Next Generation

Rhetoric, since Aristotle, is best known as a discipline that studies the means and ends of persuasion. Science can be seen as the making of knowledge about the natural world. Rhetoric of science includes a body of literature in various disciplines such as sociology, history philosophy of science, but it is practiced most fully by rhetoricians in departments of English, Speech, and Communications. The father of empirical science, Francis Bacon, saw rhetoric as the application of reason to imagination for the better moving of the will (Booth 6). Scientists must discover lines of argument to convince their community of scientists that their research is based on sound scientific method – the use of methodology that makes firm connections between observational and theoretical claims. From a rhetorical point of view, scientific method involves problem-solution topoi (the materials of discourse) that demonstrate observational and experimental competence (arrangement or order of discourse or method), and as a means of persuasion, offer explanatory and predictive power (Prelli 185-193). Experimental competence is itself a persuasive topos (Prelli 186). Rhetoric of science is a practice of suasion that is an outgrowth of some of the canons of rhetoric.

Science – a method of inquiry that produces small, but incremental, amounts of knowledge – is the object of interest of rhetoric of science. As mentioned, this subfield of rhetoric is in one sense a branch of inquiry that has as it goal not only the determination of the means of persuasion but also the task of the reconstruction of the means by which scientists convince themselves and others that their claims are verifiable and true to the world (Gross “On Shoulders” 20-21). Rhetoric, as a tool in science writing, engenders the propagation of new perspectives and new points of view.

Major themes in rhetoric of science include the investigation of the accomplishments and sausive abilities of individuals (ethos) who have left a mark in their respective sciences as well as an age old concern of rhetoric of science - public science policy.

History

Since 1970, rhetoric of science, as a field involving rhetoricians, flourished. This flourishing of scholarly activity contributed to a shift in the image of science that was taking place. Once concerned with the products of science, a new interest among scientists in the processes and practices of science emerged (Harris “Intro,” Landmark xv). This shift demonstrates changing values and goals within a community of scientists and a greater emphasis on communication.

The history of the rhetoric of science effectively begins with Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). He examines first normal science, that is, a practice which he saw as routine, patterned and accessible with a specific method of problem-solving. Building on past knowledge, normal science advances by accretions in a knowledge base (Harris “Intro,” Landmark xiii). Kuhn then contrasts normal science with revolutionary science (ground-breaking science marked by a paradigm-shift in thought). When Kuhn began to teach Harvard undergraduates historical texts such as Aristotle’s writings on motion, he looked to case studies, and sought first to understand Aristotle in his own time, and then to locate his problems and solutions within a wider context of contemporary thought and actions (Nickles 144). That is to say, Kuhn sought first to understand the traditions and established practices of science (Nickles 162). In this instance, Michael Polanyi's influence on Kuhn becomes apparent; that is, his acknowledgement of the importance of inherited practices and rejection of absolute objectivity. Observing the changes in scientific thought and practices, Kuhn concluded that revolutionary changes happen through the defining notion of rhetoric: persuasion (Harris “Intro,” Landmark xiv). The critical work of Herbert W. Simons - "Are Scientists Rhetors in Disguise?" in Rhetoric in Transition (1980) - and subsequent works show that Kuhn’s Structure is fully rhetorical.

Kuhn’s strategies and his accounts related to concept representation – the key conceptual changes that occur during a scientific revolution – are found in the section titled “Incommensurability.” Concepts lead to the production of hypotheses and theories.

The work of Thomas Kuhn was extended by Richard Rorty (1979, 1989), and this work was to prove fruitful in defining the means and ends of rhetoric in scientific discourse (Jasinski “Intro” xvi). Rorty, who coined the phrase “rhetorical turn,” was also interested in assessing periods of scientific stability and instability.

