Rhetoric in Research Reporting

What is Rhetoric?

The concept rhetoric includes all presentational and performative aspects of communication that carry meaning beyond the literal denotative (logical) meaning of the text. In addition, it includes strategic substantive communication crafted for a particular audience to elicit a particular response based on that audience's reality—their expectations, values, fears, and so on. In current media language, we could say rhetoric is “spin.”

When the concept of rhetoric was first defined by Isocrates and Aristotle it essentially addressed “civilized speech” and especially oratory in the rising democratic “polis.” Aristotle viewed knowledge and meaning (episteme) as denotatively fixed and definite. He considered this episteme gained through dialectic as superior to rhetoric, which he considered mere opinion (doxa). He and his followers denigrated Isocrates and Sophist rhetoric. With the Enlightenment and the rise in the modern scientific age of logic, empiricism, and the scientific method, rhetoric [Page 831]was seen as weak and deceptive, while modern science seemed objective, logic, and proof based. Today, however, knowledge is no longer viewed only in Aristotelian terms, as denotatively fixed and definite. Communication is increasingly seen less in Aristotelian terms and more in Isocratic terms, meaning there is an emphasis on its inter-subjective and performative aspects. Scientific writing itself is seen as a rhetorical form spinning meaning toward the perception of objectivity and fact. The concept of rhetoric is now applicable in all forms of communication.

Rhetoric in Research Writing

Two dimensions of rhetoric apply to written research reports: (1) presentational aspects of communication and (2) strategic content choices. Presentational aspects include, for example, literature type; vocabulary; writing style; and inclusion of tables, graphs, and illustrations. Case studies tend inherently toward multimethod research with multiple types of data and approaches to analysis. The reporting of this can then lead toward scientific propositional expository prose or toward more expressive qualitative narrative.

The scientific research report is now recognized as a literary type—a specific way of crafting words. The scientific paper typically has a particular form: Introduction, Method, Results, Analysis, Conclusion (IMRAC). It most often features some tables or charts. It is usually third-person passive propositional writing dense with details and explanations featuring extensive referencing. The rhetoric of the scientific paper is disinterested objectivity, authority, and credibility.

The qualitative research report often mimics aspects of scientific report rhetoric to gain academic credibility but with the almost-essential feature of inserting participant quotations in just the right balance—not too few and not too many. It also has the inevitable use of first person. However, increasingly holistic meaning communication is becoming a goal, and qualitative researchers are crafting their own new forms. Artistic forms are becoming evident in qualitative research, not in the whole report but in sections of it, for example, poetry (Adler, 2002), visual art (MacArthur, 2008), story (Adler, 2002), drama script (O'Toole, 1994), and film script (Vitale, 2002). [Note: This use of references is a departure from the rhetoric of this encyclopedia. Also, this “Note” pointing to an example of “rhetoric” is itself an infringement of the rhetorical policy of this encyclopedia.] Expressing meaning in addition to stating meaning is part of the qualitative rhetoric espoused by constructivist scholars who also want to shed authority, devolve interpretive power, and acknowledge the role of the reader in co-constructing meaning. The writer of the knowledge representation called the research report chooses to situate the communication on an interpretive continua: propositional to nonpropositional, discursive to nondiscursive, hermeneutically closed to hermeneutically open. Rhetoric varies along these continua.

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