A rhetorical process for scholarly self-publishing

Extrapolating from theories of ancient and modern rhetoricians, particularly those of Mikhail Bakhtin, who insisted on the primacy of dialogical context as sign and on the importance of sign for creating meaning, this dissertation argues that scholars, increasingly excluded from traditional publishing channels, empower themselves through technology currently available. Based solidly in the premises of the rhetorical canon, this dissertation illustrates methods which scholarly self-publishers may use to create and extend the dialogical process and thereby create communities, meaning, and reality. Chapter 1 establishes the context in which this study is undertaken, examining philosophies which both underlie and support it. Chapter 2 offers a discussion of the rhetorical process which gave impetus to the survey used to gather information for this dissertation, along with an evaluation of that survey. Chapter 3 considers the human impulse for order and the role of arrangement (order) in the rhetorical process of self-publishing. Chapter 4 advises scholars on the considerations and implications of visual rhetoric, and Chapter 5 describes the various electronic media available to scholars who may empower themselves through the publishing process, a process which not only allows them the vital opportunity to extend the dialogical process to create fields of meaning and communities of reality, but one that also allows them to control, completely, the way in which these messages are received.