How would someone on this sub know a moderators car in real life ? <| sep |> Honestly , if you don ' t have much background in rhetorical history , I ' d hold off on Aristotle initially . Start with chapter four of Craig Smith ' s Rhetoric and Human Consciousness A History 2009 , which deals with Aristotle ' s Rhetoric and gives a decent overview . For a sense of how the classical tradition of rhetoric can help with understanding contemporary argumentation , take a look at Edward P . J . Corbett Rosa A . Eberly ' s Elements of Reasoning 2 nd ed . 2000 , a brief college introduction that covers classical concepts from the perspective of applying them to your own writingreading . For more indepth approaches , see Jeanne Fahnestock Marie Secor ' sA Rhetoric of Argument Text and Reader 2003 or John Ramage John C . Bean ' s Writing Arguments A Rhetoric with Readings various editions . If you find yourself getting interested in the intellectual history that arises from Aristotle and other classical scholars , James Golden Goodwin Berquist ' s The Rhetoric of Western Thought various editions , a collegelevel survey text , does a decent job of recounting the history of rhetoric from classical to contemporary times .