LAW AND RHETORIC BIBLIOGRAPHY: SELECTED READINGS AND
RESOURCES
Contemporary Composition Theory
James A. Berlin, Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical
Theories, reprinted in THE WRITING TEACHER’S SOURCEBOOK (GARY TATE, EDWARD
P.J. CORBETT & NANCY MYERS EDS., 3D ED. 1994).
James A. Berlin, Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class, reprinted in THE
WRITING TEACHER’S SOURCEBOOK (EDWARD P.J. CORBETT, NANCY MYERS & GARY
TATE, EDS., 4TH ED. 2000).
SUSAN MILLER, THE NORTON BOOK OF COMPOSITION STUDIES (2009).
GARY TATE & AMY RUPIPER, A GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY COMPOSITION PEDAGOGIES
(2014).
COMPILED BY KIRSTEN K. DAVIS, JULIE OSEID, AND KRISTEN TISCIONE
JULY 2014 (RESOURCES MARKED WITH * ARE GOOD PLACES TO BEGIN READING)
FOUNDATIONAL RHETORICAL THEORY AND HISTORY
Classical
*ARISTOTLE, ON RHETORIC (George A. Kennedy trans. 1991).
EDWARD P.J. CORBETT & ROBERT J. CONNORS, CLASSICAL RHETORIC FOR THE MODERN
STUDENT (4th ed.1999).
PATRICIA BIZZELL & BRUCE HERZBERG, THE RHETORICAL TRADITION: READINGS FROM
CLASSICAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT (2d ed. 2000).
A SHORT HISTORY OF WRITING INSTRUCTION: FROM ANCIENT GREECE TO TWENTIETHCENTURY AMERICA (JAMES J. MURPHY ED., 1990).
RHETORICAL METHODS
Rhetorical Criticism/Analysis
*SONJA K. FOSS, RHETORICAL CRITICISM: EXPLORATION AND PRACTICE (4th ed.
2008).
JIM A. KUYPERS, RHETORICAL CRITICISM: PERSPECTIVES IN ACTION (2009).
Defining the “Rhetorical Situation”
*Lloyd Bitzer, The Rhetorical Situation, 1 PHILOSOPHY AND RHETORIC 1 (1968).
Richard E. Vatz, The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation, 6 PHILOSOPHY AND
RHETORIC 154 (1973)
Composition Research Methods
GESA KIRSCH & PATRICIA A. SULLIVAN, METHODS AND METHODOLOGIES IN
COMPOSITION RESEARCH (1992).
Argumentation
LAW AND RHETORIC
STEPHEN E. TOULMIN, THE USES OF ARGUMENT (2003).
Contemporary Rhetorical Theory
Books
PATRICIA BIZZELL & BRUCE HERZBERG, THE RHETORICAL TRADITION: READINGS FROM
CLASSICAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT (2d ed. 2000).
KAREN A. FOSS, SONJA K. FOSS & ROBERT TRAPP, READINGS IN CONTEMPORARY
RHETORIC (2001).
KENNETH BURKE
A GRAMMAR OF MOTIVES (BERKELEY 1945/1969).
A RHETORIC OF MOTIVES (BERKELEY 1950/1969).
LANGUAGE AS SYMBOLIC ACTION (1966).
JOHN LOUIS LUCAITES, CELESTE M. CONDIT & SALLY CAUDILL, CONTEMPORARY
RHETORICAL THEORY: A READER (1998).
CHAIM PERELMAN & L. OLBRECHTS-TYTECA, THE NEW RHETORIC: A TREATISE ON
ARGUMENTATION (1969).
STANLEY FISH, DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY: CHANGE, RHETORIC AND THE
PRACTICE OF THEORY IN LITERARY AND LEGAL STUDIES (1989).
MICHAEL H. FROST, INTRODUCTION TO CLASSICAL LEGAL RHETORIC: A LOST HERITAGE
(2005).
PAUL GEWIRTZ & PETER BROOKS, EDS., LAW’S STORIES: NARRATIVE AND RHETORIC IN
THE LAW (1996).
PETER GOODRICH, LEGAL DISCOURSE: STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS, RHETORIC, AND LEGAL
ANALYSIS (1987).
