African-American Vernacular English (AAVE): A variety of English reflecting the linguistic diversity and experiences of African-American people. Rhetoric and Composition Scholar and Professor Geneva Smitherman said of debates about the role of AAVE and so-called Standard English:"... I want us to think about language as a source of power. And if you want to use language as a tool, as a source of power you've got to go way beyond any sort of simple notions about 'fo' or 'four' and simple notions of correctness. Because what great speakers and writers do is they try to use language as power. They try to move mountains. Because they know that the word, in fact, is power. And it isn't just in my tradition, in the African-American tradition. I'm told that in the time of the ancient Greeks, when the orator Demosthenes spoke, the people simply applauded. But when Parades spoke, they marched. So what we want people to do with language is to move people, and in fact to make them march." ("African American English: From the Hood to the Amen Corner")

Argument: A process of reasoning that defends a claim, which operates as the subject matter or theme of your essay.

Artifact (Rhetorical Artifact): The subject of rhetorical analysis. Artifacts are humanmade with the explicit or implicit goal of communication. See also: lens.

Audience: The person or group to whom texts are directed; an important if not vital component of the writing process. Audience can determine the form and content of a piece of writing, and audiences can be primary or the ones to whom a text was originally intended for, and they can be secondary or unintended, beyond the scope of who the writer imagined as being a possible reader.

Bilingualism: Refers to an individual having a repertoire of two particular named languages.

Burkean Parlor: Critic Kenneth Burke's description of the "unending conversation" of learning, which also could be seen as a metaphor for entering into academic discourse and learning to write (and think) in new environments. Here's the passage in which he describes this enduring image. Note that he used " he" to refer to all people, though in his day most of the people entering this conversation were, in fact, men: "Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress" (The Philosophy of Literary Form, University of California Press, 110–111).

Claim: A statement that the author wishes to assert. Claims may be intended to be argued as fact, definition, cause, value, or policy. See also: argument, controlling idea.

Communicative Competence: A person's ability to draw from a variety of available resources to get a message across. These resources include an awareness of sociocultural norms, the use of such strategies as ignoring incomprehensible vocabulary that is not necessary for communication, the ability to use appropriate vocabulary and sentence structure, and the ability to organize information appropriately as a coherent/cohesive discourse to be understood.

Constraint: Refers to resistance and potential limitations the writer/rhetor faces from the audience or from a particular genre and its set of conventions. Constraints of audience can include the audience's beliefs in the form of ideology or other differences between the writer/rhetor and the audience's values. Genre constraints can include conventions of presentation, structure, style, tone, and content.

Controlling Idea: Frequently, in rhetoric and composition texts, the term controlling idea is attached to the topic sentence of a body paragraph. It is the point of the paragraph, as well as a useful organizational tool in that the controlling idea helps move your argument forward while limiting the scope of the paragraph. In this text, our controlling ideas are the result of a process of inquiry that generates our micro-questions.

Credibility: The trustworthiness of the text or its author. A speaker/writer establishes credibility in a text by making and articulating logical arguments, utilizing credible sources, making their use of research transparent through proper citation, qualifying their claims, and writing/speaking appropriately to their perceived audience

Cultural Capital: In his 1985 essay "The Forms of Capital," French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu identified three primary kinds of capital: economic (money, assets), social (networks of relationships), and cultural (education and knowledge that can lead to social mobility and higher social status).

Disability Studies: Disability studies as a way of interpreting texts asks readers to consider the way certain bodies are normalized and others are stigmatized. Disability theory and the related critical lens of crip theory provide ways of seeing that expand our notion of what it means to be "normal." For example, we all will be disabled to some degree at some point in our lives, if only by virtue of getting older and having to deal with the inevitable limitations that come with changes to our bodies.

Discourse: Refers both to any act of communication intended to inform or persuade others, as well as more specifically to the shared set of linguistic and metalinguistic attributes specific to any field or profession. Rhetor James Paul Gee writes that "Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes."

Discourse Community: A group that shares a set of linguistic and metalinguistic attributes specific to their field or profession. A writer or speaker may identify a specific discourse community intended for their use of language when they identify a desired audience—such as a publication, a venue, or a professional group.

Discursive Space: When a rhetor identifies an explicit or implicit audience or venue for their writing or speaking, they have acknowledged a discursive space, which refers to the conditions of a specific set of rhetorical communication, and will affect the rhetorical choices, of language and presentation for example, of the writer/speaker.

