Converging Public Speaking and College Composition ©
     


Praise for The Speaking/Writing Connection: A Rhetoric

In this age when teachers are flooded with books for composition and public speaking, David Ryan and Fredel Wiant’s The Speaking/Writing Connection: A Rhetoric is a richly sedimented textbook sitting quietly beneath the flotsam of a torrential book market.

Their effort to synthesize the art of speaking and writing is a sobering welcome for our discipline and a refreshing relief for students who'd love a two-for-one special on textbooks! Pick up any composition or public speaking text and you'll see that the underlying theories are nearly the same. However, this book does so much more than find common ground. Rather, the authors reunite the discipline of rhetoric, a discipline that has been historically—as well as naturally—united but one that the modern university has fragmented in undergraduate studies.

After reading the text, separating rhetoric would be as absurd (and dangerous) as separating the tongue and hand from the brain. Ryan and Wiant’s synthesis should not be surprising. Presidents, politicians and valedictorians all write speeches. Lawyers use written briefs, priests have the liturgy, stand-up comedians have their crib sheets, and teachers—even speech teachers—use lecture notes, or they speak from theories derived from written texts. The reason for this dialectical relationship is because there is no purely oral tradition left in America. Our memories rely heavily on written texts to inform our hearing and instruct our tongues.

The authors not only reinforce writing via speaking, and speaking via writing, they are also implicitly calling for greater interdisciplinary collaboration between English and Communication departments. And their call for academic convergence should be heeded.

—Daniel R. Fredrick, Ph.D. Eckerd College

The Speaking/Writing Connection: A Rhetoric

David Ryan and Fredel Wiant

From the Preface| Table of Contents | Praise | About the Authors

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© 2007
248 pages, softbound/perfect binding
ISBN 0-9765684-9-7
List price: $30.00 for single copy orders
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