their mentees, and which both graduate students and faculty will repeat-

edly consult. As the authors note, “Women who read always have a line of
flight available to them, because they know that other ways of being are
possible. Women who write offer a line of flight to others” (194). By offer-
ing their readers a resource that is both motivating and useful, the authors
have charted one such flight through the profession and, as such, have given
a gift to the field.

Newark, Delaware

Out of Style: Reanimating Stylistic Study in Com-

position and Rhetoric, by Paul Butler. Logan: Utah State
UP, 2008. 194 pp.
Reviewed by Tara Lockhart, San Francisco State University

In Out of Style: Reanimating Stylistic Study in Composition and Rhetoric,

Paul Butler considers the relative absence of style both within the classroom
and within the field’s theoretical conversations. He contends that two faulty
premises are to blame for this lack: first, style has been wrongfully associated
with the part of composition history some call current-traditional-rhetoric, and
second, style has been misunderstood as the opposite of rhetorical invention.
In each case, style has been jettisoned from nearly all contemporary discus-
sions of composition theory and practice. The result, Butler claims, is the loss
of both a significant body of work and significant resources for composition.
To be clear, Butler’s working definition of style combines rhetorical
awareness, compositional choice, and habitual patterns manifested at the
level of the sentence, although he notes that stylistic effects often extend to
larger sections of discourse. This definition allows Butler to move beyond nar-
row conceptions of style as either fully unique or as naturally organic—able
to be controlled solely by the author or outside of her ability to consciously
shape—definitions which create unproductive binaries inadequate to describe
how and why style works. Instead, Out of Style offers a historical context that
charts and attempts to explain style’s disappearance. Beginning with classi-
cal rhetoric and moving through contemporary composition theory, Butler
outlines the definitions and debates that have attempted to pinpoint stylistics
and, in so doing, rewrites the history of style into a more cogent and consis-
tent narrative. In this way, Out of Style acts as a useful primer on stylistics
and its interaction with rhetoric, linguistics, and writing pedagogy.
The most interesting context provided is what Butler deems the “Golden
Age” of stylistic pedagogies (1960s to the mid-1980s). Within this period,

Book Reviews 147

he locates a range of stylistically-oriented theory and practice championed
by scholars as diverse as Edward P. J. Corbett, Richard Young, W. Ross Win-
terowd, and Richard Lanham. By paying close attention to this period, Butler
works from a familiar historiographic viewpoint to argue that in differen-
tiating ourselves from previous movements within the field we often select
particular emphases to remember—while reducing, limiting, or forgetting
other parts of our history. Specifically, Butler contends that in imagining itself
beyond the heyday of process-oriented pedagogies, the field of composition
has misremembered a portion of its history and, as a result, has woefully
left behind a rich repertoire of stylistic pedagogies that have been neither
fully theorized nor fully implemented for classroom use.
If the first three chapters provide a historical summary of style’s drifts
and resurfacings, the second part of the book analyzes this history in terms
of Composition’s representation of itself and its interests. Butler’s primary
objective in chapters 4 through 6 is to identify the sites where style still ex-
ists. Borrowing a term from Janice Lauer, Butler uses chapter 4 to examine
the “diaspora” that style has made within the field. He discusses the ways
that style has migrated—usually with little acknowledgement—into other
areas of composition: genre studies, rhetorical analysis, personal writing,
and the study of difference (including differences of culture, race, class,
and gender). Butler contends that recognizing the presence of style in these
arenas not only acknowledges important work that is already happening,
but could also encourage greater use of stylistic analysis which would, in
turn, strengthen the theoretical relevance and the persuasive appeal of each
of these sub-fields.
Chapter 5 moves outside academia to examine style’s inclusion in public
discourse. It is particularly pressing for composition scholars to take the
reins from the “public intellectuals” who Butler identifies as shaping the
popular discourse that reduces style to questions of grammar and syntax.
The exigency that largely drives Out of Style is located here: scholars within
the field must wrest back the discussion of style so that students, educators,
and the public at large might see the usefulness of stylistics beyond gram-
matical and syntactical correctness. Moreover, the field and its scholars can
then speak with thoughtful authority back to those voices that have too long
limited the terms of the discussion.
Butler models this move toward shaping the public discourse in the
closing section of chapter 5 when he responds formally to Stanley Fish,
Louis Menand, and Heather Mac Donald—the three “public intellectuals”
he criticizes for their narrow and ill-informed representations of composi-
tion—by countering their claims and situating his own arguments about
writing within an approachable and contemporary theoretical framework.
At the close of this chapter, Butler illustrates how compositionists might an-
swer challenges and articulate their own researched positions in response. If,

