Lesson TwoInvention

Neijiang Normal University - Instructor: Brent A. Simoneaux

We will not have class next Monday or Tuesday.

We will need to make up the class next week.

OfficeHours

Wednesdays 1:00 – 3:00

Websitehttp://www.slideshare.net/bsimoneaux

From last week’s lesson, you should know:

• What argument is

• Why we argue

• How culture might create obstacles when writing argumentative essays

Last Week’s Objectives

“The aim or purpose of argument is to use logic (both inductive and deductive) to

create reasoned communication of ideas, insights, and experiences to some audience

so as to produce a new understanding of some issue for that audience.”

So, what is argument?{argument}

A question of degree{argument}

Spectrum of Content

exposition argumentation persuasion

facts facts

+

analysis

emotional

or

irrational

{argument}Logic

Why do we argue?

To create a dialogue in an effort to discover truth.

By the end of this lesson, you should know:

How to use different thinking processes to systematically develop and analyze key ideas

prior to the drafting process.

Today’s Objectives

Rhetoric, as an art, has long been divided into five major categories or "canons":

• Invention • Arrangement

• Style • Memory • Delivery

What is invention?

These categories have served both analytical and generative purposes. That is to say, they provide a pattern for rhetorical education.

What is invention?

The word ‘invention’ comes from the Latin inventio, which implies a process of discovering ideas or perceiving new

relationships among ideas.

Invention is tied to the rhetorical appeal of logos, being oriented to what an author would

say rather than how this might be said.

What is invention?

                                                                                                               

The Greek word is heuresis: “to find”

The past perfect form of the verb is eureka: "I have found it"

What is invention?

"Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist of creating out of void, but out of chaos. . . Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject and in the power of molding and fashioning ideas

suggested by it.”

-Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

What is invention?

"Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the

memory; nothing can come of nothing."

-Joshua Reynolds

What is invention?

1. Definition

2. Exemplification

3. Comparison

4. Causality

5. Effects

What is invention?

1. Always isolate and analyze key ideas

2. Pursue any vague but interesting ideas relevant to some part of the writing prompt or audience as they turn up in your thinking and notes

3. Realize that an idea discovered in definitional thinking might be further developed and analyzed in cause and effect, or exemplification or comparison

Guiding Concepts

The basic idea of invention is simply to create as much material as you can.

Create, create, and create even more.

At the end you are going to have a lot of material to work with when you write your first draft. Of

course, you won’t use everything.

Guiding Concepts

It’s alright to be messy! The goals is not neatness or perfection. Rather, the goal is to generate as

much material as possible.

Do whatever works best for you.

Guiding Concepts

All of our examples are going to be for the general topic:

“Love for teenagers in our culture”

Guiding Concepts

Definition as a Thinking Process

Whole definition formula(Key idea to be analyzed) + (form of the verb to be) + (category idea) + (restricting ideas)

Definition as a Thinking Process

Procedure:1. Begin with a key idea to think about.

2. Follow that word by is or are or any other tense or form of the verb to be.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Procedure:3. Think of a category that somehow restricts

your word; you may use the phrase kind of to help create a restricting category; the category word or phrase follows is or are.

4. Use one of these words (who, that, when, if, by, because, or caused by) to add ideas [in a clause or phrase(s)] that further restrict and define the category word or phrase.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Whole definition formula(Key idea to be analyzed) + (form of the verb to be) + (category idea) + (restricting ideas)

Definition as a Thinking Process

ExplanationThe formula is a mechanical device to

stimulate thinking. After the first step, each of the following steps in the formula helps to

create analysis of ideas in the previous step.

Definition as a Thinking Process

ExplanationChoose a key idea from the writing prompt (or an interesting but abstract idea that turns up in

your notes) to place in the first slot. Some form of the verb to be will cause your mind to

follow that verb with an idea that begins to define and analyze the key but vague idea.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Procedure:3. Think of a category that somehow restricts

your word; you may use the phrase kind of to help create a restricting category; the category word of phrase follows is or are.