Another component of the shift in science that took place in the past centres on the claim that there is no single scientific method, but rather a plurality of methods, approaches or styles (Harris "Intro," Landmark xvi). Paul Feyerabend in Against Method (1975) contends that science has found no “method that turns ideologically contaminated ideas into true and useful theories,” in other words; no special method exists that can guarantee the success of science (302).

As evidenced in the early theory papers after Kuhn’s seminal work, the idea that rhetoric is crucial to science came to the fore. Quarterly journals in speech and rhetoric saw a flourishing of discussion on topics such as inquiry, logic, argument fields, ethos of scientific practitioners, argumentation, scientific text, and the character of scientific discourse and debates. Philip Wander (1976) observed, for instance, the phenomenal penetration of science (public science) in modern life. He labelled the obligation of rhetoricians to investigate science's discourse ' "The Rhetoric of Science" (Harris "Knowing" 164). Other ideas on the role of rhetoric in science emerged.

Examples of the types of discussion that emerged in conference papers, articles or texts are as follows:

• Epistemic rhetoric and the discourses on the nature of semantics, knowledge, and truth: One example is the Robert L. Scott's work on viewing rhetoric as epistemic (1967). By the 1990s, epistemic rhetoric was a point of contention in the writing of Dilip Gaonkar.

• The early 1970s Speech Communication Conference ("Wingspread conference") gave recognition to the fact that rhetoric, in its globalization (multidisciplinary nature), has become a universal hermeneutic (Gross Rhetorical 2-5). Much scholastic output evolved around the theory of interpretation (hermeneutics), the knowledge-making and truth-seeking (epistemic) potential of rhetoric of science.

• Argument Fields (part of the Speech Communication Association and American forensic Association program): In this domain the work of Toulmin on argument appeals is exemplary. In addition, Michael Mulkay, Barry Barnes and David Bloor, as pioneers of the "Sociology of Scientific Knowledge" (SSK) movement, fostered a growing sociobiology debate. Others as Greg Myers expressed the benefits of a collaboration between rhetoricians and sociologists. The interest of this group of scholarslies in the capacity of rhetoric and discourse to bridge knowledge between different scientific domains is extended in the works of John Lyne and Henry Howe concerning the ways arguments change as they move from audience to audience - from the scientific community to the public (Harris "Intro," Landmark xxi-xxxii).

• Scientific Giants: The important works that investigate the suasive powers of exemplars in science include those of Alan Gross (Newton, Descartes, argument fields in optics), John Angus Campbell (Darwin), and Michael Halloran (Watson and Crick). John Angus Campbell's work on Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, for instance his work titled, "Charles Darwin: Rhetorician of Science" (1987), shows that Darwin was a rhetorician through and through. Campbell provided an early 'case' in support of rhetoric of science (Harris "Intro," Landmark xxx).

• Ethos: Lawrence Prelli - following the work of Jeanne Fahnestock, John Lyne and Henry Howe on scientific controversy, argument and prose - focuses on scientific ethos in "The Rhetorical Construction of Scientific Ethos" (1989).

The reconstitution of rhetorical theory around the lines of invention (inventio), argumentation and stylistic adapation is going on today (Simons 6). Questions concerning rhetorical theory and rhetoric of science continue today unabated; for instance, consideration is given to the relationship between modes of expression and argumentation. In this realm, genre is important as shown by Charles Bazerman in his work on the experimental report. Recent work that pertains to an understanding the rhetorical effectivness of investigative reports asks what are the consequences of a single coherent narrative as opposed to the structuring of such a report as a series of discrete facts and conclusions (Simons 18).

The key question today is whether training in rhetoric can in fact help scholars and investigators make intelligent choices between rival theories, methods or data collection, and incommensurate values (Simons 14). This comes back to the last word in Aristotle's Rhetoric: "judgement" (158).

