Introduction
Most of us struggle with some aspect of the writing process. How to start, how to order our points, how to communicate those points in a clear, concise, and persuasive manner, or (more generally) how to write in a consistent ‘voice’ and suitable style? This article aims to help with some such difficulties, drawing on a time-honoured framework that has been useful to writers for over two thousand years: the five canons of rhetoric.
Like many terms, ‘canon’ means different things depending on context: strictly imitative polyphony, a set of highly admired works, a set of plot-points confirmed in a specific way. In rhetoric, the ‘canons’ are five steps followed when constructing an argument. They aren’t the only way to approach that task; but they can provide at least one useful lens through which to understand our writing, and even that of others.
1. Invention (discovery, ‘finding out’, inventio, heuresis)
Invention is deciding what material you’ll use, what points you’ll make, what conventions you’ll appeal to in making them. What are your ‘keywords’? What are your arguments around those themes? Will you use some sort of ‘gimmick’ throughout the argument (variations on ONE keyword/theme, a series of puns, metaphors, or refutations of received wisdom)?
This is the ‘brainstorm’ stage, and has parallels in musical composition (scoring, key, etc.) and other art forms (first- or third-person narration, colours for a painting). Invention might even include a pop song’s ‘hook’, a main theme in a film score, or a ‘trick’ for a movement. Bernstein’s America, like many early-Baroque arie, runs almost wholly on hemiola; Purcell’s ‘Let Monarch’s Fight’ consists entirely of compressed triple upbeats (Twomey, 2020, pp. 122–23); and Monteverdi’s 1610 Laudate Pueri is, among other things, a study in incremental build up and wind down by addition and removal of voice parts (Twomey, forthcoming).
In the earliest known Western writing on rhetoric (Aristotle, Rhetoric, passim.), the Greek polymath Aristotle called such techniques topoi (hence ‘topic’); the Romans (e.g. Cicero, De Inventione, passim.) termed them loci (both words mean ‘places’, hence ‘commonplace’). A topos/locus can be as general as ‘cause and effect’ (an article on women in music history could include a paragraph on why (cause) women had difficulty being taken seriously as composers (effect)), or as specific as ‘maxims and proverbs’ (a chapter on the vicious-circle nature of misogyny could end ‘Da capo ad infinitum, and, we might add, ad absurdam’).
Invention is the assembly of raw materials, but it doesn’t entail pressure to be ‘original’. Today, we use the word ‘invention’ to mean ‘making something that’s new’, but the terms heuresis and inventio originally meant something closer to ‘discovery’, ‘finding’, ‘arriving at’; identification of useful materials. Most of these are pre-existent.
2. Arrangement (disposition, structuring, dispositio, taxis)
Arrangement involves the order of points, how to subdivide the whole, and what to include in each subdivision. If writing an essay, do you want an introduction, three points, and a conclusion? If a thesis, introduction, three chapters, conclusion? If a book, how many chapters? A chapter, how many subsections? A pop song, strophic or verse-chorus form? An orchestral piece, sonata form or through-composition?
Arrangement (which means something different in music, so best not to discuss the canon of arrangement next to arrangements of Pachelbel’s Canon) is a relatively high level of structuring: taking the raw materials assembled in invention, and laying them out in the order best fit for purpose. What goes where? Which point follows most effectively from which? This is less high-level than invention, but still not too concerned with the nitty-gritty.
According to Aristotle, speeches need an introduction (prooimion), a statement of case (diegesis), proof of case (pisteis), and a conclusion (epilogos) (Aristotle, Rhetoric, p. 166). Most of us know this structure; the middle two sections can merge into one for the tripartite ‘Tell them what you’ll say, SAY IT, tell them what you said’. Roman orators (Cicero, De Inventione, section XIV; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, pr. 6) expanded the model to a six-part structure:
Introduction (exordium): Grabs audience’s attention.
Statement (narratio): Gives facts and subject under discussion.
Division (divisio/partitio): Gives points in the order they’ll appear.
Proof (confirmatio): Gives evidence for opinion on the issue.
Refutation (confutatio): Tackles possible counterarguments.
Conclusion (peroratio): Sums up argument and makes final appeal to audience.
