“Digital Invention: A Repository of Online Resources for College Composition Instruction”

by Mary K. Stewart | Xchanges 10.2/11.1

Invention

There’s a lot more to idea generation and development than “prewriting” or “brainstorming;” invention is a highly adaptable process required for every act of composition.

Invention = Idea Generation

Invention, the first of Aristotle’s five rhetorical modes (invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory), is the process of generating ideas; it helps the writer or speaker identify a subject or develop ideas about a subject. As Janice Lauer (2004) explains, invention “provides guidance in how to begin writing, to explore for ideas and arguments, to frame insights, and to examine the writing situation” (1).

Theories of invention offer strategies for exploring the context around a subject, which can be traced to the Sophists’ idea of kairos, “the right moment; the right place.” Kairos influenced the terms stasis (Greek) and status (Latin), meaning the “starting point of discourse.” Aristotle used stasis as an invention strategy, and also identified “common topics” (lines of argument) and “special topics” (categories that prompt the rhetor to identify and examine a subject or audience). He further proposed enthymeme (working from a premise that one assumes the audience accepts) and example as methods of rhetorical reasoning. These techniques all help the rhetor identify and develop a subject/argument.

Invention = Pre-Text

I find it useful to conceptualize invention as what Stephen Witte (1987) calls “pre-text.” Witte defines pre-text as a linguistic representation of an idea that exists in your mind before you put it on paper. This is not a plan for the paper; it is a thinking mechanism. It is the beginning of an idea that “writers can hold in memory and manipulate in various ways before transcribing it as written text” (Witte, 398). Pre-text also produces “emerging text” (words that become part of the final product), which Witte argues is crucial to the composing process.

For Witte, pre-text is produced when a person uses language to articulate thought, but it does not necessitate speaking; theoretically, one could think the words silently and this would count as pre-text. However, Witte’s method for measuring pre-text was a talk-aloud protocol, so I hypothesize that pre-text is most effective when writers articulate their ideas using informal language. I further hypothesize that pre-text can be spoken (either to one’s self or to another person) as demonstrated in Witte’s experiment, or it can be written using informal language, which is what happens during inventive writing.

Invention = Not Exclusive to Academic Writing

Importantly, invention is not exclusive to academic writing — idea generation is just as significant for a business email, blog post, Facebook update, or tweet as it is for an academic paper. Further, invention is not limited to writing — it is required for every act of composition, including the visual and spatial elements of digital projects.

Invention = More than Prewriting

Often, composition instructors teach their students invention strategies under the label, “prewriting,” but prewriting is just one form of invention. There are many theories of and strategies for teaching invention (Lauer, 2004), three of which are of particular interest to this project: classical invention, prewriting, and tagmemic invention.

• Classical invention involves locating and interpreting existing knowledge to begin an argument;
• prewriting is an exploratory process that uses self-generated associative thinking to create meaning; and
• tagmemic invention synthesizes multiple perspectives to create new insights.

For more complete definitions and applications of these theories, please see the Practicing Invention and Teaching Invention pages.