Greetings CSSR and CASLL list members.

On my professional web page I have posted a number of internet search 
results that may be of interest to colleagues who share an interest in 
how the word "rhetoric" is being used online and where the field is 
being taught in academic programs:

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~smit/RhetLinks/index.htm

    * (NEW) Result Counts for "Rhetoric and ... " through Google.ca, May
      14, 2008
    * Communication programs with strengths in Rhetoric. BA through PhD.
      , October 2007
    * Rhetoric Programs: Interdisciplinary. October 2007 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those who are interested, here are some interesting pieces of 
information from the Google.ca result counts at 
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~smit/RhetLinks/RhetoricGoogle.htm  I hope the 
results of my curiosity these past two days will bring at least a small 
fraction of the insight and laughter and puzzlement to my colleagues as 
it did to me. 

    * *"Rhetorical studies"* (phrases were searched in " " marks as an
      exact phrase) is found just about as frequently online as "writing
      studies," but half as frequently as "composition studies."  But we
      are dwarfed by a ratio of 110 : 1 by mentions of "cultural
      studies" on the internet.

    * *The words "rhetoric" and "rhetorical,"* both results combined,
      appear slightly more frequently than the words "persuasion" and
      "persuasive" combined.  So the word "rhetoric" is more common than
      one might think, though it is hugely outnumbered by the result
      counts for the words "media" and "writing" (the latter of which is
      also a verb, raising its count).  

    * *Politics, sexuality, and technology* are the most frequently
      mentioned topic/contexts associated with rhetoric, among more than
      80 combinations I searched for.  (I searched for phrase
      combinations such as adjective/noun pairs like "political
      rhetoric." Then, in a separate list I searched for slightly more
      distant combinations joined by and/of -- "rhetoric and/of X" and
      "X and rhetoric." )

    * *Compared to the quantity of global internet chatter about
      rhetoric, the discourse found on Canadian pages **(at least in
      English) **is a very soft whisper*, especially on most of the
      really popular topics.  On average, the Canadian portion of all
      results was 1.9% of the whole result count among the "rhetoric and
      X" findings, and 3.3% of the result count among the conjoined
      adjective/noun pairs.  On my "rhetoric and X" chart, our pages
      only seem to stand out on a few of the less popular topics,
      starting half way down the , as our percentages of the whole
      finally go above 3% of all hits.

    * Considering that the average portion of Canadian results is 1.9 to
      3.3 % of all hits, *Canadian results for "rhetoric and
      professional writing/communication"  stands out at a WHOPPING
      29.7% of all results! * (15,810 all : 4,691 Cdn.) At the same
      time, Canadian page instances of "rhetoric and"...  for business,
      engineering, marketing, public relations, and
      organizational/corporate rhetoric were at 0.0% of all hits.  (??)
      *
      *
    * *Also at a high Canadian-portion of hits was the relatively less
      popular topic "Canadian rhetoric" (774)*, with, unsurprisingly,
      223 Canadian page hits (28.8%).  Compare those results to
      "American rhetoric" at 175,000 hits (5,080 of them on Canadian
      pages), "Native American / Native / Aboriginal rhetoric" at 3,257
      hits (42 on  Canadian pages), and "Australian rhetoric" at 249
      hits (1 on a Canadian page).

    * *Apparently on Canadian pages people are NOT talking about the
      second most popular topic on all pages, "sexuality and
      rhetoric."*  The ratio is more than 1 million hits on other pages
      compared to a measly 9 hits on our pages.   Hmmmmm.  Maybe we
      simply have other topics on our minds.  Our pages seem to have a
      lot more to say about #1 and #3 on the list (politics, technology).

    * *The most common negative adjective/noun pair I found was "empty
      rhetoric," *an invective which has been expressed on the internet
      about 208,000 times.  Still, 208,000 instances is much less
      frequent than each of the top 10 topics of rhetorical discussion,
      the most popular numbering in the millions of hits.  The term
      "good rhetoric" was the most frequent among the positive adjective
      combinations I checked, but at 26,800 hits was still about 10x
      less frequent than "empty rhetoric," proving that most people
      would much rather complain or critique bad rhetoric than praise or
      coach good rhetoric.  


What a fun diversion it was to compile these Google.ca search result 
lists.  I now return to dealing with my May 15 deadlines and to 
composing my CSSR and RSA conference papers for the end of the month. 


-- 
Tania S. Smith
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Communication & Culture
University of Calgary
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~smit


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