Lately in class we have been discussing the five canons of rhetoric. The five canons consist of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Despite having taken many English classes in high school, this is a topic that was never brought to my attention before. Sometimes I can be guilty of just throwing words on a paper without even realizing exactly what I’m writing, which now I am starting to realize that doing that can become confusing to my audience. Although I have always considered myself a decent enough writer, I feel as though these canons can help me improve my writing by miles.
Style is one of the canons that stood out to me. Everyone has their own way of writing and their own style, but do we realize what our style is? As I’m sitting here writing this post, I couldn’t even tell you what my own style of writing is. I feel as though my style of writing would be hard to put a label on. Since I am a mass communications major who focuses on journalism, my style of writing for my major is very different than my style of writing for my minor, which is professional and technical writing. My style also changes depending on the type of piece I write. For example, my blog posts are very laid back since my audience is my classmates, but in a research paper I wouldn’t write this casual. I feel as though being a good writer can consist of changing your style based on what you have to write.
Delivery is probably the canon I struggle the most with. When it comes to public speaking, I get a bit nervous. I always imagine that it’s going to go one way and I’m going to sound amazing, but once I get up in front of everyone I forget everything that I wanted to do. You would think that I would be good at public speaking and delivering a message since I am a very social person, but I think it is the professionality of it that scares me. I will say though that my public speaking has greatly improved since my freshman year of college. I also just realized that delivery is not only about your tone of speaking, but it is about how you present yourself and your body language. Personally, I feel better talking in front of a group of people if I am standing in front of a podium of some sort (I’m sure I’m not the only one like that). I always wondered how my professors can just get up in front of a class and lecture on for an hour with no issue.
Sometimes it can be hard for me to focus on just one subject and organize my thoughts onto a paper, which is when invention comes into play. In high school we were always told to brainstorm, but I never found it helpful when it came to writing a paper. Personally, I didn’t see the point of briefly jotting down all of the things that I was eventually going to write about anyway. This is all probably why I sometimes have troubles organizing my thoughts. I also work better under pressure, which is another reason why I can’t just jot down all of my ideas before I write a paper. Of course, if it came to giving a speech, I would prepare what I was going to say before I got up there. But, since a paper is written on my own time alone I just find it easier to write my words as I go.
Overall I believe that these canons can benefit me not only for my major and minor, but for things outside of school. They especially come in handy when it comes to applying for a job and getting an interview. Hopefully as the semester goes on my writing skills and rhetoric will greatly improve.
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