*AUSTIN SERAT & THOMAS KEARNS, EDS., RHETORIC OF LAW (1996).
JAMES BOYD WHITE
JUSTICE AS TRANSLATION: AN ESSAY IN CULTURAL AND LEGAL CRITICISM
(1990).
HERACLES’ BOW: ESSAYS ON THE RHETORIC AND POETICS OF LAW (1985).
WHEN WORDS LOSE THEIR MEANING: CONSTITUTIONS AND RECONSTITUTIONS
OF LANGUAGE, CHARACTER, AND COMMUNITY (1985).
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Articles
RHETORICAL CRITICISM OF LEGAL TEXTS
Linda L. Berger, Studying and Teaching “Law as Rhetoric”: A Place to Stand,
16 J. LEG. WRITING 3 (2010).
Robert M. Cover, The Supreme Court, 1982 Term -- Foreword: Nomos and
Narrative, 97 HARV. L. REV. 4 (1983).
Gerald Frug, Argument as Character, 40 STAN. L. REV. 869, 869-927 (1988).
Marouf A. Hasian, Jr., Critical Legal Rhetorics: The Theory and Practice of
Law in a Postmodern World, 60 SO. COMM. J. 44, 44-56 (1994).
Victoria Kahn, Rhetoric and the Law, 19 DIACRITICS 21 (1989).
Gerald D. Klinger, Law as “Communicative Praxis”: Toward A Rhetorical
Jurisprudence, 30 ARGUMENTATION AND ADVOCACY, 23 (1994).
John Louis Lucaites, Between Rhetoric and ‘the Law’: Power, Legitimacy, and
Social Change, 76 Q. J. SPEECH 435 (1990).
Francis J. Mootz, III., Introduction to Recalling Vico’s Lament: The Role of
Prudence and Rhetoric in Law and Legal Education, 83 U. CHI.-KENT L. REV.
1097 (2008).
Kristen K. Robbins (Tiscione), Paradigm Lost: Recapturing Classical Rhetoric
to Validate Legal Reasoning, 27 VERMONT L. REV. 483 (2003).
*Gerald B. Wetlaufer, Rhetoric and Its Denial and Legal Discourse, 76 VA. L.
REV. 1545, 1545-1586 (1990).
*James Boyd White, Law as Rhetoric, Rhetoric as Law: The Arts of Cultural
and Communal Life, 52 U. CHI. L. REV. 684 (1985).
Linda Berger, How Embedded Knowledge Structures Affect Judicial Decision
Making: A Rhetorical Analysis of Metaphor, Narrative, and Imagination in
Child Custody Disputes, 18 S. CAL. INTERDISCIPLINARY L. J. 259 (2008).
Adina C. Carlson, You Know It When You See It: The Rhetorical Hierarchy of
Race and Gender in Rhinelander v. Rhinelander, 85 Q. J. OF SPEECH 111
(1999).
Robert Danisch, Aphorisms, Enthymemes, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. on
the First Amendment, 27 RHETORIC REV. 219 (2008).
Kirsten K. Davis, The Rhetoric of Accommodation: Considering the Language
of Work-Family Discourse, 4 U. ST. THOMAS L. J. 530 (2007).
Katie L. Gibson, In Defense of Women’s Rights: A Rhetorical Analysis of
Judicial Dissent, 35 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 123 (2012).
William Lewis, Of Innocence, Exclusion, and the Burning of Flags: The
Romantic Realism of the Law, 60 S. COMM’N J. 4 (1994).
Carole M. Parker, The Perfect Storm, the Perfect Culprit: How A Metaphor of
Fate Figures in Judicial Opinions, 43 MCGEORGE L. REV. 323 (2012).
Trevor Parry-Giles. Character, the Constitution, and the Ideological
Embodiment of “Civil Rights” in the 1967 Nomination of Thurgood Marshall
to the Supreme Court, 82 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH 364 (1996).
C. J. Picart, Rhetorically Reconfiguring Victimhood and Agency: The
Violence Against Women Act’s Civil Rights Clause, 6 RHETORIC AND PUBLIC
AFFAIRS 97 (2003).
