Taylor Swift says it best: “Shake it off.” And she’s right. It’s time to shake off last year’s #DefineRhetoric.  Get ready with your new definitions, and Tweet them with a #DefineRhetoric cuz “the rhetors gonna rhet rhet rhet” (Swift 10). For our fourth annual contest, we’ll award the winner some pretty sweet items: a $40 dollar gift card from Amazon.com, a brilliant validating trophy (to the right), and, well, the prestige (we imagine about 4lbs this year) that comes with being THE author of THE definition of rhetoric for the year.  So play, shake the world up, and introduce it to a new lens for understanding rhetoric.

The Rules

1. You’ve gotta tweet. If you don’t have a Twitter account, ya gotta make one.
2. Tweet your brand new definition of rhetoric, your tweaked or remixed definition of rhetoric, one you’ve liked from a theorist, or even a visual or audio definition (music, infographics, & movies are accepted!).
3. You can play or define as many times as ya’d like.
4. Put the hashtag #DefineRhetoric somewhere in your definition because we find the definitions by searching for that hashtag. See Swift do it in the image on the right?

DUE DATE– September 15th 2015.

To get you started and motivated take a look at last year’s winners.

First Place — Rhetoric is the perfect kiss: the right moment, minimal tongue, while meeting the other halfway. @marijel_melo

Second Place — Rhetoric is a con artist. Crafty, always present, & never fully reveals the intention behind the action. @estee_beck

Third Place — “What is rhetoric?….The art of never finally answering that question.” John Muckelbauer via @caseyboyle

Good luck!