Analyzing Rhetorical Situations in Writing

THINK ABOUT YOUR RHETORICAL SITUATION đź“ť

Effective writers analyze their rhetorical situations to understand the context in which they are writing. This includes considering the genre, audience, purpose, medium, and design.

Genre

  • Have you been assigned a specific genre? If not, do any words in the assignment imply a certain genre?

    • Evaluate may signal a review, for example, and explain why could indicate a causal analysis.

  • If you get to choose your genre, consider your purpose. If you want to convince readers to recycle their trash, you would probably write an argument. If, however, you want to explain how to recycle food waste into compost, your purpose would call for a process analysis.

  • Does your genre require a certain organization?

    • A process analysis, for instance, is often organized chronologically, whereas a visual analysis may be organized spatially, and an annotated bibliography is almost always organized alphabetically.

Audience

  • Who is your intended audience?

    • Instructor? Supervisor? Classmates? Members of a particular organization? Visitors to a website?

    • Who else might see or hear what you say?

  • How are members of your audience like and unlike you? Consider demographics such as:

    • Age

    • Gender

    • Religion

    • Income

    • Education

    • Occupation

    • Political attitudes

  • What's your relationship with your audience?

    • Instructor or supervisor, for example, holds considerable authority over you.

    • Other audiences may be friends, coworkers, or even strangers.

    • What expectations about the text might they have because of your relationship?

  • If you have a choice of medium, which one(s) would best reach your intended audience?

  • What do you want your audience to think or do as a result of what you say?

    • Take your ideas seriously? Reflect on their beliefs? Respond to you? Take some kind of action?

    • How will you signal to them what you want?

  • Can you assume your audience will be interested in what you say, or will you need to get them interested?

    • Are they likely to resist any of your ideas?

  • How much does your audience know about your topic?

    • How much background information do they need?

    • Will they expect or be put off by the use of technical jargon?

    • Will you need to define any terms?

  • Will your audience expect a particular genre?

Purpose

  • How would you describe your own motivation for writing?

    • To fulfill a course assignment? To meet a personal or professional commitment? To express your ideas to someone?

  • What is your primary goal?

    • To inform your audience about something? To persuade them to think a certain way? To call them to action? To entertain them? Something else?

  • How do your goals influence your choice of genre, medium, and design?

Stance

  • What's your attitude toward your topic?

    • Objective? Strongly supportive? Mildly skeptical? Amused? Angry?

  • What's your relationship with your audience?

    • Do they know you, and if so, how? Are you a student? A friend? A member? A mentor? An interested community member?

    • How do they see you, and how do you want to be seen?

  • How can you best convey your stance in your writing?

    • What tone do you want it to have?

  • How will your stance and tone be received by your audience?

    • Will they be drawn in by it?

Larger Context

  • What else has been said about your topic, and how does that affect what you will say?

    • What would be the most effective way for you to add your voice to the conversation?

  • Do you have any constraints?

    • When is this writing due and how much time and energy can you put into it?

    • How many pages (or minutes) do you have to deliver your message?

  • How much independence do you have as a writer in this situation?

    • To what extent do you need to meet the expectations of others, such as an instructor or a supervisor?

    • If this writing is an assignment, how can you approach it in a way that makes it matter to you?

Medium and Design

  • If you get to choose your medium, which one will work best for your audience and purpose?

    • Print? Spoken? Digital? Some combination?

    • How will the medium determine what you can and cannot do?

  • Does your medium favor certain conventions?

    • Paragraphs work well in print, but PowerPoint presentations usually rely on images or bulleted phrases instead.

    • If you are writing online, you can include links to sources and background information.

  • What's the most appropriate look for your writing given your rhetorical situation?

    • Plain and serious? Warm and inviting?

    • What design elements will help you project that look?

  • Should you include visuals?

    • Would any part of your text benefit from them?

    • Will your audience expect them?

    • What kind would be appropriate - photographs? videos? maps?

    • Is there any statistical data that would be easier to understand as a table, chart, or graph?

  • If you're writing a spoken or digital text, should you include sound? still images? moving images?

Analyzing Your Rhetorical Situation

Make a list of all the writing that you remember doing in the last week. Be sure to include everything from texts and posts to more formal academic or work-related writing. Choose three examples that strike you as quite different from one another and analyze the rhetorical situation you faced for each one, drawing upon the guidelines in this chapter.