Writing with Clarity and Style: A Guide to Rhetorical Devices for Contemporary Writers

By Robert A. Harris

Book Overview

Writing with Clarity and Style, 2nd Edition, will help you to improve your writing dramatically. The book shows you how to use dozens of classical rhetorical devices to bring power, clarity, and effectiveness to your writing. You will also learn about writing styles, authorial personas, and sentence syntax as tools to make your writing interesting and persuasive. If you want to improve the appeal and persuasion of your speeches, this is also the book for you.

From strategic techniques for keeping your readers engaged as you change focus, down to the choice of just the right words and phrases for maximum impact, this book will help you develop a flexible, adaptable style for all the audiences you need to address.

Each chapter now includes these sections:

Style Check,

discussing many elements of style, including some enhanced and revised sections

Define Your Terms

, asking students to use their own words and examples in their definitions.

It's in the Cloud

, directing students to the Web to locate and respond to various rhetorically focused items, including biographies and speeches.

Salt and Pepper,

spicing up the study of rhetoric by stretching students' thinking about how their writing can be improved, sometimes by attending to details such as punctuation, and sometimes by exploring the use of unusual techniques such as stylistic fragments.

Review Questions,

providing an end-of-chapter quiz to help cement the chapter ideas in long-term memory.

Questions for Thought and Discussion,

a set of questions designed for either in-class discussion or personal response.

New to the Second Edition

Additional examples of each device, including from world personalities and the captains of industry

More and longer exercises, with a range of difficulty

Advice from classical rhetoricians including Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Cicero, and Quintilian.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 113856009X
• ISBN13: 9781138560093
• Release Date: December 2017
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Writing with Clarity and Style

The book arrived earlier than I expected, and in better condition than what was described by the dealer. I will most definitely return to buy more of my college books in the future.

I agree with the other reviewer

I can add little except to say that this book is an AHH-HA book for writers of fiction or nonfiction. I am re-writing my book now that I am learning the art of rhetoric. I've been looking for an approachable title, one that will give me what I need without being too esoteric. I appreciate Harris, his website; which led me to buy the book and which contains much of the book. I am super busy in my career and thus have not yet applied knowledge from the first 5 pages, which is what I've had time to read, to this synopsis. If you are a writer and want to move your audience, or even a speaker or actor, this book is for you. Shakespeare became great because he was a master of rhetoric. I give this title 3 thumbs up!

Excellent Textbook for Advanced Placement English Classes

Preparing high school students for the Advanced Placement (AP) Exam in English Language or Literature requires teachers to look beyond the typical high school literature and composition textbooks. Robert Harris has done a wonderful job of defining, explaining and demonstrating the uses of the figures of speech and tropes that AP students are expected to know. Most handbooks of rhetorical devices define them and give examples, but Prof. Harris gives the AP student the most essential information: the reasons writers choose certain figures of speech. In other words, he explains the impact that stylistic choice has on the reader. In writing an analysis of text on the AP exam, the students must be able to provide this information. A novice teacher of AP classes will be especially grateful for this book. Not only has Prof. Harris done a fine job in explaining and illustrating the devices, he has grouped related devices in chapters and provided exercises as well. I have recommended Writing with Clarity and Style to our director of curriculum as the textbook for my AP English Language and Literature classes.