Medium Post 1

The way in which James Herrick defines rhetoric casts a technical appeal to the art. By using phrases such as “systematic study” or “effective symbolic expression”, in turn, provides an appeal that reaches outside the scope of fine-arts and attracts those with a more technical mindset. People like me, who are science, technology, mathematics and engineering nerds, don’t care for learning rhetoric as it appears in a basic course description. But, when rhetoric is displayed as “the systematic study and intentional practice of effective symbolic expression”, that is something my peers and I could find interesting. Some factors that may apply to the effectiveness of symbolic expression, as mentioned in James Herrick’s definition of rhetoric, could be the tone of voice, emotional appeals, or non-verbal communication during one’s speech.