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RHETORIC 101
GUIDELINES
FALL 2022
INTRODUCTION
As a student at Hampden-Sydney, you will learn quickly that the College is committed to teaching writing, and you will find that you need to produce essays in a variety of disciplines. The Rhetoric Program provides a two- or three-semester sequence of courses to prepare you for the written assignments you will be given in the years to come. You will find that learning to write well leads to clear thinking; thus, your work in rhetoric classes is essential for the work you will do from now until graduation, and beyond. In fact, upperclassmen and graduates of Hampden-Sydney maintain that the Rhetoric Program is one of the most valuable features of the College’s academic program.
Students in Rhetoric 101 focus on developing persuasive arguments and communicating these ideas clearly and forcefully.
TEXTBOOKS
Required: Hacker, Diana and Nancy Sommers. The Bedford Handbook , 11th edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2020.
Recommended: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , 4th edition. William Morris, ed. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1993. (You may substitute a dictionary of comparable quality.)
Your instructor will indicate additional texts, if any.
COURSE CONTENT
Rhetoric 101 will help you develop meaningful ideas, evaluate your arguments, support them logically with convincing evidence, and organize your material effectively. Because all good ideas must be expressed well to be effective, Rhetoric 101 will also teach you how to construct powerful, grammatical sentences. By the end of the term, you should understand how to convey your thoughts to a reader clearly and forcefully. You will compose a series of drafts, revising both independently and in consultation with your instructor and peers. By the end of the course, you will have written final drafts of no fewer than four writing assignments, totaling at least 5000 words or approximately 20 pages. To ensure you will be able to communicate effectively for a variety of different audiences, contexts, and purposes, those four assignments will require writing to be done in four different genres: narrative, public writing with a source, analysis, and evaluation. Students will also have the opportunity to approach one of these genres in a medium (e.g., podcast, video, speech, website, or infographic) other than a typical typed essay. You will work with your instructor and the Writing Studio on making meaningful, substantive revisions to your essays as well as editing them to eliminate errors in spelling, grammar, and mechanics.
FINAL ESSAY EXAMINATION
The final essay examination for all students in Rhetoric classes will be given on Tuesday, November 29, 2022 from 7:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. You will write an essay of at least three pages and may use your dictionary and handbook. The essay topic will be based on a passage selected by the Rhetoric Program staff. The essay exam constitutes 7.5% of your final course grade.
Students will write the final essay exam by hand, unless they have a letter from the Dean of the College indicating that they may use a computer because of special circumstances.
COMPREHENSIVE EDITING EXAM
During the semester you will take at least two comprehensive, fifty-minute editing tests or the equivalent. There may also be additional tests and quizzes as indicated by the instructor.
A final comprehensive editing exam will be administered to all students in Rhetoric classes on Monday, December 5, 2022 from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. The editing exam constitutes 7.5% of your final course grade.
ADVANCING TO RHETORIC 102
Satisfactory performance on course work and the final exams, coupled with regular attendance, will ensure that you are prepared for the challenges of Rhetoric 102. If at the end of the semester unsatisfactory performance on papers and exams suggests that you may be unprepared for the challenges of Rhetoric 102, your semester’s work may be reviewed by the Rhetoric staff to determine whether you should pass 101 and advance to 102 or repeat 101.
RHETORIC STUDIO
The Rhetoric Studio, located in the Pannill Center below the Commons, is an excellent resource for all HSC community members. The Studio provides one-on-one assistance with a faculty or student consultant on any writing, speaking, or digital project. Whether you need help, writing a thesis, editing an essay, finding and citing sources, recording a podcast, brainstorming ideas, practicing a presentation, or creating a website, the Studio can help. The Rhetoric Studio is open Sundays through Thursdays, typically from noon to midnight.
Drop-ins are always welcome or you can schedule an appointment by going to: hsc.mywconline.com. You can also click on the button on the HSC “Current Student” page, get help at rhetoricstudio.hsc.edu, or simply open your phone’s camera app and point it at the QR code below!
3. Documentation Form and Essay Format
The Rhetoric Program instructs you in the use of the MLA style of documentation (updated in 2016), a style that requires that writers cite their sources in parenthetical acknowledgments in their texts. See The Bedford Handbook , pp. 304–350. Pages 316–350 in The Bedford Handbook provide guidelines for constructing entries in a “Works Cited” list, and pages 355–361 offer a sample research paper using MLA citation. Since other styles of documentation exist, professors in various disciplines may require you to use some other documentation style— APA or Turabian, for example. You should ask professors about requirements for documentation form.
Every essay should have an appropriate title, and essays that use information from any source should include a “Works Cited” list. On pages 351–361 of The Bedford Handbook , you will find an explanation of the MLA manuscript format that your professor may require that you use as a model for your essays.
