Talk:Rhetoric (Aristotle)

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[edit] Under development

Please note that this article is underdevelopment. Creating an outline first creates the categories for adding in information over the next few days and provides an outline of the book. This is a legitimate way to develop an article. Please if you have something substantive to add, add it! This way we can work together to create a fine article. Otherwise, please leave the structure in place to allow organized development. Cyg-nifier 10:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Please don't add headers without content. It looks odd and there's no need for it. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Gosh, even more harassment. This article is marked as a stub, which makes it clear it is under development. Leave it alone. Oddness is not a defining criteria for/against articles on Wikipedia. Accuracy and verifiability and, oh gosh....collegialiaty is. There is a need for creating the outline to give the structure and if others choose to collaborate, it makes clear the organization that is in process. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SwanSZ (talk • contribs) 21:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC).
I think we've discussed this before, haven't we, perhaps with a different user name? Anyway, do not keep on adding headers without content. If you want to write a draft before putting it in the encyclopedia, please do it in user subspace. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Please read the content policies and guidelines before continuing to revert corrections. We don't use a Harvard ref and a footnote for the same citation, because there's no need to; see WP:CITE. You also have to provide sources for your edits; you can't just add your personal opinion. Please read WP:NOR and WP:V before continuing. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 21:24, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source request

Can we have a source, please, for "The Art of Rhetoric" ... is considered by many rhetorical scholars to be the premier work ever written on the nature of persuasion."

At the moment, we have Bizzell, P. & Bruce Herzberg. (2000). The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, and Golden, James L., Goodwin F. Berquist, William E. Coleman, & J. Michael Sproule (eds) (2003). The Rhetoric of Western Thought, but no page numbers. What do they say exactly that you're using as support for that sentence? SlimVirgin (talk) 20:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Slim -- the sources are right there; page numbers are needed for direct quotes. And, this claim hardly needs referencing as it is one that is considered common knowledge in these disciplines, but illustrative sources are provided. They say what virtually everyone in the field of rhetoric says -- that the leading, premier work is Aristotle's Rhetoric; others would say that everything else is derivative. This is not a doctoral defense and this article is already far better documented than most of Wikipedia. This is nothing but harassment from you that just keeps continuing. Cut the harrassment. Cyg-nifier 21:09, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Page numbers are needed for any material that is "challenged or likely to be challenged," according to WP:V. Please read our content policies before continuing. Please don't accuse editors of harassment because they request references. Again, please say exactly what your sources say (i.e. quote them) to support that sentence, with page numbers. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:24, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

(copied from SV talk) ... In terms of the "Rhetoric" article, you have pursued me there and continue to harass. The claim that The Rhetoric is the premier work on persuasion ever written is generally accepted amongst the large discipline of rhetoricians -- of which I am a well-qualified part. Two of the leading texts on rhetorical history were cited -- and a page number is not needed as it is a general reference of a widely held claim. If an article starts in one documentation form, it is supposed to stay in that form (go read the policy). I started it in an author-date form, NOT a note form; and corrected the few in-process errors that I had made. In an attempt to appease you, I added text under each heading -- and you went back and still deleted sections. Cyg-nifier 22:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

If that claim is generally accepted, it should be easy to find sources. A page number is indeed needed if it's requested; please read the policies. As for your qualifications, please say who you are and what they are, and provide checkable references; otherwise, please don't make the claim. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I do say who I am -- it is quite clear on my user page and I make no attempt to hide my identity as accountability is one of the first tenets of scholarship. Do you establish your qualifications in discussing Aristotle? --A page number is needed in formal citations for specific quotations or a reference to a specific idea. It is not needed in making a general reference to an idea, when in many cases a page number would make no sense anyway. This is clear in all formats of referencing. Any reference given in this article is imminently checkable -- when there is no page number, the relevant section would be clear to anyone looking at the source. If someone doesn't have the source in front of them , the page number would be irrelevant. Demanding it when one has no intention of pursuing the source becomes a form of harassment, not a request for more precise scholarship. If there is no source to a specific statement, it is because it is widely held to be true. Some claims are considered widely accepted -- such as George Washington was the first president of the United States. It would be ludicrous to demand a source, much less a page number for such a claim. The same is true within many scholarly contexts. Cyg-nifier 15:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)