Either/Or Logical Fallacy: Occurs when a writer or speaker oversimplifies an issue as involving only two "sides" or possibilities when many exist. Often appear as "us vs. them" arguments; for example, you either support (x) or you are a traitor.

Ethnography: Generally regarded as a subfield of study under the umbrella of Anthropology—the study of human behavior—ethnography is concerned specifically with the development of cultures and cultural behaviors. Scholarly ethnographic study often involves recorded observation and interviews, articulated in long-form nonfiction prose.

Ethos: From Aristotelian rhetoric, refers to the character and customs of a person, culture, era, or community. In rhetoric, ethos often refers to a rhetor's perceived character strength or influence, established, for example, by credibility or popular recognition.

Exigence/Exigency: Generally defined as a "need or demand," in rhetorical terms exigence or exigency refers more specifically to a text's felt sense of need to be composed, as the relationship between the arguments/claims/controlling ideas proposed by a text and the perceived timeliness and reason for proposing such claims at that time.

Genre: Compositionists think of genre as the set of standardized or common discursive practices in a particular space for a particular audience. Writing and speaking occur in specific contexts, each of which carries a history of their formats—from rock-and-roll albums to speeches.

Genre Conventions: The content and style associated within a specific genre. For example, the genre conventions of a business letter, a genre of writing, include formal letterhead and a signature. See also: genre.

Grammar: A system of language. Grammar is traditionally thought of as a set of rules associated with a language, but grammars may change within a language depending on the context—regional or social—in which language is used.

Identity: The distinguishing characteristics and conditions of an individual. Baruch recognizes the student's right to self-assign their own identities, including gender identities, and including their right to express or withhold information about their identity and define identifying terms.

Ideology: A set system of ideas or beliefs within an identified group, such as a society or discourse community. An ideology may become so implicit within a society that it is not generally discussed openly, but happens as merely a set of assumptions between members of the group before they communicate.

Idiolect: The unique and idiosyncratic linguistic repertoire of any speaker. According to some models, all living speakers have completely unique idiolects. This term describes how each one of us speaks in our own unique ways.

Inductive Reasoning: A logical strategy in which one moves from specific observations and details outward towards larger conclusions. Deductive reasoning, on the other hand, begins with larger conceptual frameworks and moves its way inward, toward specific instances. The ethnographic method of drawing acute journalistic observations towards larger conclusions about culture would be an example of an inductive method, while the scientific method of testing a larger hypothesis under specific material conditions would be an example of a deductive method.

Inquiry: The act of investigating a topic or problem. The path one takes towards addressing a topic or problem is often called a line of inquiry.

Intelligibility: The notion of being understood. What's important in using language to communicate is intelligibility, not "correct" language use.

lntersectionality: Coined by activist-scholar Kimberle Williams Crenshaw; refers to the way in which social markers such as gender, race, and class overlap and affect how a person is perceived and treated in society.

Kairos: From Aristotelian rhetoric, timeliness, moment of opportunity for action.

Language: A set of symbols used within a specific community for the purposes of communication.

Lens: In rhetoric, the point of view from which an artifact is studied and analyzed, such as a theory

Literacy: Up to the 1970s, literacy was traditionally regarded as the ability to read and write in a given named language (such as English or French), but since then, the definition of literacy has broadened to the ability to utilize language within a specific discursive space, within or beyond named languages.

Literacy Rate: The percentage of a population at a given time that can read and write.

Logos: From Aristotelian rhetoric, the use of logic and reason to appeal to an audience.

Macro-question: Briefly, the macro-question is the question your essay seeks to answer in some way. It operates as the focal point of your essay and governs the subject field and scope of your essay. Eventually, your macro-question will evolve into your thesis statement, the result of a rigorous process of inquiry.

Medium: Evolving from the word's connotative meaning as an occurrence/existence between or that interlinks two entities, medium refers to the physical means or agency by which communication occurs—such as a canvas, a computer word processor, or a camera lens.

Meta: A prefix, derived from Ancient Greek, that means "beyond," referring to being about the thing itself, or on the topic of a thing itself. For example, meta-language would refer to language about language.

Metacognition: The act of thinking about thinking. An individual can sharpen their skills at composing by thinking and writing about their own habits and practices, or, in other words, practicing metacognition.

Micro-questions: Culled from all the little questions that develop as you attempt to articulate an answer to your macro-question. They are the result of the conversation you have with your paper as you travel along an inductive process of reasoning and argumentation. A good micro-question illuminates some small, vital part of your macro-question. Micro-questions can be useful organizational tools that help you structure the flow of your argument; they can become the controlling ideas of your body paragraphs.

