Techniques of Close Reading - Softcover

Techniques of Close Reading, Second Edition helps you gain a deeper understanding of what texts may be saying, whether they are written, oral, visual, or mediated. Renowned scholar and professor Barry Brummett explains and explores the various ways to "read" messages (such as speeches, cartoons, or magazine ads), teaching you how to see deeper levels of meaning and to share those insights with others. You will learn techniques for discovering form, rhetorical tropes, argument, and ideologies within texts.

New to the Second Edition:

• A new Chapter 6 includes a selection of techniques from each chapter to show you how different techniques may be used together when reading text.
• A close reading of a group of ads from the insurance company, Liberty Mutual, offers you an opportunity to apply the techniques to recent texts.
  
  

Barry Brummett is the Charles Sapp Centennial Professor in Communication and chair of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1978, and taught at Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin before coming to the University of Texas, Austin in 2001. Brummett has authored, coauthored, or edited numerous articles, scholarly essays, and books, including Contemporary Apocalyptic Rhetoric, Techniques of Close Reading, Rhetoric of Machine Aesthetics, and The Politics of Style and the Style of Politics. His research pursuits include the rhetoric of popular culture, epistemology, and the theories of Kenneth Burke.