Pezzulo starts her writing with a background story of her life. She begins her writing use ethos and attempts to draw people in that way before she continues on with her writing. There are many ways to begin a piece of writing. I think there are a lot of bonuses to beginning this way. If you start by explaining your character then it can make the rest of your writing more influential and people may trust it more if you set yourself up to be a credible source of information. Character was said to be the pattern of behavior of personality found in an individual. If you’re explaining something about yourself, some of that pattern will be revealed and that is how the audience will understand your character (Crowley, Hawhee, 147).

Part of rhetoric during the beginning of the medieval age was used to move the audience to understand and apply meaning to their lives and that is still a significant role that rhetoric continues to play. Christianity and religion in general use rhetoric every time they speak. They try to move their audience to apply what they are teaching to their everyday life. Rhetoric was affected a lot by Christianity who did not support classical learning. But the Crusades brought classical learning back as the Arabs interacted with them and provided insight into a different culture that had different types of learning and different kinds of information. It is the arrival or reappearance of classical learning that led into the Renaissance and since rhetoric is invention of the speech I think it is clear how rhetoric continued to be developed through the Renaissance which is an era of invention and progress.

Hildegard of Bingen was the first woman who contributed to rhetoric and it’s interesting how she was considered the “father of the church” even though she was a woman and the only woman who has an entire volume devoted to her. And yet she is called a Father. It’s an example of the kind of behavior woman are pointing out and going against today.