James Kinneavy

Let me say first of all that I found Klayton's presentation brilliant. Having looked into Kinneavy's work a little bit, it seems to me that doing 30 minutes on him is like writing the history of the world on an index card.

I have spent the week trying to get my brain around Kinneavy's concepts. Here's where I am: that Rhetoric is not exactly about any thing in particular - it's about how to use critical thinking and communication to approach particular things. Those who practice rhetoric successfully will be able to enlighten and persuade others, and possibly bring an understanding of some truth to the conversation. Those who don't will be flapping their jaws. That's why it was important for Kinneavy to be such a well-rounded and well-educated person. He was able to see how crucial rhetoric was in any field.

As an experienced jaw flapper, I'm starting to see the wisdom in considering Kinneavy's triangle. On some level, most successful communicators are taking notice of audience, purpose, and occasion. Some people have talent. The rest of us would be well advised to start taking rhetoric more seriously; and even the talented could improve.

I am not so bothered by Kinneavy's backpedaling and contradicting of his theory. Right now my visual of Kinneavy's work is more like a Venn diagram than a triangle. That way a piece of writing could be in more than one category. I feel certain that most writing contains at least some elements of all four Aims of Discourse.