Developments and Trends

Epistemic Rhetoric

Much discussion arose in the past on defining rhetoric as an object of intellectual inquiry. Rhetoric of inquiry refers to the debates and discussions about the nature of (and relationship among) knowledge, language, human discourse and reality (Jasinski 316). Seeing science from the point of texts exhibiting epistemology based on prediction and control offers new comprehensive ways to see the function of rhetoric of science (Gross “The Origin” 91-92). Epistemic rhetoric of science, in a broader context, deals with the issues that concern, for instance, constructivism and relativism as it confronts issues pertaining to truth and knowledge.

Rhetoric of science, as a branch of inquiry, does not look at scientific (natural science) texts as a transparent means of conveying knowledge, but rather it looks at these texts as exhibiting persuasive structures. Although the natural sciences and humanities differ in a fundamental way, the enterprise of science can be viewed hermeneutically as a stream of texts which exhibit an epistemology based on understanding (Gross “On the Shoulders 21). Its task then is the rhetorical reconstruction of the means by which scientists convince themselves and others that their knowledge claims and assertions are an integral part of privileged activity of the community of thinkers with which they are allied (Gross “The Origin” 91).

In an article titled “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic” (1967), Robert Scott offers “that truth can arise only from cooperative critical inquiry” (Harris “Knowing” 164). Scott’s probe of the issues of belief, knowledge and argumentation substantiates that rhetoric is epistemic. This train of thought goes back to Gorgias who noted that truth is a product of discourse, not a substance added to it (Harris “Knowing” 164).

Scientific discourse is built on accountability of empirical fact which is presented to a scientific community. Each form of communication is a type of genre that fosters human interaction and relations. An example is the emerging form of the experimental report (Bazerman “Reporting” 171-176). The suite of genres to which the rhetoric of science comes to bear on health care and scientific communities is legion.

Aristotle could never accept the unavailability of certain knowledge, although most now believe the contrary (Gross “On Shoulders” 20). Science is not only a way of understanding nature specific to an era, it is a way of knowing by accumulating data from observations and experiments and by seeking relationships of the data with other phenomena (Moore 503). Knowing itself generates the explanation of knowing, and this is the domain of the theory of knowledge. The knowledge of knowledge compels an attitude of vigilance against the temptation of certainty (Maturana 239-245).

Argument Fields

By the 1980s, Stephen Toulmin’s work on argument fields published in his book titled The Uses of Argument (1958) came to prominence through rhetorical societies such as the Speech Communication Association which adopted a sociological view of science. Toulmin's main contribution is his notion of argument fields that saw a reinvention of the rhetorical concept topoi (topics) (Harris “Intro” Landmark xxi).

Toulmin discusses at length the pattern of an argument – data and warrants to support a claim – and how they tend to vary across argument fields (Toulmin 1417-1422). Descartes' optical works showing that white light was basic and colour derivative participates in an argument field, and it helped to establish the materials and structures of an argument field. Specifically, the agreed upon methods of traditional optics and the field-specific assumptions constitute an argument field (Gross “On Shoulders” 22). Toulmin delineated two concepts of argumentation, one which relied on universal (field-invariant) appeals and strategies, and one which was field dependent, particular to disciplines, movements, and the like. For Toulmin, audience is important because one speaks to a particular audience at a particular point in time, and thus an argument must be relevant to that audience. In this instance, Toulmin echoes Feyerabend, who in his preoccupation with suasive processes, makes clear the adaptive nature of persuasion (Harris “Intro” Landmark xxv).

Toulmin's ideas pertaining to argument were a radical import to argumentation theory because, in part, he contributes a model, and because he contributes greatly to rhetoric and its subfield, rhetoric of science, by providing a model of analysis (data, warrants) to show that what is argued on a subject is in effect a structured arrangement of values that are purposive and lead to a certain line of thought.

Toulmin showed in Human Understanding that the arguments that would support claims as different as the Copernican revolution and the Ptolemaic revolution would not require mediation. On the strength of argument, men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries converted to Copernican astronomy (Gross “The Rhetoric” 214).