4. Other Honor Code Matters
First, professors assume that any paper submitted by a student for any class was prepared by that student for that specific class. You may not turn in a single paper for two or more different classes/courses unless each professor involved has authorized you to do so in advance. It is considered a violation of the College’s Honor Code to double-submit a paper without permission from both instructors. Furthermore, you may not hand in any paper previously submitted at this or any other school without obtaining the permission of the current professor in advance.
Second, you should include the following pledge at the end of each paper you write for your Rhetoric class (note that this pledge differs slightly from the regular College pledge):
On my honor I pledge that I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assignment, nor am I aware of any violation of the Honor Code that I shall not immediately report. I have given full credit, in the text or in endnotes or footnotes, for any ideas or wording drawn from someone else, and I have appended a Bibliography or Works Cited list that gives information about the sources I used.
(Signature)
RHETORIC REQUIREMENTS BEYOND 101-
When you have completed three semesters at the College, you will be asked to take the Rhetoric Proficiency Exam, a timed essay examination. It is in your best interest to take this exam as soon as you are eligible, usually in the second semester of the sophomore year. All students are required to pass this exam in order to graduate. A panel of graders drawn from the faculty at large will judge the exams, grading them on the six-point scale (see Appendix B).
Students will write the Rhetoric Proficiency exam by hand, unless they have a letter from the Dean of the College indicating that they may use a computer because of special circumstances.
If you have not passed the timed Rhetoric Proficiency Examination after three attempts or have completed the equivalent of six semesters of enrollment without passing the examination, you will be enrolled during your next semester in a three-hour, non-credit course, Rhetoric 200: Proficiency Tutorial. In Rhetoric 200, students are asked to write three essays (6-8 pages each) with the guidance of an instructor in the Rhetoric Program. A panel of readers drawn from the faculty at large evaluates the finished essays. If the essays are judged satisfactory, the student has fulfilled the College's requirement of proficiency in writing, provided that he has also passed Rhetoric 101 and 102. If the essays are judged unsatisfactory, the student will be enrolled in Rhetoric 200 again.
This requirement applies equally to all students, including transfer students.
Appendix A
Materials in The Bedford Handbook covered in all sections of Rhetoric 101:
Part 1: A Process for Writing
1 Exploring, planning, and drafting (p. 2) 1a Assess your writing situation 1b Explore your subject 1c Draft and Revise a working thesis statement 1d Draft a plan 1e Draft an introduction 1f Draft the body 1g Draft a conclusion
2 Building effective paragraphs (p. 14) 2a Focus on main point 2b Make paragraphs coherent 2c Choose a suitable strategy for developing paragraphs
22a Learn to recognize standard subject-verb combinations 22b Make the verb agree with its subject, not with a word that comes between 22c Treat most subjects joined with and as plural 22d With subjects joined with or or nor , make the verb agree with the part of the subject nearer to the verb 22e Treat most indefinite nouns as singular unless the meaning is clearly plural 22f Treat collective nouns as singular unless meaning is clearly plural 22g Make the verb agree with its subject even when the subject follows the verb 22h Make the verb agree with its subject, not with a subject compliment 22i With who , which , and that , use verbs that agree with their antecedents 22j Treat titles of works, company names, and words mentioned as words as singular
23 Make pronouns and antecedents agree (p. 141) 23a Take care with indefinite pronouns (anybody, everyone) and generic nouns
23b Treat collective nouns as singular unless the meaning is clearly plural 23c Take care with compound antecedents
24 Make pronoun references clear (p. 145) 24a Avoid ambiguous pronoun reference 24b Generically, avoid making bread references with this , that , which , and it 24c Do not use a pronoun to refer to an implied antecedent 24d Avoid the indefinite use of they and it 24e To refer to persons, use who , whom , or whose , not which or that
Addendum: Singular “They” Policy
- Always use a person’s self-identified pronoun if known, including when a person uses “they” (or in other cases “them” or “their”) as their pronoun.
- Use “they” as a generic third-person singular pronoun.
- Do not use any form of “he,” “she,” “he or she,” or “she or he” to function as a generic third-person singular pronoun.*
- Do not use a combination form such as “(s)he” or “s/he” to function as a generic third-person singular pronoun.
- Use “they” to refer to a person whose gender is unknown, or reword the sentence to avoid using a pronoun.
- Exceptions may occur in cases where the antecedent is specifically gendered and in cases where the person being referred to is a member of a group of people whose genders are all known. Where the antecedent is not specifically gendered, “they” is always acceptable.
