In academia, as well as in popular culture, the prefix "neuro-" now occurs with startling frequency. Scholars now publish research in the fields of neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuromarketing, neuropolitics, and neuroeducation. Consumers are targeted with enhanced products and services, such as brain-based training exercises, and babies are kept on a strict regimen of brain music, brain videos, and brain games. The chapters in this book investigate the rhetorical appeal, effects, and implications of this prefix, neuro-, and carefully consider the potential collaborative work between rhetoricians and neuroscientists. Drawing on the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of rhetorical study, Neurorhetorics questions how discourses about the brain construct neurological differences, such as mental illness or intelligence measures. Working at the nexus of rhetoric and neuroscience, the authors explore how to operationalize rhetorical inquiry into neuroscience in meaningful ways. They account for the production, dissemination, and appeal of neuroscience research findings, revealing what rhetorics about the brain mean for contemporary public discourse.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly.

College students are expected to master new genres in every course they take. Yet composition instructors can't possibly teach students every genre they will need for their college courses or careers. Instead of telling students how to write a genre, authors Jack and Pryal help students learn how a genre works using a genre toolkit that asks three questions: "What is it?" "Who reads it?" and "What's it for?" By taking this problem-solving approach to writing, How Writing Works prepares students for any writing situation that they may encounter at school, home, or work.

In academia, as well as in popular culture, the prefix "neuro-" now occurs with startling frequency. Scholars now publish research in the fields of neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuromarketing, neuropolitics, and neuroeducation. Consumers are targeted with enhanced products and services, such as brain-based training exercises, and babies are kept on a strict regimen of brain music, brain videos, and brain games. The chapters in this book investigate the rhetorical appeal, effects, and implications of this prefix, neuro-, and carefully consider the potential collaborative work between rhetoricians and neuroscientists. Drawing on the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of rhetorical study, Neurorhetorics questions how discourses about the brain construct neurological differences, such as mental illness or intelligence measures. Working at the nexus of rhetoric and neuroscience, the authors explore how to operationalize rhetorical inquiry into neuroscience in meaningful ways. They account for the production, dissemination, and appeal of neuroscience research findings, revealing what rhetorics about the brain mean for contemporary public discourse. This book was originally published as a special issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly.

College students are expected to master new genres in every course they take. Yet composition instructors can't possibly teach students every genre they will need for their college courses or careers. Instead of telling students how to write a genre, authors Jack and Pryal help students learn how a genre works using a genre toolkit that asks three questions: "What is it?" "Who reads it?" and "What's it for?" By taking this problem-solving approach to writing, How Writing Works: With Readings prepares students for any writing situation that they may encounter at school, home, or work.

The reasons behind the increase in autism diagnoses have become hotly contested in the media as well as within the medical, scholarly, and autistic communities. Jordynn Jack suggests the proliferating number of discussions point to autism as a rhetorical phenomenon that engenders attempts to persuade through arguments, appeals to emotions, and representational strategies.
In "Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks," Jack focuses on the ways gender influences popular discussion and understanding of autism's causes and effects. She identifies gendered theories like the "refrigerator mother" theory, for example, which blames emotionally distant mothers for autism, and the "extreme male brain" theory, which links autism to the modes of systematic thinking found in male computer geeks. Jack's analysis reveals how people employ such highly gendered theories to craft rhetorical narratives around stock characters--fix-it dads, heroic mother warriors rescuing children from autism--that advocate for ends beyond the story itself while also allowing the storyteller to gain authority, understand the disorder, and take part in debates.
"Autism and Gender "reveals the ways we build narratives around controversial topics while offering new insights into the ways rhetorical inquiry can and does contribute to conversations about gender and disability.

During World War II, women scientists responded to urgent calls for their participation in the war effort. Even though newspapers, magazines, books, and films forecasted tremendous growth in scientific and technical jobs for women, the war produced few long-term gains in the percentage of women in the sciences or in their overall professional standing. In Science on the Home Front, Jordynn Jack argues that it was the very language of science--the discourses and genres of scientific communication--that helped to limit women's progress in science even as it provided opportunities for a small group of prominent female scientists to advance during the war. The book uses the experiences of individual women--from physicists Leona Marshall and Katharine Way, who worked on the Manhattan Project, to Lydia J. Roberts, who developed the Recommended Dietary Allowances--to illuminate the broader limitations of masculine scientific culture and its discourses of expertise, gender neutrality, technical expediency, and objectivity. Focusing on genres of women scientists' writing in the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, physics, and nutrition, the study identifies key characteristics of scientific culture and rhetoric that continue to limit women's advancement in science and to stifle their unique perspectives.