Mozart: Symphony No. 40

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21. Piano by Maurizio Pollini

Mozart Requiem in D minor

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20. Piano: Mitsuko Ukida

Mozart : Violin Concerto No. 3. Violin: Hilary Hahn

COM 250 / Week 9 Discussion: Artistic Proofs of Rhetoric: What I Have Found in Our Political Campaigns

     Consider a recent election in your area. Explain how the candidates used the three artistic proofs in their campaigns. Provide examples from speeches, TV/radio commercials, or web sites to support your answer.

COM 250 / Week 9 Discussion: Public Speaking: My Experience

    Tell us something about your public speaking experience. What is your major accomplishment or stumble? Was your speech well-received or did it end in a fiasco; why? What lesson(s) did you learn from your experience?

COM 250 / Week 9 Discussion: Social Position and Rhetoric Strategies

  Consider a recent issue of public conflict such as immigration reform or health care access or any other issue which you are familiar. Explain how social position impacts those who speak on that issue.

COM 250 / Week 9 Discussion: What Exactly Is Rhetoric?

    So, tell me what is exactly rhetoric. Our textbook considers it as a form of energy the drives and is imparted to communication, and argues that all communication carries some rhetorical energy.  So, what exactly is that "energy"? Have you ever experienced that rhetorical energy which make your blood boiling? I think of Martin Luther King Jr., JFK, and Lenin. Those people have profoundly changed the world with their rhetorical energy. But again, what is exactly that mystical energy?  

COM 250 / Week 9 Discussion: Rhetoric and Truth: Can We Have Both?

    As our textbook says, human societies have been perplexed with the "truth" nature of rhetoric since we had the first democratic polity in Greece (500 B.C.E.).  We kept asking: "does rhetoric help speakers and listeners discern truth, or is it merely concerned with what an audience can be persuaded to believe?"  Since the main purpose of rhetoric is to persuade, especially on matters of urgency and for immediate effect, how can we be safe to assume that truth is not sacrificed for persuasive purpose?  Consider the rhetorical bombard (or rhetorical pollution if I may) we are facing daily through mass media and public speech, how can we  keep a clear mind and our discernment?  Have you ever tried to take all those rhetorics, a.k.a, strategic communication, to task in regard to their truthfulness?