Examining technical reports from Kolin and Kolin's Models for Technical Writing using Kenneth Burke's Pentad
Date
Authors
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Altmetrics
Abstract
It has been over forty years since Kenneth Burke created the Dramatistic Pentad as a tool for examining literary form. In that time, the pentad has proven to be a useful and versatile instrument in the fields of communication, education, composition, and, of course, literary analysis. An illustration of this versatility is the fact that the pentad has been applied to all these fields just over the past fourteen years. In 1972, David Ling used the pentad to uncover motives behind the rhetorical construction of Senator Edward Kennedy's address on the death 1 of Mary Jo Kopechne. Joseph Comprone, in 1978, suggested the pentad as a heuristic tool for freshman composition students and teachers. In 1983, Jeffrey Nelson wrote about the pentad's use as a tool for basic speech students "to provide them with a better theoretical base for understanding communication." And three years later in March of 1986, Richard Coe used the pentad to write a literary analysis of Brom Stoker's Dracula.