Rhetoric and Composition

Scholarly Societies and Associations

• American Communication Association:
  a not-for-profit organization, a virtual professional association with actual presence in the world of scholars and practitioners alike. ACA was created to promote academic and professional research, criticism, teaching, practical use, and exchange of principles and theories of human communication.
• American Society for the History of Rhetoric:
  organized in 1977 as the American Branch of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. Its purpose is to foster the study of rhetoric in all historical periods in American as well as other cultures.
• Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Documentation (SIGDOC):
  a Special Interest Group for DOCumentation - a society of senior communication professionals. Members are from all technical and scientific disciplines, those who create documentation in the computing community and those who use of computers to create documentation in many styles and mediums.
• Association of Teachers of Technical Writing:
  (Registration required)
• Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication:
  site contains a variety of information relating to the function, activities, and history of the CPTSC.
• Council of Writing Program Administrators:
  a national association of college and university faculty with professional responsibilities for (or interests in) directing writing programs.
• IEEE Professional Communication Society:
  primary mission of the IEEE (PCS) is to help engineers and technical communicators develop skills in written and oral presentation.
• International Speech Communication Association: to promote Speech Communication Science and Technology, both in the industrial and Academic areas, covering all the aspects of Speech Communication.
• International Writing Centers Association: the Syracuse University Writing Program
• International Society for the History of Rhetoric:promotes the study of both the theory and practice of rhetoric in all periods and languages and the relationship of rhetoric to poetics, literary theory and criticism, philosophy, politics, religion, law and other aspects of the cultural context.
• Modern Language Association:
  provides opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and to discuss trends in the academy.
• National Communication Association:
  a scholarly society and as such works to enhance the research, teaching, and service produced by its members on topics of both intellectual and social significance.
• Rhetoric Society of America:
  purpose of this Society shall be to gather from all relevant fields of study...
• Society for Technical Communication:
  an individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication.

Indexes and Databases

• American Rhetoric contains three datatbases. The Online Speech Bank is a database containing over 5000 full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recordings. Links are arranged alphabetically by first name. Rhetorical Figures in Sound contains 200+ short audio clips from well-known speeches, movies, sermons, popular songs, and sensational media events by famous (and infamous) politicians, actors, preachers, athletes, singers, and other noteworthy personalities. American Top 100 Speeches contains an index to and partial database of the 100 most significant American political speeches of the 20th century, according to 137 leading scholars of American public address.

Links to Lists of Resources

• Composition, Rhetoric, and Writing Programs on the Web http://eee.uci.edu/programs/comp/others.html a list of links form the University of California, Irvine.
• Rhetcomp.com http://rhetcomp.com/ a well organized list of links created by Matthew A. Levy of the University of Texas, Arlington.