analyze arguments by other writers and to construct their own arguments.

Genres: Reference, Logic

540 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Jessica Zu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very useful textbook on teaching argument. Given that most undergraduate students have composition courses specifically on teaching argument, I am surprised that many of them after taking such courses still don't know how to construct an argument. Anyway, if I were to teach advanced courses in humanities, I will make sure to include this book as a selective reading, just in case they need to re-learn how to make an argument. I will suggest this to any professors in science and in humanities to refer their students to this book if you sense they don't really know hot to construct an effective argument.

[P.K. Butler · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a graduate student at Penn State University, I used this text while teaching freshman English. I recall it being adequate to the task at the time but did not appreciate its usefulness as a resource for teaching rhetoric until many years later.

[Marlana Portolano · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the books I teach with.