This looks restrictive, but it’s really only a guideline. Each section will probably have subsections, and different ways of fulfilling its role. According to Cicero, introductions should convince an audience that the speaker is qualified to speak on the issue (Cicero, De Inventione, section XV), and conclusions should feature a final blow in the speaker’s favour (Cicero, De Inventione, section LII). The proof is almost certain to include more than one piece of evidence (many teachers advise three in an essay-, article-, or conference-paper-length work), so we need to think about that section’s internal structure (what order to present the points in, having one argument lead into the next and/or add further evidence to the last, etc.). You might also blend sections; the proof could combine with the refutation, in that you could follow each point with a response to a possible counter-point. And, of course, word count might necessitate reducing the division to a numbered list, or giving just a sentence each to the introduction, conclusion, and even statement.
Like the other canons, arrangement isn’t firmly self-contained. Writing is a process, and as you lay out your proofs, you might find new facts you weren’t aware of (more invention). You might decide that you have insufficient facts to make assertions on a particular sub-subject, and move it to the refutation section (‘for future research’). And your initial invention might arrange things for you; my PhD (Twomey, 2020) covered three broad subjects (word-setting, collaboration, reader-listenership), so I gave each a chapter and framed that trilogy within an introduction and conclusion.
3. Style (phrasing, wording, elocutio, lexis)
Invention involves WHAT we say; arrangement is WHEN we say it; style concerns HOW. Again, in reality, the division isn’t so clean. Style involves vocabulary (‘what we say’, but on a more local level than conceptual invention), and the order of words in a sentence (local arrangement). If style is about ‘how’ we WRITE (‘compose’), then a later canon (delivery) deals with ‘how’ we PRESENT (or perform). But style also means thinking about aspects of writing that can’t easily be scaled up to fit into the previous canons or realised in performance.
What tone/register are we looking for? Serious, comic, mock-serious, mock-comic? When will we use short sentences, when long, multi-clause ones? How do we want the text to SOUND (stress-rhythm, repetitions, even vowel qualities)? A historical quirk of English makes Latin- and Greek-derived words seem ‘fancier’ and more ‘technical’ than Germanic ones — so will your audience appreciate the erudition of ‘lexical’, the more grounded learnedness of ‘word-based’, or the ‘slanginess’ of ‘wordy’? Are you aiming for high (formal), middle (professional), or low (colloquial) style? Will you mix different kinds of register, vocabulary, sound, and tone for special effect?
Style is more than just general tone or register, or the cumulative effect of decisions about vocabulary and word-order; it also includes a vast array of techniques variously called ‘figures of speech’, ‘rhetorical figures’, ‘rhetorical devices’, and ‘turns of phrase’. Those names make figuration sound like ornament, but many scholars argue that language is never unfigured, only figured differently. Thus, language (like music) is never style-less; what we hear as the ‘default’ is just the style we’re fluent in, and texts that seem to use no figures of speech are really just using the figures we know best.
Some figures, like ploche (identical repetition of words, as in ‘Bond. James Bond.’) and its many subtypes, are very obvious. When Handel encountered the text ‘Myself I shall adore If I persist in gazing’, he set those lines to music, then repeated them in reverse order (‘If I persist in gazing Myself I shall adore’), creating antimetabole (ABBA word repetition). The aria is about a hypnotic mirror, so the figure’s mirror-image property creates a kind of large-scale word-painting that rhetoricians call ‘iconic form.’
Other figures are more subtle: asyndeton just omits conjunctions (‘I came, I saw, I conquered’; no ‘and’ before the last ‘I’). And most figures can be made subtler or more obvious by proximity and density. Polyptoton (several words derived from one root) is very noticeable in a phrase like ‘powerful power’, but less so when discussing how ‘used with care, such figures can be highly effective, and make useful tools when we wish to give an argument coherence’. Synonymia (different words for the same thing) avoids tiring the reader with repetition; if ‘used… useful’ still seemed jarring, ‘used’ could become ‘employed’. Two or three synonyms, if dispersed irregularly throughout a paragraph, will (hopefully) look ‘natural’; those same two or three in a single sentence, or a dozen in that paragraph, could seem forced.
People are rightly quick to dismiss writing that is ‘all style and no substance’. But the style/content dichotomy is not as clear-cut as it seems, and ‘how we say a thing’ can nail down ‘what we’re saying’ more firmly (conversely, it’s hard to make nonsense stylish). The last item in a sentence/paragraph/section/article is the most memorable, so people generally think it the most important; and one might give very particular impressions by referring to a performance as an act of ‘warbling’ rather than ‘singing’.
