Open Access

Monika Oertner

• Since the turn of the millennium, many writing centers have been established at universities in the German-speaking world, in order to support students in academic writing. This essay argues for offering subject-anchored directive guidance and using scientific texts as a basis for model learning. It states that the rhetorical tradition is hardly taken into account in the writing centers. Five arguments for this ignorance are discussed and, if possible, dispelled: the antiquity argument, which considers rhetoric outdated; the orality argument, which understands rhetoric as irrelevant to writing; the moral argument, which condemns rhetoric as a tool for demagogues; the positivist argument, which criticizes rhetoric as unempirical; and the didactic argument, which rejects rhetoric as a rigid doctrine. The discussion shows, however, that the rhetorical tradition, with its normative power and centuries of teaching practice, is a treasure trove of writing didactics that holds many resources, such as well-founded assessment criteria for the quality, appropriateness, and usefulness of texts.