Classical Rhetoric for Modem Problems: Accommodating Stasis for the W AC/WID Curriculum

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.