4. Memory (memorisation, memoria, mneme):
This canon is often overlooked as relevant only to performance and not composition (Hill, 2005, p. 18). But it can still be useful to writers, especially if we examine its three main meanings.
a. Memorisation
First and most obviously, memory involves remembering something that you intend to deliver (a speech, a song, a dance routine). Rhetoric was originally the art of persuasive speaking, not writing, and orators were expected to know their speeches by heart. You won’t always need to do this, but it might be useful for a conference paper, lecture, or other live presentation. Even if you aren’t presenting entirely by heart, knowing more or less ‘where you were going with this’ will add a sense of flow, avoiding the impression of coming to terms with your own argument in real time (and saving you from having to reread your whole thesis every time you want to add a sentence).
b. Memorability
A related issue is the process of MAKING the speech/writing memorable, for yourself and your audience/reader. If your main point is in a hard-to-process sentence, people are more likely to misunderstand it. If you can’t identify where something is going, you’ll waste time trying to recall before writing or saying the next thing. Some of this memorability, as previously hinted, comes from style and figuration (a strikingly phrased sentence might linger in the mind long after being heard/read), so AWARENESS of memory is one of several guiding principles when thinking about style (and arrangement and invention; striking points grippingly laid-out). Parallels in other arts might be the ‘hummability’ of a hook in a pop song, a ready identifiableness of main theme in a film score or rondo-form movement, a gripping opening to a novel, or a striking image or line in film.
c. Foundation-laying
Memory also includes a broader internalising of rhetorical/persuasive/argumentative fundamentals: building up a mental treasure house, toolkit, or ‘utility belt’ of facts, quotes, and specialist knowledge (content on which to draw for invention), an understanding of how best to structure an argument (confident arrangement), and awareness of how to deploy various rhetorical flourishes (fluency in style), as well as experience of how best to present the argument (delivery, which we’ll come to in a moment).
Knowledge comes with experience; the more you research, the more knowledge you amass, and the easier invention becomes. Learning arrangement is even easier, or at least arrangement-templates are more easily located; but reading (and penning) as much academia as possible can help you understand your discipline’s particular spin on arrangement (paragraph length, information density, number of sections, etc.). Style is a little trickier; the analogy isn’t perfect, but if facts are the vocabulary of the language of argument (and arrangement the syntax), style is the grammar. Once you become fluent in a language/style (commit it to memory), you don’t need to think about its ‘rules’ (grammar) nearly so explicitly anymore — although it can be useful to do so, to refresh and double-check that memory. Something similar applies to delivery; the more you speak a language (or present your research, or write documents), the less you have to think about every aspect of pronunciation (or presentation, whether vocal, slide-show, or on-page), but it can still be useful to check whether your muscle memory or general habits are leading you down unhelpful paths.
How do you GET fluent in a style or a mode of delivery (or, for that matter, in arrangement or invention)? Practice makes progress. Osmosis can also be very helpful. I frequently advise students to find academic texts (or texts in academic style) on subjects they’re interested in, and to read them purely ‘for style’. Don’t worry about understanding WHAT is said (invention) but rather concentrate on HOW it is said. Similar things could be done for delivery (just pay attention to font-type, or heading-type, or diagrams, or paragraph-length, or try to speak the text and see if it twists the tongue). And it’s even easier to do readings for arrangement (read tables of contents) and invention (read indexes/keywords), though these are more obviously shortcuts (spotting a structure or idea is one thing; judging whether that structure is used effectively or whether that idea is relevant is another).
Of course, reading ‘for style’ is something of a shortcut too. Since one of style’s purposes is effective communication, this is difficult to judge when ignoring content. But a single canon can still be a useful lens, even if we can’t (and shouldn’t) ever completely filter out the other four.
5. Delivery (performance, pronunciatio, hypocrisis)
We characterised style as ‘how you say a thing’, but it’s really the ‘how’ of COMPOSITION. The ‘how’ of PERFORMANCE comes under delivery.
Delivery involves the speaking of a text (speed, enunciation, accentuation, tone [of voice], pronunciation) and all the other physical aspects of performance (posture, gesture, facial expression, clothing, and even location). This canon is most obviously useful when you’re writing scripts for yourself or someone else to speak. Have you written a tongue-twister that will trip the speaker (who may be you) up when they try to say it aloud? Have you penned a long sentence with unusual syntax, so that a speaker might struggle to know where the thought is going, and therefore where to lay the emphasis?
But some of the same principles apply to texts for silent reading. If the (silent) reader doesn’t already know the text like you do, their eyes might glaze over at a sentence full of ‘t’s (simply because it’s visually repetitive), not to mention one filled with unfamiliar terms. And they could run into some of the same problems an actual speaker might: if your wording is tongue-twisting, syntax meandering, or filled with jargon, reading it silently (delivery to oneself) may be as difficult as reading it aloud (delivery to others).
