ABSTRACT
Writing in the reporting process involves rhetoric – not in the pejorativemeaning the
word often has in everyday use: ‘That is just rhetoric! It is not true!’ Instead, it can be
regarded as an attempt to convince someone of something – or, more elaborately:
[The] exercise of arguing in such a way as to make what one says plausible
and accessible to one’s hearer [or reader], to bring it home to him or her – in
a manner which enhances the hearer’s ability to make what one says an
independent part of his or her own perceptions and decisions.
