The Common Topics
In classical rhetoric, the Common Topics were a short list of four traditional topics regarded as suitable to structure an argument.
Four Traditional Topics
- Past Fact (Circumstance)
- Possible/Impossible (Possibility)
- Future Fact (Circumstance)
- Greater/Lesser (Comparison)
Expanded List of Topics
Edward P.J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors expanded the list in their 1971 book Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student to include:
- Definition
- genus / division / species
- etymology
- description
- definition
- example
- synonyms
- Comparison
- similarity
- difference
- degree
- Circumstance
- cause and effect
- timing
- Relationship
- contraries
- exclusion
- Testimony
- statistics
- maxims
- law
- precedents
- personal example
- historical example
- authoritative quotes
gollark: I came up with the idea of making names a tradeable good like eggs/hatchlings, and wanted to post that along with my earlier one of increasing the length limit and removing character set constraints, in order to encourage more varied discussion.
gollark: I didn't even get to post my great ideas about it.
gollark: Wow, the name exclusivity thread has become surprisingly heated.
gollark: Or Bob, with vast amounts of invisible characters.
gollark: You could also say Βob, which is identical-looking but uses a capital β instead of an actual B.
See also
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.