Difference Between Rhetoric And Argument

How does rhetoric and argument contribute to strength of a writer? After reading about the two connotations that these concepts create, I believe that rhetoric and argument are used to give a person the ability to articulate their stance on a topic. Timothy Crusius explains how argument and rhetoric have “bad reputations.” This is because many people believe that argument simply means to disagree or voice opinions aggressively with one another. As a result, this gives argument a negative connotation for many people and causes a majority to avoid getting into arguments. Crusius also describes how rhetoric is understood by many people as “language that sounds good but evades or hides the truth.” Similar to the misconception of argument, many people also believe that rhetoric is negative. …show more content…
Therefore, the popular understanding of argument is that arguments are pointless, a waste of time, and will only cause harm to the participants. The popular understanding of rhetoric is that rhetoric creates speech with empty words and no real value or meaning behind those words that ultimately mislead people. In our classroom within a composition setting, however, argument and rhetoric can both be used to express viewpoints and constructively debate with one another in order to achieve a more holistic understanding of a topic. Argument means mature reasoning after doing research and developing one’s opinion. Rhetoric means to effectively utilize public speaking to relay the intended meaning and purpose of one’s argument. I believe that using these two skills together can result in a positive learning experience for students in the