Classical Rhetoric for Modem Problems: Accommodating Stasis for the W AC/WID Curriculum
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Abstract
This paper performs a case study of scientific information as it moves between
media, in this case, from the journal Science to the New York Times. In order to monitor
the rhetorical shifts between texts, both are analyzed using a modified four tier taxonomic
system of stasis as outlined by Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor (140-143, 1983). As
the information from the different texts is analyzed under a singular lens, in this case 'the
stases,' the rhetorical accommodations, both the subtle and the not subtle, become obvious
in a manner since stasis is a "general scheme capable of accounting for the ways issues
naturally develop" (Fahnestock 1988, 345). This new use of stasis coupled with the spread
of Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) throughout
college writing curriculums will develop students' awareness of how scientific information
can become attenuated through accommodation in order to avoid communication problems
once they become the primary communicators of science.