Definition as a Thinking Process

(key idea)

(to be)

(category)

ExampleKey idea + to be + category:Love for teenagers in our culture is

a mytha need

defined by peers defined by media

an escape

Definition as a Thinking Process

Procedure:4. Use one of these words (who, that, when, if,

by, because, or caused by) to add ideas [in a clause or phrase(s)] that further restrict and define the category word or phrase.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Key idea + to be + category + restricting ideas

Love is defined by peers when peers gain status within a group through love relationships.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Key idea + to be + category + restricting ideas

Love is defined by peers because our culture places more value on youth and its ideas than

on older adults.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Key idea + to be + category + restricting ideas

Love is defined by peers when love relationships become associated with consumer

objects or pop culture heroes.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Key idea + to be + category + restricting ideas

Love is defined by peers when an understanding of love comes from immediate

experience.

Definition as a Thinking Process

Now, it’s your turn to try it by yourself.

Whole definition formula(Key idea to be analyzed) + (form of the verb to be) + (category idea) + (restricting ideas)

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

ProcedureCreate examples that illustrate key words,

ideas, or concepts. These may come directly from the writing prompt or from notes in any

other section of the invention guide where vague, abstract, or general ideas occur.

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

ExplanationExemplification is a type of analytical thinking

through which a general, abstract idea or concept is analyzed or thought about by

discovering the parts, the pieces that exist behind the whole.

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

ExplanationFor example, if you were to say “friendship is important,” that would be an abstract, general

idea. If you then cited or defined particular acts and explained why they are important, you

would have a developed an example, not a generalization.

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

ExplanationDirect your mind to come up with many well-defined examples that will make an abstract

idea more easily comprehended.

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

Example

From definition thinking:Love for teenagers in our culture is defined by the media when advertisements use love or sex

to sell a product.

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

Example

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

ExampleAccording to this ad, love is instantaneous and powerful. Love is also chivalrous and dutiful,

putting one in harm’s way.

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

ExampleThe definition of love in the example is that

love occurs immediately and is mainly physical—is between young, beautiful people—and that males can win love through “heroic” deeds and

by offering gifts.

Exemplification as a Thinking Process

Now, it’s your turn to try it by yourself.

Direct your mind to come up with many well-defined examples that will make an abstract

idea more easily comprehended.

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ProcedureLook for ideas or concepts that can be thought

about by comparisons of similarities and/or differences. Any important ideas in the writing prompt or in your invention guide notes that are still general or vague may be further developed by comparative thinking. Find a relevant idea

or experience to create a comparison.

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ProcedureHelp make comparative thinking efficient by

creating focus points, specific points of comparison through which two or more ideas,

experiences, or objects can be analyzed.

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ExplanationComparative thinking works in two basic ways:

1. Make the comparisons in terms of shared similarities or unshared contrasts. This form

generates ideas when something less familiar is compared with something more familiar.

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ExplanationComparative thinking works in two basic ways:

1. The result is often new ideas and insights into both halves of the comparisons. Make the comparisons in terms of shared similarities or

unshared contrasts.

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ExplanationComparative thinking works in two basic ways:

2. A second form is analyses for similarities and differences when both parts of the

comparisons are known but unexamined. Create comparisons to reveal details of

similarity and contrast for previously known but unanalyzed ideas, objects, experiences, and

so on.

Comparison as a Thinking Process

Explanation Remember, vague but good ideas will turn up in your invention guide notes without another

comparison neatly attached. You have to recognize the possibility for comparative

thinking and create the other half—the thing to compare your ideas and notes with.

(Sometimes, of course, both parts of a comparison are present.)

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ExplanationOnce you have two halves of comparisons, help

your mind to work efficiently by creating “focus points” for the comparison.

Ask yourself, what do I want to learn from comparing X with Y?

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ExampleGiven our two sides of media influences versus

parental influences, here are some possible focus points:

• views on love• views on sex

• definitions of who loves whom• when to love

• what type of person is worthy to love

Comparison as a Thinking Process

ExampleFocus point: What type of person is worthy of

love?

Now, we can create a chart to help us compare and contrast.

