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Rhetorical Situations 1101 Fa21
16
Rhetorical Situations
ENC1101
Fall 2021
Definition
According to The Norton Field Guide, a rhetorical situation is "the context in which writing or other communication takes place, including purpose, audience, genre, stance, and media/design" (G/I-28).
What Is a Rhetorical Situation?
"Rhetoric" is a term you will come across frequently in this class. Merriam-Webster defines rhetoric in the following ways:
1: the art of speaking or writing effectively: such as
a: the study of principles and rules of composition formulated by critics of ancient times;
b: the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion
2: a: skill in the effective use of speech;
b: a type or mode of language or speech; also: insincere or grandiloquent language
3: verbal communication or discourse
Because nothing we or others write exists in a vacuum!
Why Does Analyzing Rhetorical Situations Matter?
The Intersection between Writer, Subject, and Audience
A Handy Dandy Diagram
Purpose
Purpose is a writer's reason for writing. The Norton Field Guide defines purpose as such: "A writer's goal: to explore ideas, to express oneself, to entertain, to demonstrate learning, to inform, to persuade, and so on" (G/I-25).
Purpose
P
I
E
To Persuade, To Inform, To Entertain
Questions to Consider:
What is the primary purpose of the writing task?
What are your own goals for writing?
What are your audience's expectations?
What is your purpose?
What do you want your audience to do, think, or feel?
What does the writing task call on you to do?
What are the best ways to achieve your purpose for writing?
Thinking about your audience, stance, genre, and media/design will help you determine and refine your purpose for writing.
Audience
An audience is to whom a text is directed. The Norton Field Guide describes audience as "the people who read, listen to, or view the text" (G/I-4).
Audience
As a student, your audience will most often be your teachers. However, don't make assumptions about your audience! The Norton Field Guide maintains that "understanding your audience's expectations--by asking outright, by reading materials in your field of study, by trial and error--is important to your success as a college writer" (58).
Who would be the likely audience for...
A grocery list stuck to the fridge?
A 400-page biography on Abraham Lincoln?
A valedictorian's speech at a high school graduation?
Types of Audiences
An entry in a bedside journal?
A note on a broken washing machine?
An Instagram post by an influencer discussing a new makeup collaboration?
An inter-office email about a corporate policy change?
An FDA report on an e. coli outbreak linked to spinach?
Known audiences
The Norton Field Guide writes, "Known audiences can include people with whom you are familiar as well as people you don't know personally but whose needs and expectations you do know" (58). Known audiences can include yourself, friends, relatives, teachers, classmates, and people within a shared specific context (e.g., PC gamers looking for cheat codes online).
Multiple audiences
Known, Multiple, and Unknown Audiences
Texts meant for multiple audiences must address the expectations of different types of audiences. The Norton Field Guide mentions business memos, grant proposals, and classroom writing as examples of texts written for multiple audiences (58-59).
Unknown audiences
Unknown audiences can be the trickiest to write for, "since you can't be sure what they know, what they need to know, [and] how they'll react" (59). You often need to think most carefully about the audiences you know the least about.
Thinking about Audience...
Who do you want to reach?
What is your audience's background, their education and life experiences?
What are their interests? What are their expectations?
Questions to Consider
Should you keep in mind any demographic information?
What is your relationship with your audience, and how will it affect your language and tone?
What does your audience already know/believe about your topic? What do you need to tell them?
Genre
Genres are kinds of writing "marked by and expected to have certain key features and to follow certain conventions of style and presentation" (G/I-14).
Genre
These key features "give readers clues about what sort of information they're likely to find and so help them figure out how to read" (62).
Let's Go to the Movies!
Academic Genres
Questions to Consider:
How does your genre affect what content you can (or should) include?
Does your genre call for any specific writing strategies?
Does your genre call for a certain kind of organization?
How does your genre affect your tone? Should you use formal or informal language?
Common academic genres include abstracts, annotated bibliographies, arguments, evaluations, lab reports, literacy narratives, literary analyses, profiles, proposals, reflections, reports, rhetorical analyses, and textual analyses. We will be exploring many different academic genres in this class!
Do you have a choice of medium? Does your genre require any specific design elements?
Stance
The Norton Field Guide explains stance as "a writer's or speaker's attitude toward his or her subject--for example, reasonable, neutral, angry, curious. Stance is conveyed through tone" (G/I-31).
Stance
The way in which you establish and express your stance matters because "[it] affects the way you come across to your audience as a writer and as a person" (64).
Do unto your audiences as you would have them do unto you.
Who will most likely get the job? Why?
The Good and the Bad
Questions to Consider...
What is your stance, and how does it relate to your purpose for writing?
Thinking about Stance
How should your stance be reflected in your tone?
How is your stance likely to be received by your audience?
As The Norton Field Guide explains, "It's a question of appropriateness: we behave in certain ways in various social situations, and writing is a social situation" (66).
Media/Design
The Norton Field Guide explains that a medium (plural: media) is "a way [or ways] that a text is delivered--for example, in print, with speech, or online" (G/I-19). Design is "the way a text is arranged and presented visually...design plays an important part in how well a text reaches its audience and achieves its purpose" (G/I-9).
Media & Design
Multimedia & Multimodal
Multimedia:
"Using more than one medium of delivery, such as print, speech, or electronic. Often used interchangeably with 'multimodal'" (G/I-20).
Multimodal:
"Using more than one mode of expression, such as words, images, sound, links, and so on" (G/I-20). Although often used interchangeably with 'multimedia,' multimodal is the term most often used in composition classes (595).
Questions to Consider
Thinking about media...
What medium are you using? Print? Spoken? Electronic? How does the medium affect the way you will create your text?
How does your medium affect your organization and writing strategies?
How does your medium affect your language? Should you be formal or informal?
How does your medium affect what modes of expression you use?
Thinking about design...
What's the appropriate look for your rhetorical situation?
What elements need to be designed?
What font or fonts are appropriate to your rhetorical situation?
Should you include any visuals?
Should you include headings or other organizational markers?
Do you need to use a specific format, such as MLA or APA?