Rhetoric has never provided the feature of creativity, only supplying an endless array of forms and genres, as taught in schools. A new e-book, The Secret DNA of Writing Essays – And Everything Else, claims to provide a better alternative for creating new ideas, a system called NewView.
Provo, UT – January 21, 2010 (PressReleasePivot) – The author of a successful new e-book, ‘The Secret DNA of Writing Essays – And Everything Else’, Bill Drew, thinks Rhetoric is all forms and no creativity.
“I’m not the only one who thinks that,” said Drew. “Robert Pirsig, in his international bestseller, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, said that Aristotle’s book Rhetoric ‘killed the creative spirit of… students with this dumb ritual of analysis, this blind, rote, eternal naming of things.’ “
Drew went on to point out that the ancient Greek view of the universe was that nature was perfect, made by the Gods, and that mankind could not improve on it. So all their art and culture revolved around searching for the rules of nature and simply imitating them. Early Christians thought much the same way, according to Drew, believing it was sacrilegious of man to claim to have the Godly ability of creativity.
“In the Renaissance,” Drew continued, “a shift occurred toward accepting the idea of man’s creativity, but real acceptance of the idea didn’t occur until much later. In 1950, J. P. Guilford addressed the American Psychological Association on psychological studies of creativity, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Drew pointed out that the idea of brainstorming was introduced in 1953 by Alex Osborn, and in 1967 Edward de Bono published his book on lateral thinking. Drew also believes that perhaps the most significant advancement in creative thinking was made in 1946 by Genrikh Altshuller, a Russian patent clerk, when he published his work on TRIZ, a system for creatively solving engineering problems. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ )
“My NewView concept is somewhat similar to TRIZ,” claims Drew, “which has been shortened to 40 major principles, each of which can be identified as some combination of one or more of my 5 NewView Options.” And just what are those 5 NewView Options, Mr. Drew? “They are so simple that you’ll hardly believe that no one else has ever before identified them and organized them as a group of creative processes. But that is the case. Here they are: Reverse, Add, Subtract, Substitute, and Rearrange.” ( http://secretdnaofwritingessays.com/453/ )
That’s it? “Yes, that’s it. But, of course, that’s only half the story. The other half includes the 5 OldView Categories. You see, for something to be new, we must be able to compare it to a former version or type that is accepted as old. You know the saying, ‘You can’t explain color to a blind man.’ That is, if there’s nothing shared to compare something to, you can’t talk about it to someone who hasn’t seen or experienced anything that is like it.”
So what are these 5 OldView Categories that your NewView can’t do without? “Values, expectations, experiences, reasoning, language,” replied Drew. And these NewViews and OldViews work just in essays, right? “Oh, no! They work in short stories, novels, magazine articles, marketing literature, emails, everyday conversations – you name it!
“You simply can’t communicate,” Drew continued, “without doing a NewView Option on an OldView Category! The NewView Options provide a new model for communications, information theory, and general linguistics, as well as for writing and reading!” Drew said he covers those topics in Chapter 8 and the Conclusion of his new e-book. That would be quite an achievement, if NewView actually does all that.
Drew’s e-book, ‘The Secret DNA of Writing Essays – And Everything Else’, is available now online at http://bit.ly/BuySecretDNABook for $8.50. It is also available on Amazon.com as a Kindle e-book for $9.50. The companion software, NewView Essay Services, which automates the thesis-making process in the e-book, is available at http://bit.ly/SecretDNASoftware on a subscription basis for 3-, 6-, and 12-month terms ($10.50, $15.50, $20.50).
About NewView Options:
Founded in 2008, NewView Options is a Provo, UT, firm specializing in the teaching and training of writing, for both beginners and the more advanced. The company is focused on promoting its propriety NewView approach to writing, communications, and teaching. NewView Options provides Education Discount rates for school districts. Call 1-801-373-0447, visit http://secretdnaofwritingessays.com/, or e-mail billdrew@richcontent.com.
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