Multilingualism: Refers to an individual having a repertoire of multiple particular named languages.

Multimodal: Utilizing multiple methods of expression in a given composition, such as the use of images, videos, and words on a website.

Native Speaker Fallacy: Refers to the false belief that a native speaker owns a language and is best at using that language.

Pathos: From Aristotelian rhetoric, emotional appeals to an audience.

Primary Source: Firsthand evidence of a topic or object of inquiry. Creative writing, scientific studies and results, legal documents, and interviews may all be contributing primary sources in a line of inquiry.

Purpose: The implicit and explicit intentions of communication in relation to its intended audience. Purpose provides a framework by which the voice and structural decisions of a work are made.

Reasons: The proof or evidence that leads a writer or speaker to draw a conclusion or make a claim (thesis), and, vice versa, evidence they use to support a claim. Grounds or reasons can consist of statistics, quotations, reports, findings, physical evidence, or personal experience.

Recursive: Adjective used to describe a cyclical procedure, or recursion. The writing process is often described as recursive, in that steps of its process—such as drafting and revising—continue in cycles during the composition of a work.

Rhetoric: The choices of and beyond language made to interpret and create forms of communication.

Rhetorical Analysis: The act of identifying ways texts and writers attempt to persuade and communicate with readers and audiences.

Rhetorical Conventions: Refers to common elements of content and style associated with a genre—generally agreed on as standards of usage within a group or discourse community.

Rhetorical Situation: The context for something you read or write, originally devised by rhetorician Lloyd Bitzer, including exigence, audience, and constraints (see key terms on each of these for details).

Secondary Source: Information that contributes to a line of inquiry but is not created by way of first-hand experience or participation. In other words, secondary sources discuss primary sources. Scholarly books and articles are generally considered secondary sources.

Semantics: The study of the meaning of words.

Standard American English (SAE): Shorthand for the form of English language generally taught in American schools and customary in the genre of professional discourse in American English.

Structuralist Linguistics: The study of language as a formal system. In this way of thinking about language, no attention is paid to what speakers do with language. Instead, the structural linguist only studies the conventions and forms of a language.

Style: Refers to the manner in which words are used by a group or individual within a specific spoken or written discourse. Academic writing is also produced in various official disciplinary styles, such as MLA (Modern Language Association) style or APA (American Psychological Association) style, for the purposes of establishing intended audience and prioritizing specific attributes of the work.

Syntax: The structure of a sentence, including its arrangement of words.

Text: A material body of work, including but not limited to writing. Also see: artifact.

Terministic Screens: Developed by rhetorical and literary critic Kenneth Burke in Language as Symbolic Action (1966), terministic screens are lenses we use to see the world and to filter and understand the ubiquitous messages we encounter every day in a countless number of texts.

Theory: A model of explanation, developed by means of argumentation and inquiry, used to conceive of or analyze a particular world phenomenon or set of conditions.

Thesis: The main point or argument a writer makes in the essay genre, common in academic writing. A thesis is not a summary of others' ideas or a yes/no statement, but rather a statement or idea that is arguable. You could think of the thesis as the "claim" you're making or the "so what" of all your thinking represented in a paper. In our culture, genre conventions for academic papers are such that most people expect a thesis to be concise (short, clear) and near the beginning of a paper, if not in the first paragraph. The concept of a delayed thesis invites writers and readers to begin with questions in a paper and then, by the end of the paper, move toward at least preliminary conclusions to those questions.

Topos/Topoi: Commonly used theme (topos) or themes (topoi) or topics in language.

Translanguaging: The ability of each speaker to use the full range of their idiolect. Sometimes, this might look like "mixing" together two different languages. However, seen from the perspective of the speaker, translanguaging is freely using all of their words as they see fit.

Trope: A use of language, such as figurative language, for an intended effect. Tropes may collectively become recurring (and evolving) conventions of a particular genre.

Visual Rhetoric: Refers to the study of how images communicate meaning.

World Englishes (WE): Refers to a theoretical framework, a field of study, and a sociolinguistic reality. As a theoretical framework, WorldEnglishes posits that English is a diverse language and serves a variety of diverse functions across the globe. It assumes that English is appropriated by a variety of diverse populations that use it for a variety of purposes and it is natural that its norms change over time. As a field of study, WE refers to scholarship that studies Englishes, their literatures, and teaching in a variety of contexts around the world, using a wide range of inquiry methods. WE also refer to the Englishes themselves that people use, such as European English, Indian English, Singaporean English, South African English, American English, and so on.