Incommensurability

The rhetorical challenge today is to find discourse that crosses disciplines without sacrificing the specifics of each discipline. The aim is to render description of these disciplines intact – that is to say, the goal of finding language that would make various scientific fields “commensurable” (Baake 29). In contrast, Incommensurability is the term used to describe a situation where two scientific programs are fundamentally at odds. Two important voices who applied incommensurability to historical and philosophical notions of science in the 1960s are Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. Various strands grew out of this idea that bear on issues of communication and invention. These strands are explicated in Randy Allen Harris’s four-part taxonomy that in turn foregrounds his viewpoint that “incommensurability is best understood not as a relation between systems, but as a matter of rhetorical invention and hermeneutics” (Harris “Incommensurability” 1).

Incommensurability of theory at times of radical theory change is at the heart of Thomas Samuel Kuhn’s theory of paradigms (Bazerman 1). Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions offers a vision of scientific change that involves persuasion, and thus he brought rhetoric to the heart of scientific studies (Harris "Intro," Landmark xiii).

Kuhn’s Structure provides important accounts related to the concept representation, and the key conceptual changes that occur during a scientific revolution. Kuhn sought to determine ways of representing concepts and taxonomies by frames (Barker 224-230). Kuhn's work attempts to show that incommensurable paradigms can be rationally compared by revealing the compatability of attribute lists of say a species outlined in a pre-Darwinian and a post-Darwinian milieu accounted for in two incommensurable taxonomies, and that this compatability is the platform for rational comparison between rival taxonomies (Barker 230-231). With a view to comparing normal science to revolutionary science, Kuhn illustrates his theory of paradigms and theory of concepts within the history of electricity, chemistry and other disciplines. He gives attention to the revolutionary changes that came about as a result of the work of Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Roentgen, and Lavoisier.

Kuhn's work was influencial for rhetoricians, sociologists, and historians (and, in a more muted way, philosophers) for the development of a rhetorical perspective. His view on perception, concept acquisition and language suggest, according to Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s analysis of Kuhn’s philosophy, a cognitive perspective (Nickles 183).

Ethos

Examinations of the ethos of scientists (individually and collectively spawned significant contributions in the field of rhetoric of science. Michael Halloran notes in “The Birth of Molecular Biology” (Rhetoric Review 3, 1984) – an essay that is a rhetorical analysis of James D. Watson and Francis H. Crick’s “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid” – that a large part of what constitutes a scientific paradigm is the ethos of its practitioners. This ethos is about an attitude and a way of attacking problems and propagating claims (Harris "Intro," Landmark xxxi).

In "The Rhetorical Construction of Scientific Ethos," Lawrence Prelli provides a systematic analysis of ethos as a tool of scientific legitimation. Prelli's work examines the exchange of information in the court of public opinion. His work provides insight into the ways in which scientific argumentation is legitimized, and thus insight into public science policy. One of the domains of rhetoric is civic life. Rhetorical criticism of science offers much in the investigation of scientific matters that impinge directly upon public opinion and policy-making decisions (Harris "Intro," Landmark xxxiii).

Rhetorical Figures in Science

Corresponding to distinct lines of reasoning, figures of speech are evident in scientific arguments. The same cognitive and verbal skills that are of service to one line of inquiry – political, economic or popular – are of service to science (Fahnestock 43). This implies that there is less of a division between science and the humanities than initially anticipated. Argumentatively useful figures of speech are found everywhere in scientific writing.

Theodosius Dobzhansky in Genetics and the Origin of Species offers a means of reconciliation between Mendelian mutation and Darwinian natural selection. By remaining sensitive to the interests of naturalists and geneticists, Dobzhansky – through a subtle strategy of polysemy – allowed a peaceful solution to a battle between two scientific territories. His expressed aim was to review the genetic information bearing on the problem of organic diversity (Ceccarelli 41, 53). The building blocks of Dobzhansky’s interdisciplinary influence that saw much development in two scientific camps were the result of the compositional choices he made. He uses, for instance, prolepsis to make arguments that introduced his research findings, and he provided a metaphoric map as a means to guide his audience (Ceccarelli 57-58). One illustration of metaphor is his use of the term "adaptive landscapes." Seen metaphorically, this term is a way of representing how theorists in two different fields can unite (Ceccarelli 57).

