The Ethics of Clarity and/or Obscuration

Autor/in	Kreuter, Nate
Titel	The Ethics of Clarity and/or Obscuration
Quelle	In: Composition Forum, 27 (2013), (18 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Ethics; Audiences; Reflection; Rhetorical Theory; Ideology; Intellectual Disciplines; Writing Instruction; Writing (Composition) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ethik; Spectator; Zuschauer; Ideologie; Geisteswissenschaften; Schreibunterricht; Schreibübung
Abstract	The essay examines the ethical tensions surrounding the common cultural and disciplinary demand that writers write "clearly." The essay seeks to advance the discipline's engagement with Linda Kintz's and Sharon Crowley's separate critiques of the "ideology of clarity," arguing that clarity potentially manipulates audiences primarily through either strategic or unintentional omissions of critical information. Deploying Kenneth Burke's notion of ingenuous and cunning identification, it advances an argument that, through persistent acts of omission, clarity can become a cunning rhetorical form, a form often set into motion by unintentionally manifested cultural pressures. The essay ends by proposing five definitions of clarity currently circulating within the discipline, before a final reflection upon the inherent tension (both stylistic and disciplinary) between clarity and obscuration. (Contains 1 table and 2 notes.) (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition. e-mail: cf@compositionforum.com; Web site: http://compositionforum.com
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10