Exploring style in a global culture In A Rhetoric of Style, Barry Brummett illustrates how style is increasingly a global system of communication as people around the world understand what it means to dress a certain way, to dance a certain way, to decorate a certain way, to speak a certain way. He locates style at the heart of popular culture and asserts that it is the basis for social life and politics in the twenty-first century. Brummett sees style as a system of signification grounded largely in image, aesthetics, and extrarational modes of thinking. He discusses three important aspects of this system—its social and commercial structuring, its political consequences, and its role as the chief rhetorical system of the modern world. He argues that aesthetics and style are merging into a major engine of the global economy and that style is becoming a way to construct individual identity, as well as social and political structures of alliance and opposition. It is through style that we stereotype or make assumptions about others’ political identities, their sexuality, their culture, and their economic standing. To facilitate theoretical and critical analysis, Brummett develops a systematic rhetoric of style and then demonstrates its use through an in-depth exploration of gun culture in the United States. Armed with an understanding of how this rhetoric of style works methodologically, students and scholars alike will have the tools to do their own analyses. Written in clear and engaging prose, A Rhetoric of Style presents a novel discussion of the workings of style and sheds new light on a venerable and sometimes misunderstood rhetorical concept by illustrating how style is the key to constructing a rhetoric for the twenty-first century.

Style in Rhetoric and Composition gathers essays that trace the evolution of the study of style and illustrates the debates that continue to shape style pedagogies within the field of rhetoric and composition. Selections encompass works by classical rhetoricians and modern compositionists alike addressing a range of issues that includes grammar in style, sentence-based pedagogies, imitation, and alternative rhetorics.

Style: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy conducts an in-depth investigation into the long and complex evolution of style in the study of rhetoric and writing. The theories, research methods, and pedagogies covered here offer a conception of style as more than decoration or correctness—views that are still prevalent in many college settings as well as in public discourse.

An advanced composition book and true rhetoric, places the process of writing in its social context. Rather than promoting a particular method, form, or style, it teaches the entire range of stylistic options available to writers, explaining the advantages and drawbacks of various styles. The book enables writers to make informed decisions about presenting ideas in discourse, and incorporates the best of contemporary research into the wider rhetorical tradition. Principles from classical and philosophical rhetoric as well as literary criticism are incorporated fully, and a complete understanding of stylistic values is fostered.

These essays are, according to Marjorie Nicholson, “the most illuminating articles we have on the important subject of prose style. They were pioneer articles which have remained standard.” Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Rhetorical Grammar encourages writers to recognize and use the structural and stylistic choices available to them and to understand the rhetorical effects those choices can have on their readers. Rhetorical Grammar is a writer's grammar - a text that presents grammar as a rhetorical tool, avoiding the do's and don'ts so long associated with the study of grammar. It reveals to student writers the system of grammar that they know subconsciously and encourages them to use that knowledge to understand their choices as writers and the effects of those choices on their readers. Besides providing key strategies for revision, Rhetorical Grammar presents systematic discussions of reader expectation, sentence rhythm and cohesion, subordination and coordination, punctuation, modifiers, diction, and other principles. Studying grammar from this rhetorical point of view defines the study of language as an intellectual exercise designed to open up students' minds to the versatility, beauty, and possibilities of language.

Paul Butler applauds the emerging interest in the study of style among scholars of rhetoric and composition, arguing that the loss of stylistics from composition in recent decades left it alive only in the popular imagination as a set of grammar conventions. Butler’s goal in Out of Style is to articulate style as a vital and productive source of invention, and to redefine its importance for current research, theory, and pedagogy. Scholars in composition know that the ideas about writing most common in the discourse of public intellectuals are egregiously backward. Without a vital approach to stylistics, Butler argues, writing studies will never dislodge the controlling fantasies of self-authorized pundits in the nation’s intellectual press. Rhetoric and composition must answer with a public discourse that is responsive to readers’ ongoing interest in style but is also grounded in composition theory.

A comprehensive guide to the language of argument, Rhetorical Style offers a renewed appreciation of the persuasive power of the English language. Drawing on key texts from the rhetorical tradition, as well as on newer approaches from linguistics and literary stylistics, Fahnestock demonstrates how word choice, sentence form, and passage construction can combine to create effective spoken and written arguments. With examples from political speeches, non-fiction works, and newspaper reports, Rhetorical Style surveys the arguer's options at the word, sentence, interactive, and passage levels, and illustrates the enduring usefulness of rhetorical stylistics in analyzing and constructing arguments.

The new edition of this innovative text employs insights from contemporary linguistic theories but builds them into a practical and coherent system that stays firmly rooted within traditional models. Its down-to-earth explanations about how language works are illustrated at every step with diagrams and other visual models. The examples and exercises consist of provocative and intelligent sentences, not desiccated grammar-book examples. Each chapter includes a sentence-analysis exercise with fifty problems. Answers are provided for ten sentences per chapter. A new chapter on how grammar functions in literature and how it is used to improve writing extends the applications of Doing Grammar in this second edition, which also includes new introductory chapter outlines and thoroughly revised chapter summaries. The new edition was class tested for over a year. Every page has been re-thought and redefined to make grammatical analysis clear, understandable, useful, and interesting. It will be an invaluable guide for students in introductory and advanced grammar and composition courses and for all readers seeking to discover how language works.