Sara A. Mehltretter ’05 (right)
Mehltretter majored in communication and political science and plans to pursue a master’s degree in rhetoric at Pennsylvania State University in the fall.

Never Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Good Story: Redefining Eloquence in Presidential Debates

Bonnie Jefferson, assistant professor, communication department

“Sara has always been interested in political discourse, especially presidential debate. While there has been much scholarly work published in the communication field on presidential debate, Sara discovered that much of this research is related to candidate mistakes or the candidate’s image, with very little scholarly attention given to the quality of the discourse itself. Sara’s thesis fills this scholarly gap. Her thesis draws on the classical definitions of eloquence provided by Aristotle and Cicero as well as the contemporary theories of Kenneth Burke. As a result she has created the analytical concept she defines as ‘new eloquence.’ Sara applied this concept to the 1960, 1984, 2000, and 2004 Presidential Debates, resulting in her conclusion that the level of eloquence has indeed declined. Sara’s work makes a major contribution to the study of presidential debates.”