A WAY WITH WORDS Writing, Rhetoric, and the Art of Persuasion

Drout, a professor of English at Wheaton College, offers a fast-paced, enjoyable look at the basics of effective communication, argumentation, and persuasion. Using examples drawn from popular culture and politics, this course is a solid introduction to the ways in which good communication succeeds and poor communication fails. The breadth of the subject--spanning rhetoric to logic to figurative language to grammar and punctuation--means that no single topic is discussed in depth. For that reason, this set of lectures will be most useful to listeners who are new to the subject. Drout's informality and energy hit just the right note. It's clear he's having good time, and that keeps things fun for listeners. M.G. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 07]