Choices Made,Worlds Created: The Rhetoric of AERJ

Expectations go with us everywhere. We expect the sun to rise, the rains to come, and December to bring snow storms, even blizzards. Expectations also inform our reading of texts. We expect fairy tales to begin with “once upon a time” and end “happily ever after. “ We recognize poetry by its shapes and rhythms, and sermons by their cadences and the echoes of sacred texts.

Academicians have expectations as well for the research texts they read. Scholarly articles are not sermons, nor poems, nor fairy tales. Before you began to read this article, you had expectations about how it should present itself, how it should address you as the reader, and how it should speak about its topic. You may never have considered those expectations, but now, as you read this article, appearing as it does in this journal, you are likely struck by its failure to conform to the usual expectations. You are likely wondering what is going on here, whether this article is scholarly and worth your time, and why the editors have accepted it. Sometimes, conventions must be broken in order that they may be examined. Sometimes, expectations keep us from noticing that the forms determine what can be said.