The importance of arrangement
by selecting the arguments to be used and arranging these in an order that was
clear and persuasive, depends on the rhetorical situation, and making the use
of kairos leads to the possibility of achieving an advantage. Arrangement depends in large part on the
rhetorical situation. It relates to Madeleine de Scudery and how the salons
were a place where arrangement was everything, because if you weren’t eloquent
and knowledgeable you wouldn’t be successful. You need to arrange your points
as well, you can’t end on a weak point, but you don’t want to start off weak
either. You have to think about what the
best way for the audience to experience your argument. Kairos can viewed as a time and place for
everything, and the order in which you put your points, and sometimes you can
have weaker points in the beginning, but holistically its still needs to remain
strong throughout. In an aural
environment we have to think about the attention span of the audience and what
it will take for their attention to be captivated. Have to figure out what you’re going to do in
the beginning, and when it comes to the written word, you have to give the so what. When writing I try to start with the “why
should I care” question, then end with the “so what”.
Aurally were talking about economy and in writing we’re talking about copia. Too often both lead to trivial writing, and the substance isn’t what we’re looking for. In copia we need to have everything from the beginning, middle, and end all work together. It’s more about quality over quantity. Sometimes you have artificial constraints in writing, and you have to be aware of the situation, and make sure that what you’re saying has value and relevance to either the topic at hand or previous knowledge or commonplaces.
ReplyDeleteExordium, why should the audience care, the peroration sums up what you’ve told, and leave with the last strong idea. The format is one that proves successful, but you have to decide what is most effective for your argument, what aligns with the kairos, what background or encouragement you need to provide to people based on the topic at hand. You need a forecast or partition, a thesis more appropriately which allows the reader to know what to expect and to follow along. When you set the expectation, and you accomplish that then the reader is left satisfied, and if you don’t set the expectation, or if you don’t meet it then the reader is left dissatisfied and not caring or agreeing with you argument. The confirmation of fulfilling that expectation that you establish in the narration and the partition, and the refutation when making an argument it is important to show your awareness of the situation, other opinions, and other evidence that might be out there, but when you anticipate the argument and show how your refutation is more viable then you can capture the audience, and hopefully let them contemplate your argument and the validity of that.