Lecture Notes

August 27, 2026

The Rhetorical Situation

  • the rhetorical situation is a way to refer to the context on what allows us to speak, and what impacts us to speak

  • must have an audience, communicator, and a message

    • person talking, what you want to convey, and who are you addressing

  • exist in a push-and-pull relationship

  • the way we present ourself is different depending on who you’re talking tom

  • audience self chooses depending on who’s talking

  • context changes what we say and how we say it

What is Genre

  • genre is a typified utterance that appears in a recurrent situation

    • in reference to a rhetorical situation

    • we find ourselves in similar situations to other people’s experiences and our own experiences which allows us to infer

    • typified = follow patters and reliable because they’ve been used again and again

  • typically some goal attached to what you’re writing

    • cover letter = looking for a job

    • bio = describe who you are concisely

  • the goal of communication is to have an impact on the real world

Genre Analysis

  • rhetorical analysis looks for patterns in a single text

  • rhetorical analysis can be applies to genre analysis

  • genre analysis finds patterns that may be revealing about the genre as a whole

The Company Charter

  • who have to know who you are talking to and knowing what they might expect

  • non-profit organization that brings tools and resources for children who lack access to tutors and online resources. provides AI tools to build upon a child’s education skills, to fill in the gaps.

    • small startup and that size matters for communication because there is more one-one communication since people know each other better.



September 1, 2026

Discussion Questions

  1. Explain uses of persuasion in these chapters

    1. In chapter 1, persuasive writing is any form of writing that aims to get a result or a goal.

  2. What does the book mean by reader response = result? how does it relate?

    1. When the book says that reader response = result, it is essentially saying that in order for you to achieve whatever goal it is that you have, you must appeal to the reader and have them form some sort of response. Your audience is going to be the person or people that allow you to achieve your goal, which is why it is important that when you’re writing persuasively you are calling your audience to action and appealing to their emotions in order to generate a response to get them to want to follow you. This relates to what we are doing

Audience and Persuasion

  • audience and persuasion are interlinked - you are always trying to impact a reader

  • you have to know who you are talking to and what their own goals might be

  • technical communication has action as its goal - move readers to action

  • persuasion happens at the level of attitudes

    • how someone feels about your writing

  • a cover letter is about shaping an attitude because in most occasions the person reading it will not know you

Burkean identification

  • convincing someone to do something happens when one person identifies themself with another, action occurs

  • they are not the same people but they have similar goals and motivations

  • therefore they act together

Audience Goodwill

  • how much your audience is willing to put up with

  • how long before they react poorly or they stop reading

  • goal as a writer is to increase goodwill or not lose it at very least

  • there’s two types of ethos

Ethos

  • ethos comes out in tones, info you include, and words you say

  • present yourself as a credible equal partner who is driving towards the reader’s goals

  • you don’t want to beg for something because you want them to align with you - think you’re in power

Logos

  • means logic in Greek

  • you must have logic in your argument for it to make sense and for people to understand what you’re writing

  • logic makes yourself appear creditable and knowledgeable



September 3, 2026

  • feedback includes any information we get about ourselves

  • feedback is broader than just performance reviews or criticism

From Push to Pull

  • sometimes people’s ego is too big for them to accept criticism to want to improve

  • when feedback is rejected the response is to push harder - author says this is backwards

Three Feedback Triggers and Three Types of Feedback

  • relational, identity, and truth

    • truth is you feel that the feedback is untrue

    • relational is you don’t like someone so you reject the feedback

    • identity trigger is feedback shakes idea of self

  • appreciation, coaching, and evaluation

    • appreciation is recognition or thanks or encouragement

    • coaching is advice meant to help us improve

    • evaluation shows where we stand or how we are improving

Cover Letter



September 8, 2026

What is Code-Switching

  • code shifting is essentially shifting your language depending on language and behavior

  • you would talk to your friends differently than your boss

  • it happens due to inclusion and clarity

    • inclusion = makes sure everyone can follow along and partake in conversation

  • code switching is not always neutrals

  • most black Americans believe they code switch more - same with Latinos

  • people debate on if its a skill or survival strategy

Tone, Voice, Register

  • voice in serious situations people gravitate towards formal writing

Style

  • the four essentials are precision, conciseness, ease, and freshness

    • precision is asking if the information is accurate

    • conciseness is not overloading reader with unnecessary information

    • ease is making sure the reading is not too difficult for reader to understand

    • freshness is the entertainment level of the writing

Tone and Voice

  • be confident as if you know what you’re talking about (u should)

  • be courteous and sincere - not as if you are trying to sell someone on something

Registers

  • register is not the same as genre

    • genre is structural and register is tonal

    • genre can have multiple registers

  • register is how you come across - how you portray your ethos

  • different registers:

    • frozen = language never changes

      • wedding vows/Miranda rights

    • formal = standard English

      • speeches and school lessons

    • consultative = less formal than standard English

      • employee to employer

    • casual = language between friends

    • intimate = language between lovers or other close family and friends

The Register Switch

  • casual - I’m omw just running 5 mins late lol

  • consultative - hi __! I’m sorry, I’m going to be around 5 minutes late to my shift today.

  • formal - hi ___. i wanted to reach out and let you know that i will be a few minutes late to work today.

Appropriate Sentence Length

  • avoid overly long sentences and overly short sentences

  • want to keep reader’s motivation in mind while also including all the information needed

  • you can turn longer sentences into lists

Focus

  • sentences need to be grammatically correct

  • the overall grammar needs to match the content of the message

  • the real subject of the sentence should be the grammatical subject

  • the real verb should stand out

  • when you are revising you should ask yourself what the topic of the sentence is and if it comes through clearly