Rhetorical Research

Scavenger Hunt
Assignment Description:
This brief worksheet requires students to familiarize
themselves with communication research search
engines and databases.
Students will use the worksheet to find five
foundational articles and to locate five additional
articles related to their interests.
Students will also find two articles from a list of
available topics and search out a topic of unique
interest to them.
Students do not need to read these articles beyond
the abstract.
 Rhetorical Research
Scavenger Hunt
Purpose:
Employers are increasingly seeking candidates capable of identifying compelling
information to optimize customer experience, support marketing campaigns, and
generate new and innovative solutions. This assignment offers you an opportunity
to conduct academic research. Increasing your research skills throughout the
semester will allow you to identify biased media, produce more dynamic writing,
and support more complex argumentative structures.

Task:
Use the UNLV Library Guides to find the Communication and Mass Media
Complete Database (http://guides.library.unlv.edu/c.php?g=332890&p=2238881)
Search for the five articles listed below. Read only the article abstracts. You do
not need to download or read the full text of the article.
Use the abstracts to answer the questions on the back of this sheet. Finally,
choose two of the words in the word bank and provide a reference to a rhetorical
studies article that includes the words. In this part of the task, students should find
two rhetoric articles related to the two terms they’ve chosen. Finally, students
should search a wild card term and be prepared to discuss the results with the
class.
Hint: Include the word “rhetoric*” in an advanced search box to narrow to articles
that include the word rhetoric/rhetorical within their abstracts.

Criteria:
Check off each of the five articles below when you’ve found them. Use the
abstracts to answer the questions, don’t over think your responses, many of the
questions are prompted by the abstract itself.
Single sentence answers should be sufficient to respond to the questions.
• Bitzer, L. F. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 1(1), 1-14.
• Poulakos, J. (1983). Toward a Sophistic definition of rhetoric. Philosophy &
Rhetoric, 16(1), 35-48.
• Edbauer, J. (2005). Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical
situation to rhetorical ecologies. RSQ: Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 35(4), 5-24.
• Zarefsky, D. (2012). Philosophy and Rhetoric in Lincoln's First Inaugural
Address. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 45(2), 165-188.
• Chavez, K.R. (2015). Beyond Inclusion: Rethinking Rhetoric's Historical
Narrative. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 101(1), p. 162-172.
 Rhetorical Research
Scavenger Hunt
First:
Use the article abstracts to answer the following questions with single
sentences:
• What might Bitzer (1968) describe as the work of a rhetorician?
• Which five traits does Poulakos (1983) suggest rhetoricians should
investigate?
• What concepts does Edbauer (2005) add to the rhetorical situation?
• How does Zarefsky describe the effect of Lincoln’s first inaugural
address?
• Why does Chavez (2015) want us to break from the history of
rhetoric?

Next:
Using the word bank of
topics provided, select two
words and provide two
references to articles
whose titles and abstracts
suggest that they would
inform others about the
selected topic

Finally:
Choose a ”wildcard” search term related to your interest, curiosity, or
other areas of knowledge and see what results you discover. Write down
your search terms and the number of results. Be prepared to discuss
the results with the class.

Search Term: ___________. No. of Results: ______