History Bump

She intends on investigating the correlation between "rhetorical invention and invention as a generic activity" giving attention to how invention is treated or maintained in other fields, and then applying various approaches of creating or generating ideas to teaching rhetorical invention in composition (4).

In order for us to understand how we should use rhetorical invention in composition, we must, LeFevre believes, understand our history of it (rhetoric/composition theory); and we must understand how other fields are defining, describing, and applying it. The hope is that these techniques (whatever they may be) will allow LeFevre to better understand "what happens when writers and speakers invent situations that are conventionally regarded as more paradigmatically rhetorical" (4). Therefore, by investigating how invention is defined and used in other fields, she hopes to locate any social elements that will shed light on how invention might be taught in a writing classroom.

At the time of her investigation, she suggests that the particular methodology she's suggesting had not been “sufficiently tried and tested” (4).

She investigates theories from scientific and technical writing, biology, speech communication, rhetoric, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and literature (Renaissance period).

The table of contents (TOC) lists a classical history of invention and its limitations. It shows that LeFevre uses examples and comparisons. It shows the different types of "invention," how invention might be used and under what circumstances, the role that invention plays, and the process for/of inventing, the role of "language" in invention. Additionally, the TOC informs the reader that there are future implications for scholars, researchers, teachers, and possible applications for using invention techniques in the classroom.