While there are many courses and tutorials online, learning from a book is still one of the best ways to greatly improve your skills. Below I have selected top Rhetoric books.
- The Elements of Rhetoric — How to Write and Speak Clearly and Persuasively: A Guide for Students, Teachers, Politicians & Preachers (2016)
- Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing (2017)
- Rhetoric (Dover Thrift Editions) (2004)
- The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric (2002)
- Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric (2016)
- A Rhetoric of Argument: Text and Reader (2003)
- Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (2013)
- Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion, Updated Edition (2013)
- Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama (2016)
- Mastering Logical Fallacies: The Definitive Guide to Flawless Rhetoric and Bulletproof Logic (2016)
- Rhetoric. (2019)
- Rhetoric (2013)
The Elements of Rhetoric — How to Write and Speak Clearly and Persuasively: A Guide for Students, Teachers, Politicians & Preachers (2016)
The Elements of Rhetoric offers a concise, comprehensive course in the rules for making your point stick. With copious examples from such masters of language as Cicero, Augustine, Shakespeare, Erasmus, Lincoln, Dickens, Newman, Chesterton, and Lewis, you will discover the 26 rules of persuasion and learn to apply them.
Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing (2017)
Taking a unique approach to building your writing skills, Understanding Rhetoric is the one-and-only composition comic book.
Rhetoric (Dover Thrift Editions) (2004)
One of the seminal works of Western philosophy, Aristotle’s Rhetoric vastly influenced all subsequent thought on the subject — philosophical, political, and literary. Focusing on the use of language as both a vehicle and a tool to shape persuasive argument, Aristotle delineates with remarkable insight both practical and aesthetic elements and their proper combination in an effective presentation, oral or written.
The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric (2002)
Who sets language policy today? Who made whom the grammar doctor? Lacking the equivalent of l’Académie française, we English speakers must find our own way looking for guidance or vindication in source after source. McGuffey’s Readers introduced nineteenth-century students to “correct” English.
Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric (2016)
Masters of language can turn unassuming words into phrases that are convincing, effective, and memorably beautiful. Lincoln and Churchill had this power: having heard their words once, one can scarcely imagine the world without them. What are the secrets of this alchemy? The answer lies in rhetoric, among the most ancient of academic disciplines.
A Rhetoric of Argument: Text and Reader (2003)
The stasis approach pioneered by Fahnestock and Secor distinguishes among four basic questions that arguments are written to answer: What is it? (Definition arguments) How did it get that way? (Causal arguments) Is it good or bad? (Evaluation arguments) What should we do about it?
Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (2013)
Rhetoric was once an essential part of western education. Aristotle wrote an important treatise on it and Demosthenes remains famous to this day for his skills as a rhetorician. But skill with rhetoric today is no longer admired. Rhetoric is often seen as a synonym for shallow, deceptive language-empty words, empty rhetoric–and therefore as something quite negative.
Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion, Updated Edition (2013)
Verbal Judo is the martial art of the mind and mouth that can show you how to be better prepared in every verbal encounter.
Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama (2016)
In Words Like Loaded Pistols, Sam Leith traces the art of persuasion, beginning in ancient Syracuse and taking us on detours as varied and fascinating as Elizabethan England, Milton’s Satanic realm, the Springfield of Abraham Lincoln and the Springfield of Homer Simpson.
Mastering Logical Fallacies: The Definitive Guide to Flawless Rhetoric and Bulletproof Logic (2016)
“If I have learned anything in ten years of formal debating, it is that arguments are no different: without a good understanding of the rules and tactics, you are likely to do poorly and be beaten.”―HENRY ZHANG, President of the Yale Debate Association Your argument is valid and you know it; yet once again you find yourself leaving a debate feeling defeated and embarrassed.
Rhetoric. (2019)
This book is the cross-section where my real life and social media personas meet for a good ol’ fashioned tripping of the life fantastic.
Rhetoric (2013)
Aristotle’s Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BC. In English, its title varies: typically it is titled the Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric. Like the other works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity, the Rhetoric seems not to have been intended for publication, being instead a collection of his students’ notes in response to his lectures.
Best Rhetoric Books Worth Your Attention
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some rhetoric books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
The Rhetorical Construction of Vegetarianism (Critical Food Studies)
Author(s): Cristina Hanganu-Bresch (editor)
ID: 3621708, Publisher: Routledge, Year: 2023, Size: 8 Mb, Format: pdf
A Gossip Politic
Author(s): Andrea McDonnell, Adam Silver
ID: 3628628, Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2023, Size: 3 Mb, Format: pdf
Ethos, Logos, and Perspective: Studies in Late Byzantine Rhetoric
Author(s): Florin Leonte
ID: 3639318, Publisher: Routledge, Year: 2023, Size: 969 Kb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not errorless. Some books are absolutely hot items according to The Wall Street Journal, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.