The Wizard's Field Guide

Collect the concepts. Use them to read the world.

An accessible rhetoric glossary presented as a set of analytical cards.

Field Observation

A landscape is also a system of signs.

Wetland vegetation, forest edges, light, and seasonal color invite careful observation before interpretation.

Original photograph contributed to Symbol Wizards.

The choices that define what an issue is, what matters, and which responses appear reasonable.

Use it: Ask what the message places inside and outside the frame.

The credibility, character, authority, and trustworthiness a communicator performs for an audience.

Use it: Identify how expertise or moral character is being displayed.

The process through which a message creates shared identity, values, interests, or belonging.

Use it: Look for the “we” the message asks you to join.

A vocabulary that selects, reflects, and deflects reality by directing attention in particular ways.

Use it: Compare how rival vocabularies describe the same event.

A story that organizes social reality and makes identities, institutions, or values feel natural.

Use it: Ask what origin story or moral order the message repeats.

The emotional energies through which messages create urgency, fear, hope, anger, pride, or compassion.

Use it: Identify what emotion the audience is rewarded for feeling.