Making Sense of Messages

Making Sense of Messages, now in its second edition, retains the apprenticeship approach which facilitates effectively learning the complex content and skills of rhetorical theory and criticism.-

Mark Stoner is Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at California State University, Sacramento.

Part 1: Introduction 1. What are Rhetorical Messages? 2. Criticism: What Critics do with Rhetorical Messages Part 2: Process to Product 3. Four Kinds of Critical Thinking 4. The Process of Description 5. The Process of Analysis 6. The Process of Interpretation 7. The Process of Evaluation 8. Writing Your Ideas Part 3: Analytical ToolsClassical Approaches 9. Classical Apporaches: Ancient Rhetoric 10. Classical Approaches: New Rhetoric Dramatistic Approaches 11. The Narrative Paradigm 12. Fantasy Theme Analysis 13. Burkeian Analysis Sociopolitical Approaches 14. Idealogical Approaches 15. Femnist Approaches 16. Postmoden Approaches Adaptive Critical Approaches 17. Visual Communication 18. The Rhetoric of Ignorance 19. Curating and Analyzing Multimodal Mediated Rhetoric