class 11: rhetoric

Although today's lecture was officially entitled "rhetoric" we spent a lot of it talking about coursework. You can now download the assignment 3 details on WebCT. Also please note that Humanities is now level three of Sherfield, not Mech Eng or level 5.

My focus on coursework was party because there are other humanities courses where you learn about rhetoric, such as the Saying True Things UG module, or the MSc in Science Communication. What I emphasised today was that much of science communication (including technical scientific communication) is about persuasion, or at least we can read it as such.

I also talked about Fahrenstock's focus on the way the audience of a piece effects the content, as well as suggesting the idea that the medium itself might "make" the message. The wikipedia entry on rhetoric might give you some further overview of the academic field, and there is a short bibliograpahy in the reading list, to which I'd like to add this:

• Prelli, L (2001) Topical Perspective and the Rhetorical Grounds for Practical Reason in Arguments About Science, in Stocklmayer, S et al (eds) Science Communication in Theory and Practice (London, Kluwer) pp 63-82.

Despite my link to wikipedia above, I did also emphasise that we expect you to read more than what is on the web for your assignments. Although wikipedia and similar resources might be useful to get a first-glance hold of a topic (in fact, it's pretty good on science studies), it would not normally be appropriate to cite it in an essay. Wikipedia is, as members of the class mentioned, "policed". But this not the same as peer review.

Like lecture notes, dictionary definitions and most encylopedia entries, use it to get an idea of a topic but don't cite it in coursework. If you have any questions about using a particular source or want advice on further reading just ask. Normally the best place to start is the bibliogrpahy of the textbook and our reading list (including bibliographies in the books we suggest).