In this course we will examine the fields, practices, and discourses of rhetoric and economics and will explore their intersections. This course is for anyone who wants to understand better the way that language influences economists, business people, and all of us as we participate in the marketplace. Technical communicators who make daily decisions about language use in their workplaces, especially when those decisions involve analyzing costs and benefits of a proposed action, will find this course useful. As a class we will also probe the ways in which technical writing and rhetorical scholarship can contribute economic value to business & society.
The questions we ask will be of two natures. One part of the course (the "rhetoric of economics" portion) will be begin with discussion and reading in lay terms of some of the basic concepts in economics, which are necessary for understanding the subsequent issues. Then we will ask whether/how the "objective" field of economics relies on metaphor, persuasion, and the messy world of discourse. The other main emphasis of the course (the "economics of rhetoric" portion) asks how we might understand our activities in rhetoric and applied rhetorics (including teaching) through the lenses of economic concepts.
Carter, Locke, Ed. Market Matters: Applied Rhetoric Studies and Free Market Competition. Hampton, 2005. Carter, Kemp, Salvo, Hessler, and Hansen required. Strongly recommended are Moore and Rhodes.
Goldhaber, Michael. "The Value of Openness in an Attention Economy." First Monday 11.6 (2006): http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_6/goldhaber/
Lanham, Richard. The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information. U of Chicago P, 2006.
McClosky, Diedre. The Rhetoric of Economics. 2nd Ed. Chicago UP: 1998.
Wheelan, Charles. Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Paperback). Norton, Reprint edition (September 2003).
Other on-line and print articles as assigned.
Slaughter, Sheila and Larry Leslie. Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University. Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.
Slaughter, Sheila, and Gary Rhoades. Academic Capitalism and the New Economy : Markets, State, and Higher Education. Johns Hopkins UP, 2004. [updated, more focus on USA, new studies, but still a continuation of the previous book]
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:
In order to evaluate how well you've learned these things, you'll receive feedback and grades on your work, you'll be expected to contribute to class discussion, and your final exam will receive feedback and a grade.
Although we will explain backgrounds for the readings and certain concepts and ideas, your participation is going to be more important to this class. MOO meetings will be a time for fleshing out the main points of our readings, formulating research questions, and building ties from economics to rhetoric studies via our own experiences and the readings. Class participation and the reading responses are worth one-third of your grade. All asynchronous class discussions will take place in Web Board (http://wb.engl.ttu.edu/~EconoRhet), where we have established several conferences in order to break up the work into smaller chunks.
Welcome aboard
Office hours are times for you to get individual help. You do not need an appointment to see us during our scheduled hours. If you need to see one of us during other times, please make an appointment. You are also welcome to ask questions about assignments through email. We will hold virtual office hours in our MOO and/or Yahoo Messenger, which is what we prefer to use for peer-to-peer chat. Our Yahoo usernames are Joyce_Locke and Ken_Baake.
| A |
superior. The paper meets or exceeds all the objectives of the assignment. The content is mature, thorough, and well-suited for the audience; the style is clear, accurate, and forceful; the information is well-organized and formatted so that it is accessible and attractive; the mechanics and grammar are correct. The paper has publication potential. |
| B | competent. The paper meets the objectives of the assignment, but it needs improvement in style, or it contains easily correctable errors in grammar, format, or content, or its content is superficial. |
| C | unsatisfactory for graduate courses. The paper needs significant improvement in concept, details, development, organization, grammar, or format. It may be formally correct but superficial in content, or it may not meet the terms of the assignment. |
You can figure an A as 95, A- as 91, B+ as 88 etc.
You must turn in all assigned work to pass the course. If you do not turn in an assignment, you will fail the course (because you did not complete the assignment), even though your average may be passing. You must turn in papers when they are due. If you have unusual circumstances that will cause you to be late with your work, please talk with me and we will work out a schedule that will not penalize you.
For a graduate course, "attendance" means a lot more than showing up to class. It means bringing homework and examples when they're due. It means participating in synchronous and asynchronous discussion. It also means coming to MOO meetings having read the materials and being ready to be called upon to lead discussion on the topic of the day. Since this is a distance class, your attendance and participation will be judged on their textual input to the class.
Any student who because of a disability may require special arrangements in order to meet course requirements should contact the instructor as soon as possible to make necessary accommodations. Students should present appropriate verification from AccessTECH in the Student Counseling Center. No requirement exists that accommodations be made prior to the completion of this approved university process.
This course (and, indeed, all the graduate courses in the technical communication program) assumes and expects complete honesty and the highest standard of integrity. Any attempt to present as your own any work not honestly performed will be regarded by the faculty and administration as a most serious offense.