25 Choose between pronouns such as I and me (p. 148) 25a Use the subjective case ( I , you , he , she , it , we , they ) for subjects and subject complements 25b Use the objective case ( me , you , him , her , it , us , them ) for all objects 25c Put an appositive and the words to which it refers in the same case 25d Following than or as , choose the pronoun that expresses your intended meaning 25e For we or us before a noun, choose the pronoun that would be appropriate if the noun were omitted 25f Use the objective case for subjects and objects of infinitives 25g Use the possessive case to modify a gerund
26 Distinguish between who and whom (p. 153) 26a Use who and whom correctly in subordinate clauses 26b Use who and whom correctly in questions
27 Choose adjectives and adverbs with care (p. 154) 27a Use adjectives to modify nouns 27b Use adverbs to modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs 27c Distinguish between good and well, bad and badly 27d Use comparatives and superlatives with care
28 Choose appropriate verb forms, tenses, and moods in Standard English (p. 159) 28a Choose Standard English forms of irregular verbs 28b Distinguish among the forms of lie and lay 28c Use -s (or -es) endings on present-tense verbs that have third- person singular subjects 28d Do not omit -ed endings on verbs 28e Do not omit needed verbs 28f Choose the appropriate verb tense 28g Use the subjunctive mood in the few contexts that require it
Part 6: Punctuation 30 The comma (p. 180) 30a Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction joining independent clauses 30b use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase 30c Use a comma between all items in a series 30d Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with and 30e Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements, but not restrictive (essential) elements
34a Use quotation marks to enclose direct quotations 34b Use single quotation marks to enclose quotation within a quotation 34c Use quotation marks around the titles of short works 34d Follow conventions for the use of punctuation with quotation marks 34e Avoid common misuses of quotation marks
35 End punctuation (p. 209) 35a The period 35b The question mark 35c The exclamation point
Part 8: Grammar Basics 40 Parts of speech (p. 228) 40a Nouns 40b Pronouns 40c Verbs 40d Adjectives 40e Adverbs 40f Prepositions 40g Conjunctions 40h Interjections
41 Sentence patterns (p. 237) 41a Subjects 41b Verbs, objects, and complements
42 Subordinate word groups (p. 243) 42a Prepositional phrases 42b Verbal phrases 42c Appositive phrases 42d Absolute phrases 42e Subordinate clauses
43 Sentence types (p. 251) 43a Sentence structures 43b Sentence purposes
Additional material may be assigned at the discretion of the instructor and according to the needs and progress of the class.
Appendix B
Six-Point Scale for Scoring Rhetoric Essay Exams
Top-half score (4, 5, or 6): Despite difference among them, papers that receive a top-half score all demonstrate proficiency in the use of written language to express an idea: The writer conceives a thesis that develops a thought beyond the terms set out in the question; he focuses on a single idea; he argues a case logically; he develops, not simply repeats, an argument; he provides specific evidence; he writes in language free of serious or frequent or distracting errors. In other words, papers receiving top-half scores present a focused thesis, a solid logical argument, specific evidence, and a sense of control over the essential idiomatic and traditional patterns of English grammar and style. Such essays give an impression of independent, mature thinking and readability. Bottom-half score (1, 2, or 3): Papers that receive a bottom-half score leave the reader with a sense that the essay needs further revision; they give an overall impression of deficiency of thought and/or expression, an impression produced by the writer’s having difficulty with one or more important aspects of written expression. Some feature or combination of features in the essay — ranging from egregious errors of historical fact or inaccurate representation of ideas in the essay topic, to a poorly conceived or poorly expressed thesis, to an illogical organization of evidence, to an error-filled writing style — seriously impedes the reader’s ability to follow the argument.
6: An essay in this category expresses an idea clearly, forcefully, and perhaps elegantly. The writer demonstrates lucid, orderly thinking and shows some degree of originality in his handling of the topic. The key difference between the 6 essay and the 5 essay may, in fact, rest in the greater originality of the thesis in the 6 essay. The writer uses sufficient, appropriate, varied evidence to support his idea. Sophisticated word choice and sentence structures are further evidence of mature thinking: The writer of such an essay demonstrates a control of language that extends well beyond simple correctness. An essay that receives this score will be virtually free from errors in mechanics, usage, and sentence structure.
5: An essay in this category demonstrates a clear understanding of the topic it addresses and an assurance in the writer’s use of language. It may be less thoughtful or less well reasoned (perhaps more one-sided in its argument) than a 6 essay, but it will not be mere statement and restatement of generalized ideas. Though it may exhibit minor weaknesses in paragraphing, it will show that the writer can select appropriate and varied supporting evidence which he can organize in unified, coherent units. The writer’s examples are well chosen, and he has done a good job of integrating those examples into his text. Overall, it is an essay with notable strength in at least one area; it does not exhibit any serious weakness in any area, and in this regard it is a better essay than the 4 essay. The 5 essay, again, as opposed to the 4 essay, will be largely free from serious errors in mechanics, usage, and sentence structure. Its language will be characterized by clarity if not beauty.
4: Though not as comprehensive in its treatment of an idea as a 5 or 6 essay, an essay in this category will present a largely well-reasoned and readable argument. Overall, it gives the sense that the writer is in control of the structure of the essay and of his language. The writer establishes a thesis and sticks with it, provides well-developed, detailed examples (perhaps a well-integrated personal example) in coherent paragraphs and organizes those paragraphs so that the reader has a sense of the progression of the
