Rhetorical situations

1 of 3 Chapter 1: PurposeThe Norton Field Guide to Writing, 3e, © 2013, W. W. Norton & Company

Part 1: Rhetorical Situations

Purpose, Audience, Genre, Stance, and Media/Design

2 of 3 Chapter 1: PurposePart 1: Rhetorical Situations

All Writing Has a Purpose

• Reasons we write• To explore thoughts and emotions• To express ourselves • To record words and events• To persuade an audience

• Identify your purpose


All Writing Has a Purpose

• Think about your purpose• What do you want your audience to do,

think, or feel?• What does this writing task call on you to

do?• What is the best way to achieve your

purpose?


Audience

• The audience influences and drives everything you write• Your audience must interpret what you write

according to their expectations and experiences, not yours• In academic writing, the audience will be

professors


Audience

• Identify your audience• Known: people with whom you are familiar or

have expectations known to you• You can be your own audience (notes, etc.)• Multiple: may have several levels of readers

such as supervisors who pass your messages on to their bosses• Unknown: can be the most difficult to

address because you don’t know the audience’s expectations or experiences


Thinking About Audience

Audience

Whom do you want to reach?

What is your audience’s

background?

What are their interests?Is there any demographic information you should

know?

What political circumstances affect

their reading?


Thinking About Audience

Audience

What does your audience already

know?

What is your relationship with your

audience?

What does your audience need and expect from you?

What kind of response do you want?

How can you best appeal to your

audience?


Genre

• Genre: the kind of writing such as letters, profiles, reports, position papers, poems, blog posts, instructions, and so forth• Genres help us write by establishing features

for conveying certain content


Genre

• Think about your genre• What is your genre, and how does it affect what

content you include?• Does it call for a specific strategy?• Does it require certain organization?• Does it affect your tone?• Does it require formal or informal language?• Do you have a choice of medium?• Does it have any design requirements?


Stance

• Stance is your attitude toward your topic• Identify your stance• Objective, critical, curious, opinionated,

passionate, indifferent• Stance is affected by genre• Stance is communicated through tone


Thinking about Stance

Stance

What is your

stance, and how does it

relate to your

purpose?

How should

stance be reflected in your tone?

How is stance

likely to be received by your

audience?

Should you openly reveal your

stance?


Media

• Medium is a go-between, or a way for information to be conveyed from one person to another

• “Media” is the plural form of “medium”• We communicate through many media• Sometimes a phone call is appropriate, sometimes an

email is sufficient, sometimes a formal letter is necessary

• Each medium has unique characteristics that influence what and how we communicate

• Multimedia is combined media• Multimodal is combined multimedia formats


Think about Media

Media

How does medium

affect what elements

you include?

What medium are you using

(print, spoken, etc.)?

How does medium affect

strategies and

organization?

How does medium

affect your language?


Design

• Think about design• What is the appropriate look for your

rhetorical situation?• What elements need to be designed?• What font(s) are appropriate to your

audience, purpose, genre, and medium?• Are you including any visuals?• Should you include headings?

Rhetorical situations

Education

Transcript of Rhetorical situations