Comparison as a Thinking Process

Parents Media

Someone responsible Someone attractive

Someone who will take care of you

Someone who has the right things (ie., clothes, car, cell phone)

Someone like what they want you to be

Someone like what you wish you could be (ie., someone attractive with the right clothes, car, cell phone)

Comparison as a Thinking Process

Now, it’s your turn to try it by yourself.

Direct your mind to come up with many well-defined comparisons that will make an abstract

idea more easily comprehended.

Causality as a Thinking Process

ProcedureIsolate a key idea from the writing prompt or from previous invention guide notes that is

relevant, but still underdeveloped. Continue to think about those ideas using causal analysis.

Take a key idea or ideas from your notes and follow it with the word because or the phrase

caused by.

Causality as a Thinking Process

ExplanationCausality helps you to discover why or how some idea, event, value, attitude, belief, or

feeling occurs; causality provides reasons for.

Causality as a Thinking Process

ExplanationFrom our comparison notes above, we might

work with trying to analyze what causes some teenagers in our culture to define feelings

(love) in relationship to purchase products.

What are the reasons (causes for) behind buying clothes to capture or retain someone’s

love?

Causality as a Thinking Process

ExampleClothes sold in magazine ads often show

upper-middle-class, males and females in some comfortable setting—laughing, smiling, embracing. The ads cause the reader to

associate these clothes with feelings seemingly experienced by the models.

Causality as a Thinking Process

Causality as a Thinking Process

ExampleThe kind of definition created by these ads suggest love is only for young, beautiful

people, involves material objects to sustain love, and has nothing to do with an individual’s

worth or character.

Buy the object—you get the love.

Causality as a Thinking Process

Now, it’s your turn to try it by yourself.

Direct your mind to come up with many well-defined causalities that will make an abstract

idea whole more easily comprehended.

Effects as a Thinking Process

ProcedureReview key ideas for ideas that could be further

developed by analyzing the effects of those ideas. Use these two questions to generate

effects analysis:

(1)What has happened because X exists?(2) What is likely to happen in the future

because X exists?

Effects as a Thinking Process

ExplanationThe analysis of effects requires the mind to

take an idea, action, belief, experience, or value and then to consider what will result from any one of those. Effects, as a way of thinking, allow you to take a cause X and then trace its results or series of effects in

today’s world, or you can go back in time to some cause and trace its effects forward to

the present.

Effects as a Thinking Process

ExplanationAnother type of effects analysis allows you to

speculate about possible future effects of some present cause.

Effects as a Thinking Process

ExampleAfter watching television sitcoms such as “The

Cosby Show” for years, a teenager may come to the conclusion (effects follow) that nothing could (or should) prevent love (example from

“The Cosby Show”).

Effects as a Thinking Process

Effects as a Thinking Process

Effects as a Thinking Process

ExampleVanessa, the 18-year-old daughter of a doctor

and a lawyer, goes off to college and falls in love with the 29-year-old maintenance man

in her dorm. At first, her parents have doubts about the relationship. By the end of the show, however, they have accepted their young daughter’s fiancé as “one of the

family.”

Effects as a Thinking Process

ExampleThe teenager then begins to see (effects follow)

young love as indestructible. A young person should go to any length to guarantee the fulfillment of love. Age isn’t a factor, family background isn’t a factor, family

acceptance isn’t a factor—romance is the thing.

Effects as a Thinking Process

ExampleLater in life, a teen may, consciously or

unconsciously, use the ideas of love gained from shows like “The Cosby Show” when

deciding whether or not their present relationship is good of bad.

Effects as a Thinking Process

Now, it’s your turn to try it by yourself.

Direct your mind to come up with many well-defined effects that will make an abstract idea

whole more easily comprehended.

HomeworkWrite 8 – 10 pages of invention notes in your writing notebook. You must use all types of

invention in your notes.

Remember, pursue any vague or general ideas and try to make them more concrete.

This does not need to be neat! In fact, it’s probably going to be messy.

ReadingRead Chapter 8; pages 246 - 256

NextWeek

Researching & The Internet