High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Fred Newton Scott (1860–1931) was an American writer, educator and rhetorician. In the preface to The New Composition Rhetoric, Newton Scott states “that composition is…a social act, and the student therefore constantly led to think of himself as writing or speaking for a specified audience. Thus not mere expression but communication as well is made the business of composition.” Fred Newton Scott saw rhetoric as an intellectually challenging subject. He looked to English departments to balance work in rhetoric and linguistics in addition to literary study.