Greetings! I’m Lance Cummings — an iSophist 🤖🏛️.

You are probably on this about page, because you are curious what I mean by iSophistry, how that connects to my writing, and how it might help you.

I am a writing professor who has spent years studying ancient philosophies and how they inform the writing process. Writing technologies are always changing… but the art of rhetoric is always there to help us understand those changes.

I explore and teach the right use of ancient and new technologies to break old ways of thinking, so that you can:

• Create new content online.

• Clearly communicate research insights.

• Impact the world with your ideas.

• Find creative solutions to problems through writing

Have you ever wondered how new technologies might change the way you write or think? Or why we keep getting stuck in the same old ways of thinking about complex problems? Then this is for you.

We can still use many of the strategies from history when thinking about new technologies like artificial intelligence and digital writing. We’ve been adapting for centuries. Rhetoric and philosophy have helped us each step of the way.

So what is iSophistry?

iSophistry is the right use of technology and writing to come up with new ways of thinking that can change the world.

In Ancient Greece, sophists were teachers who travelled throughout the country, teaching young students to influence people with ideas and communication… often for money.

People accused them of teaching the young to manipulate people through “rhetrickery” or deceptive words, so that sophists could make a buck. Sound familiar?

Creators online are often accused of similar things.

But the best sophists taught students how to ethically use ideas and communication to influence society. Aristotle and others called this the right use of rhetoric.

We need to learn how to use new technologies and strategies for creating online… but we need to learn to use them in the right way. That’s what my writing is all about.

I am sharing with creators and teachers how to use ancient frameworks to make the right use of these technologies in good ways.

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