148 Composition Studies

instead, we as a field remain silent or respond only within our professional
spheres, Butler contends that we will continue to cede our authority and
expertise to those voices that conflate style with prescriptive grammar—and
rally publics to demand an educational return to such decontextualized and
ineffective practices.
In several places, then, Out of Style registers an activist tone. Along these
lines, one of Butler’s most interesting connections is between style and the
well-known document “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” authored
by the Committee on CCCC Language in 1974. In defending students’ use
of multiple variations of language, this statement offers a view of style and
stylistic study that Butler deems both “explicit” and “innovative,” yet it has
remained largely untouched. The “Students’ Right” document provides
another example of a call for style within the field which might be better
exploited; the attention to and analysis of style allows us to better determine
how particular effects were achieved in writing that moves between genres,
registers, or discourses. As Butler puts it, “I argue that the use of style is what
reveals how the border becomes blurred” between multiple styles; therefore,
stylistic analysis “illuminates the consequences of that blurring” (104).
Beyond such insights that punctuate this quite readable text, what is
particularly useful and encouraging about Butler’s project is his agile model-
ing of stylistic analysis. Logical and clear, Butler performs convincing stylistic
readings while simultaneously explaining (or reminding) his audience of
terms such as anadiplosis and asyndeton. Whether his audience takes up the
precise terminology seems beside the point: Butler hopes we’ll take away
the central argument that attending to style allows both writers and readers
to better understand how written texts mean as they do. Butler’s explica-
tions shore up the underlying current of the book which contends that even
though style is often experienced implicitly, there is great power in making
the workings of style visible, explicit, and thus available for both teaching
and learning. This is an important point, as Butler clearly not only wants to
make stylistic resources available for writing students, but also for writing
teachers. Broadening and deepening our understanding of style, he contends,
is essential not only for strengthening our students’ repertoires but also for
enriching our own knowledge and work—as well as better representing our
discipline and our research to broader publics.
Butler’s recommendation, then, is to use style as a fulcrum which can help
composition scholars pry open a space and insert ourselves more centrally
within public discourse, clarifying the terms and contexts of public debates
concerning writing (e.g., unlinking style from its problematic conflation with
prescriptive grammar), making recommendations based on our expertise,
and thereby garnering greater respect for our field and our work. The text
closes with this call to action, encouraging compositionists to reshape style
in ways that are meaningful to them and to the field. As promised in the

Book Reviews 149

book’s title, Butler succeeds in taking the first steps toward reanimating the
conversation concerning stylistics and the teaching of style—topics to further
investigate theoretically, rhetorically, and pedagogically. Since Butler’s stated
focus and interest is clearly on the operations of style at the sentence level,
this work opens the door for further research concerning the ways that style
ripples outward from the sentence to larger sections of discourse.
Similarly, in offering analyses and critiques of the way several “public
intellectuals” have portrayed composition in the larger public sphere, Out
of Style prompts additional attention to the ways in which composition
scholars and others related to—or interested in—style might be productively
identified, owned, and persuaded to act as public intellectuals. Butler argues
convincingly that we can no longer afford to be left out: we must increase
our credibility by confronting and responding to discussions of style in the
public sphere, offering our expertise as a valuable corrective, and estab-
lishing our field as central to the debates about writing that continue to
interest the public. By reclaiming stylistic study and clearly articulating its
value to audiences both within and outside the field, we will not only help
writers—we will also construct our own greater voice in the dialogues and
debates in which we are most implicated and invested.

San Francisco, California

Teaching Multiwriting: Researching and Compos-

ing with Multiple Genres, Media, Disciplines, and
Cultures, by Robert L. Davis and Mark F. Shadle. Carbon-
dale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007. 256 pp.
Reviewed by D. Alexis Hart, Virginia Military Institute

From service learning and public writing to new media and composition
as a “happening,” resistance is not new to traditional methods of teaching
“the research paper” and/or introducing students to “academic discourse.”
In Teaching Multiwriting: Researching and Composing with Multiple Genres,
Media, Disciplines, and Cultures, Robert L. Davis and Mark F. Shadle strike
a particularly hopeful note in their call for a radically open and flexible
writing pedagogy. Davis and Shadle describe “multiwriting” as a type of
alternative composition in which “authors may use any means to compose
effectively” (14; emphasis added). According to Davis and Shadle, this spirit
of expansiveness and creativity distinguishes multiwriting from other types
of multi-genre writing that more rigidly emphasize formulas for composing.
By comparison, their inquiry-based method of writing, they claim, not only

150 Composition Studies