ABSTRACT
While gathering information about a subject, the writer is simultaneously beginning the process of organization. The rhetorical canon of arrangement refers to this responsibility of the writer. Called taxis (e.g., taxonomy) by the Greeks, arrangement in Latin is dispositio and involves five major divisions in a persuasive text: exordium, the introduction; narratio, the facts or circumstances about the subject; confirmatio, the rhetor’s evidence; refutatio, the rhetor’s explanation and rejection of opposing opinions; and peroratio, the conclusion. Because the ancients considered rhetoric as persuasion, their emphasis on the selection and arrangement of subject matter focuses on the development of these divisions—divisions important for effective forensic rhetoric. For Aristotle, arrangement can be likened to techne, an art by which one adapts means to a specific end. Not only should rhetors compose their discourse according to these key segments, but they should also judge carefully the collective effect of these segments.
