The Little Book : A Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Rhetorical Voice

The Little Book: A Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Rhetorical Voice helps students communicate with confidence in their speaking and writing. The material facilitates self-discovery and critical thinking as students learn to assess the validity of their ideas and express themselves with clarity and integrity. 

Early chapters emphasize critical thinking as the basis for original rhetorical thought, provide tips for building sound arguments, and introduce the concepts of rhetoric and sophistry. Additional chapters address appropriate word choice, the importance of analyzing an audience, defining intent and purpose, and constructing logical claims supported by credible evidence. 

The second edition content reorganization and revision to enhance the clarity of the material, increase student engagement, update material, and expand upon key concepts. It features two new chapters, “Finding Your Rhetorical Voice,” which was previously only a section within a chapter, and “Surveys and Scientific Studies: Some Caveats,” which addresses the timely topics of fake news, scientific research, and critical thinking. 

The Little Book is an ideal resource for undergraduate courses in public speaking and professional writing.

Richard N. Wood, Ph.D. is an associate professor of practice in the Norton School of Family & Consumer Sciences at the University of Arizona. He has developed classroom curricula that engages students in the process of research design and the subsequent statistical analysis of applied behavioral and social science data. Dr. Wood also developed the Critical Thinking and Rhetoric course, which is a core undergraduate requirement. He earned his Ph.D. in organizational communication with emphasis in public policy, applied research design, and statistics from the University of Arizona.