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The rhetorical modes (also known as modes of discourse) are a broad traditional classification of the major kinds of formal and academic writing (including speech-writing) by their rhetorical (persuasive) purpose: narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. First attempted[clarification needed] by Samuel P. Newman in A Practical System of Rhetoric in 1827, the modes of discourse have long influenced US writing instruction and particularly the design of mass-market writing assessments, despite critiques of the explanatory power of these classifications for non-school writing.[1]