The persuasive power of the English language emerges from its richness and variation. This unit introduces students to rhetorical theory as a resource for the creative construction of meaning. Students will learn to discover topics, arrange ideas, and analyse the delivery of arguments across a variety of contexts. We examine print, visual media, political debates and engage in virtual exchanges with universities around the world.

This is a fully online unit of study. It focuses on advanced rhetorical reasoning and the theory, construction, and delivery of sound arguments, which are critical to success in the university and the workplace. Designed to improve writing and critical thinking abilities, the unit teaches students to craft persuasive, ethical, and engaging arguments. It will focus on the production and reception of arguments across a range of genres, including digital environments. Online tutorials feature collaborative writing and editing exercises on global, participatory writing platforms.

This unit will introduce students to contemporary theories and practices of rhetoric, examining the work of Kenneth Burke and Chaïm Perelman, among others. It will trace the development of contemporary rhetoric from the classical era, comparing these approaches through examples of social, political, and popular rhetoric across a range of genres. Students will develop a better understanding of the relationship between rhetoric and writing and how to apply rhetorical principles to the analysis, interpretation and production of a range of texts.

What do great poets, preachers and politicians have in common? Using case studies of enduring persuasive texts from the pulpit to the courtroom to the concert hall, this unit introduces students to rhetorical hermeneutics as a method of interpretation. The unit extends their ability to interrogate and think critically about various text types and their affective qualities. It cultivates intensive and effective research and reporting practices, through which students develop discipline-based inquiry questions to effectively discover, invent, produce, and deliver their own arguments.

From Aristotle to Vico, Joyce to Oodgeroo, multiple traditions of rhetoric have influenced society. In this unit, experts in medieval, modernist, new and cultural rhetorics will help you understand how rhetorical traditions emerge as you form your own argument about language, thought and behaviour.

How are we to make sense of our visually-orientated world? Debating theoretical, historical, and methodological developments in the fields of writing studies and rhetoric, we will develop a clearer understanding of the vital role that visual and nonverbal rhetoric plays in the contemporary realm.