35 Stasis Theory: How to Analyze and Write for Different Stases

Stasis Theory: Definition

Derived from a Greek word meaning “take a stand,” Stasis, or Stasis Theory, is a helpful tool to use when reading, inventing, brainstorming, planning, and revising our writing that allows a rhetor or rhetorician to systematically study the available arguments before they consider how to best advance their ideas. Do they need to establish the facts of the situation? Do they need to define terms to ensure there is agreement and understanding? Do they need to convince others that a problem even exists? Or do they need to convince others to take action?  Stasis theory is a systematic process that allows you to move through a series of questions to help you figure out where to start an argument, how to read an argument, how to write an argument, how to research an argument, and how to end an argument. Aristotle created this tool, and it was later refined by Roman rhetoricians like Cicero and Quintilian (Crowley and Hawhee).

So how does it work for invention? In this example, Crowley and Hawhee show how the four-question series can help someone figure out whether to convict someone of a crime.

There are even more questions you can use at each point. Here is a helpful list from the OWL Purdue:

Fact

• Did something happen?
• What are the facts?
• Is there a problem/issue?
• How did it begin and what are its causes?
• What changed to create the problem/issue?
• Can it be changed?

It may also be useful to ask critical questions of your own research and conclusions:

• Where did we obtain our data and are these sources reliable?
• How do we know they’re reliable?

Definition

• What is the nature of the problem/issue?
• What exactly is the problem/issue?
• What kind of a problem/issue is it?
• To what larger class of things or events does it belong?
• What are its parts, and how are they related?

It may also be useful to ask critical questions of your own research and conclusions:

• Who/what is influencing our definition of this problem/issue?
• How/why are these sources/beliefs influencing our definition?

Quality

• Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
• How serious is the problem/issue?
• Whom might it affect (stakeholders)?
• What happens if we don’t do anything?
• What are the costs of solving the problem/issue?

It may also be useful to ask critical questions of your own research and conclusions:

• Who/what is influencing our determination of the seriousness of this problem/issue?
• How/why are these sources/beliefs influencing our determination?

Policy

• Should action be taken?
• Who should be involved in helping to solve the problem/address the issue?
• What should be done about this problem?
• What needs to happen to solve this problem/address this issue?

It may also be useful to ask critical questions of your own research and conclusions:

• Who/what is influencing our determination of what to do about this problem/issue?
• How/why are these sources/beliefs influencing our determination?

How to Use It

For writing classes, stasis theory can be used to support many processes.

First, it can help you read a rhetorical situation, deepening your understanding of why groups may disagree on an issue. Have you ever wondered why gun control is hotly debated and never resolved? Stasis Theory can help to explain why. To use it, we would move through the questions with different viewpoints to see if we disagree at the point of fact, definition, value, or policy.

Second, when beginning a research project, it can be used to find the available arguments. By this, we mean that Stasis Theory can help us understand all the different debates at the four levels of stasis. Taking the gun control example again. Once we know all the different debates, we can choose to research and argue at the point of contention or at a place of agreement. Read on and we will break this down with examples.

Reading a Rhetorical Situation: How to Use Stasis Theory to Understand Why We Disagree on Major Issues

One of the more useful aspects of stasis theory is that it can help us build empathy by helping us to understand why someone else might disagree with us about certain issues. As well, it helps us to understand where exactly that disagreement exists, so we can counter the argument in our writing or come to a compromise. Let us show you how that works:

Step 1. Generate the stases for Climate Change

Fact: Does climate change exist?

Definition: Can climate change be classified as a crisis?

Value: Is it a bad thing? Is it caused by humans?

Policy:  What should be done about climate change?

Step 2. Pick different positions on the issue and see where they do not align.

It can be helpful to find a text that provides you with those viewpoints. Watch this video [New Tab] (view time is 2:12) and then answer the question for each stasis from the point of view of the rhetors: Greta Thumberg and Katie Pavlich.

Step 3. Reflect on the following questions:

• Where are the two rhetors not in stasis?
• Where do you see the disagreement occur?

Step 4. We notice there is disagreement on the definition, the value (also the cause), and the policy

Stasis theory suggests that as a researcher and a rhetor, you begin at the first level of disagreement, or the earliest place where there is a stasis mismatch.  Here, it is that it’s a crisis. If you cannot get your reader to agree that it’s a crisis, you’ll never be able to convince them of a policy. However, there also seems to be some doubt that the issue is a crisis and that it can be controlled by humans. Any of these areas would be a good place to begin your research on the issue.

In the following activity, try to identify the different claims made at different stases depending on a rhetor’s argumentative stance.

The following activity offers you an opportunity to generate content for your own researched argument. This table is a heuristic, or an invention tool, designed to help you think about all the possible ways into a topic you want to explore.

Stasis Theory Can Help You Write Your Thesis Statement

Along with using stasis to understand the available arguments, you can also use stasis theory to decide where you want to establish your argument: Do you want to argue policy? Value? Definition? Fact?

The stasis questions often guide us in this thinking. For example, if I am researching climate change, I note that people often disagree at value: Is climate change a problem that needs to be solved?  If I choose to argue at policy, I might lose the readers who still disagree that it’s even a problem. So I would write a thesis statement that claimed it was a serious issue.

If I am researching abortion rights, I note that Vance and Walz disagree at most of the stases, but it begins at definition, where Walz defines abortion as necessary health care and Vance defines abortion as a financial or strategic choice. This tells me, as the rhetor, that I need to start my research and argument as defining abortion more clearly, and my thesis statement would need to make a claim about what abortion is.

Stasis Theory and Rhetorical Embodiment

How does stasis theory relate to the body? If we consider the Vance and Walz debate over abortion, we should reflect on their positionality. As two cis-gendered men, what is their relationship with abortion rights and reproductive rights? Might their position of privilege remove themselves from the reality of this debate and argument? How might a person who had an abortion argue from a different position, or a different stasis? How might a person who had an abortion to save her life read and interpret their arguments differently? Our lived experience affects the stasis we may want to argue from, and how we move through the stases in our arguments. So do not neglect your own connection to what you read and write as that will also affect stasis.