Achieving the rhetorical stance is a prized if elusive attribute for writers. The rhetorical stance involves “maintaining [...] balance among [...] arguments about a subject, interests and peculiarities of audience, and the voice, or implied character, of the speaker” (166).

Three corruptions exemplify an out-of-balance rhetorical stance: the pedant’s stance (ignoring audience), the advertiser’s stance (devalues subject for pure effect) and the entertainer’s stance (sacrifice gravitas for voice). Oftentimes, these corruptions or inauthentic performances result from a poorly crafted writing assignment.

The prescription for studying balance uses the example of models, who exemplify the elusive balance of rhetorical stance. These models include any author “passionately involved in thinking an important question through, in the company of an audience” (170).

Wayne C. Booth, The Sitter's Stance