J. Clarke Rountree, Instantiating the “Law” and its Dissents in Korematsu v.
United States: A Dramatistic Analysis of Judicial Discourse, Q. J. of Speech,
87, 1 (2001).
J.K., Wood, Balancing Innocence and Guilt: A Metaphorical Analysis of the
US Supreme Court’s Rulings on Victim Impact Statements, 69 WESTERN J. OF
SPEECH COMM. 126 (2005).
RHETORICAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING/TEACHING LEGAL WRITING
Linda L. Berger, Linda H. Edwards, and Terrill Pollman, The Past, Presence,
and Future of Legal Writing Scholarship: Rhetoric, Voice, and Community,
16 J. LWI 521 (2010).
Blumenfeld, Barbara, Rhetoric, Referential Communication, and the Novice
Writer, 9 L. COMM’N & RHETORIC: JALWD 207 (2012).
Kirsten K. Davis, Legal Forms as Rhetorical Transaction: Competency in the
Context of Information and Efficiency, 79 U.M.K.C. L Rev. 667 (2011).
Julie A. Oseid, The Power of Zeal: Teddy Roosevelt’s Life and Writing, 10 L.
COMM’N & RHETORIC: J. ALWD 125 (2013).
Theresa Phelps, The New Legal Rhetoric, 40 S.W. L. J. 1089 (1986).
Christopher Rideout & Jill Ramsfield, Legal Writing: A Revised View, 69
WASH. L. REV. 35 (1994).
Christopher Rideout, Voice, Self, and Persona in Legal Writing, 15 LEGAL
WRITING: J. LEGAL WRITING. INST. 67 (2009).
Michael R. Smith, Levels of Metaphor in Persuasive Legal Writing, 58 MERCER
L. REV. 919 (2007).
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OTHER RESOURCES
Rhetoric-Related Blogs
Bibliographies
Bits: Ideas for Teaching Composition, Bedford St. Martins,
blogs.bedfortstmartins.com/bits.
Rhetorica, Andrew Cline, rhetorica.net.
Rhetoric and Composition Weblog list (rhetoric, rhetoricians, and the
teaching of communication skills), www.rhetoric.eserver.org/blogs.
The Blogora, Rhetoric Society of America, www.rsa.cwrl.utexas.edu
Jim Aune, Legal Rhetoric Bibliography, 2005-2010,
rsa.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/4734 (January 20, 2011).
Nedra Reynolds, Jay Dolmage, Patricia BizzelL & Bruce Herzberg, The
Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing (7th Ed. 2012) (searchable at
www.bb.bedfordstmartins.com).
Michael R. Smith, Rhetoric Theory and Legal Writing: An Annotated
Bibliography, 3 ALWD: J. of Leg. Comm’n & Rhetoric 129 (2006).
The Conference on College Composition and Communication Bibliography of
Composition and Rhetoric 1984-1999, www.ibiblio.org/cccc (searchable).
Rhetoric-Related Journals (Interdisciplinary)
Law and Society Journals, www.lawandsociety.org/Otherpubs.html.
List of Communication Journals, www.americanrhetoric.com/
communicationjournals.htm.
List of Communication Studies Journals that Include Rhetoric-Focused
Articles, www.natcom.org/journals.aspx.
List of Rhetoric Related Journals, Rhetoric Society of America, Journals,
www.rhetoricsociety.org/aws/RSA/pt/sp/resources#list_sites-4-RSA.
Communication and Mass Media Complete, searchable database that
includes key rhetoric journals (ask your library about access).
Legal Writing Journals
Legal Communication and Rhetoric: Journal of the Association of Legal
Writing Directors.
Legal Writing: Journal of the Legal Writing Institute.
Rhetoric-Related Organizations
Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities.
www.law.syr.edu/academics/centers/lch/main.html.
Conference on College Composition and Communication,
www.ncte.org/cccc.
Kenneth Burke Society and Journal, www.kbjournal.org
Law and Society Association, www.lawandsociety.org.
List of Communication Associations,
www.americanrhetoric.com/communicationassociations.htm
National Communication Association, www.natcom.org.
Rhetoric Society of America, www.rsa.org.
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