Some issues are inconspicuous in writing, but very obvious when the text is spoken aloud. We often take stock phrases as whole units, jot them down without a second thought, and wince when the dust settles to reveal irritating repetitiveness (‘The words, in other words, are not clear’; ‘I, at least, find that questionable, to say the least’). And spelling sometimes lays traps that spring when we speak; ‘laws’ and ‘cause’ don’t look like they rhyme, but ‘laws of cause and effect’ certainly SOUNDS singsong, to an extent that could undermine your argument simply by making it sound (‘sound’ in the purely auditory sense) silly.
Then there’s ambiguity. Have you written something that could be read (literally pronounced) two different ways, for two different meanings? ‘He looked up the stairs’. How is that stressed? ‘he LOOKED up the STAIRS’ would mean he stood at the bottom of a staircase and focussed his visual attention on something nearer the top; ‘he LOOKED UP the STAIRS’ probably means he typed ‘the stairs’ into Google. Will you ‘PASS ON’ (tell others) or ‘PASS on’ (skip) some information? Handel is often criticised for misaccentuating English texts in his vocal music (requiring unintuitive delivery). And while I’ve argued at length that this alters the meaning in interesting ways (‘HE shall STAND… he SHALL stand…’), the mere fact that he IS so criticised should serve as a caution (Twomey, 2020).
You need to jump through lots of hoops to make odd delivery convincing, and the more your writing relies on such quirks, the more likely readers are to miss them. Lecturers reading from their own notes get lost with text they wrote themselves: ‘One should never write a sentence with that many “p”s in it, I warn you’ (Saccio, 1995/2013, Lecture 11, 11:45–52). Silent reading has the advantage of allowing RE-reading, and maybe you wrote that tongue-twister on purpose so readers would go through the sentence several times and remember it. But might they just decide it’s badly written and skip it?
Even exemplification methods (video- and sound-clips in a slideshow, images in a text) and typography (font, font size, spacing, alignment, italics, capitals, bolding, underlining, highlighting, etc.) form part of delivery (presentation on-page). And what about punctuation? Yes, it contributes to style: long run-on sentences, or short pithy ones. But to a certain extent it also dictates the pace at which the reader tries to deliver the text in their head or aloud.
We can’t account for every possible pronunciation or interpretation, and most readers wouldn’t want us to try. People with different accents, dialects, and speeds of speech or reading WILL speak a text differently, even to themselves. An example that makes everything clear to one person may totally confuse another. And things like lighting, location, time, even dress-code aren’t always ours to control. But we can at least be aware of potential problems, try to deliver our text as we think most effective when reading it aloud (or, when writing it, prime it for effective delivery, even delivery inside the reader’s head), and avoid building our whole argument on a sound effect that half the world will inadvertently suppress.
Conclusion
The canons of rhetoric are, ultimately, tools; methods that people have found useful for effective writing and speaking. They aren’t the only tools, and shouldn’t be followed slavishly; they are often presented in the order above, but there’s no expectation that this would be the order in which they’d be undertaken. No method or theory is perfect, and no size fits all. But the more we’re aware of, the more we can try on for size, and if even a single aspect of rhetorical canon theory proves helpful, it might be a useful theory to keep in one’s toolkit. (Deliberate mixed metaphor. More memorable. Underlining to make its delivery more obvious.)
About the Author
Cathal Twomey’s research covers a wide range of subjects from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries (and occasionally beyond) with a primary focus on song.
Cathal completed a Bachelor of Music degree at Maynooth University in 2015, with a thesis on female protagonists in English Baroque opera, and a prize for first place in degree examinations, before receiving the Dunlop Prize in 2016, for an MA dissertation on word-setting in William Boyce’s Solomon. In 2021, Cathal’s PhD thesis on Handel’s English-language works, funded by the Hume Doctoral Fellowship and supervised by Estelle Murphy, passed with minor corrections.
In addition to working as an academic copy editor and musical typesetter, Cathal teaches music history and theory at Dublin City University, tutors in musicology and research methods at Maynooth University, and regularly contributes to the Rhetoricon Database (RhetFig) research project. A regular presenter at academic conferences, Cathal has published in the Handel Institute Newsletter and Händel-Jahrbuch, and is investigating postdoctoral opportunities for research on early-modern word-setting.
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