Examines Kenneth Burke's recommendation that compositionists "return to inconclusiveness" at times. Develops a rhetoric of inconclusiveness through a personal narrative that draws on Burke's and Ross Winterowd's rhetorics. Juxtaposes a rhetoric of inconclusiveness to the rhetorics of certainty by F. Lentricchia and James A. Berlin. Demonstrates gains and losses of a rhetoric of certainty and a rhetoric of uncertainty. (RS)