Another figure that is important as an aid to understanding and knowledge is antimetabole (refutation by reversal). Antithesis also works toward a similar end.

An example of antimetabole:

• Antimetabole often appears in writing or visuals where the line of inquiry and experiment has been characterized by mirror-image objects, or of complementarity, reversible or equilibrium processes. Louis Pasteur's revelation that many organic compounds come in left-and right-handed versions or isomers as articulated at a 1883 lecture illustrates the use of this figure. He argues in lecture that "life is the germ and the germ is life" because all life contains unsymmetrical/asymmetrical processes (Fahnestock 137-140).

Critique of Rhetoric of Science

Renewed interest today in rhetoric of science is its positioning as a hermeneutic meta-discourse rather than a substantive discourse practice (Gaonkar 25). Exegesis and hermeneutics are the tools around which the idea of scientific production has been forged.

Criticism of rhetoric of science is mainly limited to discussions around the concept of hermeneutics, which can be seen as follows:

• Rhetorical hermeneutics is about a way of reading texts as rhetoric. Rhetoric is both a discipline and a perspective from which disciplines can be viewed. As a discipline, it has a hermeneutic task and generates knowledge; as a perspective, it has the task of generating new points of view (Gross Rhetorical 111). The question as to whether rhetorical theory can function as a general hermeneutic, a key to all texts, including scientific texts, is still today a point of interest to rhetoricians.

• By understanding how human beings understand each other, texts of natural science can be viewed as a product of human interaction. Conceived in this way, rhetoric of science fosters the potential of rhetorical explanation of all scientific texts, journals and documents. Although natural sciences and humanities differ in fundamental ways, science as enterprise can be viewed hermeneutically as a suite of texts exhibiting a study of knowledge (epistemology) based on understanding (Gross “On Shoulders” 21).

A recent critique about the rhetoric of science literature asks not if science is understood properly, but rather if rhetoric is understood properly. Much dissention around the reading of scientific texts rhetorically stems from the difference between an agent-centered orientation of traditional rhetorical theory that is inconsistent with the postmodern view of subject and its agency (Gross “Intro” Rhetorical 1-13). Detractors of this form of critical or theoretical approach focus on the way rhetoric appears as a thinly veiled language of criticism in such a way that it is applicable to almost any discourse (Gaonkar 33, 69). This quarrel is about how rhetorical theory is seen as a global hermeneutic (Gross “Intro” Rhetorical 12).

Dilip Gaonkar in "The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science" looks at how critics argue about rhetoric, and he unfolds the global ambitions of rhetorical theory as a general hermeneutic (a master key to all texts), with the rhetoric of science as a perfect site of analysis - a hard and fast case.

In his analysis of this 'case', Gaonkar looks at rhetoric's essential character first in traditional sense (Aristotilean and Ciceronian). The he looked at the practice of rhetoric and the model of persuasive speech from the point of agency (productive orientation) or who controls the speech (means of communication). Gaonkar asserts that rhetoric seen as a tradition, and from the point of view of interpretation (not production or agency), rhetorical theory is "thin." The rhetorical tradition is one of practice, while the theory evinces practice and teaching (Gross "Intro" Rhetorical 6-11).

Gaonkar believes that this type of globalization of rhetoric undermines rhetoric’s self-representation as a situated practical art, and in so doing, it runs counter to a humanist tradition. It runs counter to the interpretative function of a critical metadiscourse. If there is no more substance, no anchor, no reference to which rhetoric is attached, rhetoric itself is the substance, or the supplement, and thus becomes substantial, giving rise to the question how well rhetoric functions as interpretative discourse (Gaonkar 77).

