Modern rhetoricians George Campbell, Hugh Blair, and Richard Whately set forth
the fundamentals of writing between 1776 and 1828. These fundamentals were then
adopted—and improved upon—by nineteenth and early twentieth century rhetoric
and composition authors. In 1916 George Burton Hotchkiss wrote the first impor
tant college business communication textbook. Improving further on the fundamen
tals of writing—and using the "you attitude"and the "Cs"as reminders—he
emphasized the necessity of taking the reader's point of view and of following the
"great" rhetorical principles of unity, coherence, and force.
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