Dilip Gaonkar’s provocations have successfully opened the way to a broad reaching discussion that led to the defense of rhetoric analyses of scientific discourse. These provocations concern rhetoric as a metadiscourse as well as its purpose in terms of hermeneutic scholarship. In response to Gaonkar's provocations, various scholars offer a broad reaching defense that produced essays on rhetoric and neo-Aristotileanism and humanism, rhetoric and the model of intentional persuasion. This discussion includes rhetoric’s knowledge-producing capacity (Gross "Intro," Rhetorical 7-8). Components or aspects of rhetoric such as arrangement, style, topoi (topics), audience, ethos, invention, genre and figuration where given much attention in linguistic, philosophical and sociological intellectual circles as seen in their productive output (Harris “Knowing” 173).

Responses to Gaonkar's provocations are many, and a few examples will suffice.

• When Gaonkar asks if a theory grounded in practice can be translated into a theory of interpretation, Michael Leff in "The Idea of Rhetoric as Intepretative Practice: A Humanist's Response to Gaonkar" see his views as too extreme, treating as opposites two positions that are in dialectic tension (rhetoric as production and rhetoric as intepretation), and separating intepretation from practice in order to establish a causal, rather than accidental, relationship between rhetoric and the globalalization of rhetoric. Leff echoes Edwin Black's Rhetorical Criticism to illustrate that intepretation itself is part of the tradition (Gross "Intro" Rhetorical 11).

• John Angus Campbell in "Strategic Readings: Rhetoric, Intention, and Interpretation" also found in Rhetorical Hermeneutics is a verification of Leff's analysis (113). He argues, however, against Gaonkar's notion of invention and the mediation between producer or writer and the audience of a text. He explains that while indeed hermeneutic practice requires a "metadiscource" since texts require a "redescribing" from the source and from one person to another, and that making something known - in the rhetorical sense - means that it must be "invented," he accuses Gaonkar of committing hermeneutical error when he calls the aim of a "redescription" as a dissolving type of discursive practice into an interpretitive meaning a preferred metadiscourse (114). The differences between Campbell and Gaonkar is one of theory, and not whether agency figures in criticism (115).

See also

• Argumentation
• Classification
• Contingency
• Epistomology
• Figure of Speech
• Gödel's incompleteness theorem
• Hans-Georg Gadamer
• Inventio
• Logos
• Science
• Tropes
• Truth

Works Cited

• Aristotle. Rhetoric. Trans. W. Rhys Roberts. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 2004.

• Baake, Ken. Metaphor and Knowledge: The Challenges of Writing Science. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2003.

• Barker, Peter, Xiang Chen and Hanne Andersen. “Kuhn on Concepts and Categorization.” In Thomas Kuhn. Ed. Thomas Nickles. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003.

• Bazerman, Charles and René Agustin De los Santos. "Measuring Incommensurability: Are toxicology and ecotoxicology blind to what the other sees?" 9 January 2006. [1].

• Bazerman, Charles. “Reporting the Experiment: The Changing Account of Scientific Doings in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1665-1800." In Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science: Case Studies. Ed. Randy Allen Harris. Mahwah: Hermagoras Press, 1997.

• Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Rhetoric: The Quest for Effective Communication. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

• Campbell, John Angus. "Scientific Discovery and Rhetorical Invention." In The Rhetorical Turn: Inventions and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry. Ed. Herbert W. Simons. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

• Ceccarelli, Leah. Shaping Science with Rhetoric: The Cases of Dobzhansky, Schrödinger, and Wilson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001.

• Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.

• Fahnestock, Jeanne. Rhetorical Figures in Science. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.

• Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London: Verso, 1975.

• Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar. “The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science.” In Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science. Eds. Alan G. Gross and William M. Keith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

• Gross, Alan G. "On the Shoulders of Giants: Seventeenth-Century Optics as an Argument Field." In Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science: Case Studies. Ed. Randy Allen Harris. Mahwah: Hermagoras Press, 1997.

• Gross, Alan G. "The Origin of Species: Evolutionary Taxonomy as an Example of the Rhetoric of Science". In The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry. Ed. Herbert W. Simons. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

• Gross, Alan G. The Rhetoric of Science. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990.

• Gross A., and William M. Keith. Eds. "Introduction." Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

• Harris, Randy Allen. “Knowing, Rhetoric, Science.” In Visions and Revisions: Continuity and Change in Rhetoric and Composition. Ed. James D. Williams. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2002.

• Harris, Randy Allen. Incommensurability. 3 February. 2006. [2].

• Harris, Randy Allen. "Introduction." Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science: Case Studies. Ed. Randy Allen Harris. Mahwah: Hermagoras Press, 1997.

• Jasinski, James. Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2001.

• Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

• Maturana, Humberto R., and Varela, Francisco J. The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1987.

• Moore, John A. Science as a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern Biology. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.

• Nickles, Thomas. "Normal Science: From Logic to Case-Based and Model-Based Reasoning." In Thomas Kuhn. Ed. Thomas Nickles. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003.

• Prelli, Lawrence J. A Rhetoric of Science: Inventing Scientific Discourse. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989.

• Toulmin, S. "The Uses of Argument." In The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 2nd ed. Eds. Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzberg. Boston: Bedford, 1990.

Other Readings

• Barnes, B., D. Bloor, and J. Henry. Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Bazerman, Charles. Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. “Reporting the Experiment: The Changing Account of Scientific Doings in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1665-1800” by Charles Bazerman in Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science is found in chapter 3 of that text.
• Bookstein, Fred L., and James A. Winn. "Rhetoric of Evidence Among Cognitive Scientists and Critics." SEHR , 4.1 (1995). 27 December. 2005. [3].
• Campbell, John Angus. "Scientific Revolution and the Grammar of Culture: The Case of Darwin's Origin." Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (1986):351-376.
• Ehrlich, Paul R., and Anne H. Ehrlich. Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996.
• Fuller, Steve. Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
• Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar. "Rhetoric and Its Double: Reflections on the Rhetorical Turn in the Human Sciences." In The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry. Ed. Herbert W. Simons. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
• Hacking, Ian. Incommensurability, Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
• Halliday, M. A. K., and J. R. Martin. Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. London: Falmer, 1993.
• Halloran, S. Michael and Annette Norris Bradford. "Figures of Speech in the Rhetoric of Science and Technology." Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse. Ed. Robert J. Connors et al. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984.
• Harris, Randy Allen. Ed. Rhetoric and Incommensurability. West Lafayette: Parlor Press, 2005.
• Kuhn, Thomas S. "Commensurability, Comparability, Communicability." The Road Since Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
• Latour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979.
• Leff, Michael. "The Idea of Rhetoric as Interpretative Practice: A Humanist Response to Gaonkar." The Southern Communication Journal 58 (1993): 296-300.
• Miller, Carolyn. "Genre as Social Action." Quarterly Journal of Speech 70: 151-57.
• Schryer, Catherine F. "Genre Theory, Health-Care Discourse, and Professional Identity Formation." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 19.3 (2005):249-278.
• Scott, R. L. "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic." Central States Speech Journal (1967) 18:9-16.
• Todorov, Tzvetan. "The Origin of Genres." New Literary History 8(1) (1976): 159-170.
• Waddell, Craig. "The Role of Pathos in the Decision-Making Process: A Study in the Rhetoric of Science Policy." Quarterly Journal of Speech 76 (1990): 381-400.
• Wander, Philip C. and Dennis Jaehne. "Prospects for 'a rhetoric of science.'" Social Epistemology 14.2/3 (2000): 211-233. 30 December. 2005. [4] (PDF file)