Audience (who are you writing for? Who is your primary audience? Secondary? Tertiary? How will your audience interact with this text? Will they read it from beginning to end? Skim for the parts they need? Move back and forth among various sections?).Context (specific context of the organization, more general context of the time and culture in which you and your audience and this text will exist).The rhetorical situation asks that you consider the following components each time you approach a new writing situation: The rhetorical situation refers to the various components that surround an act of communication. When describing all the things that surround a given act of creating a text, or the context in which a text was created and is used, we will refer to the rhetorical situation of that text. This text frequently uses the term rhetorical to mean that a text-or an approach to writing and understanding a text-considers the impact it has on an audience and considers how it can work to achieve its context-bound purpose or goal. How have you adapted your communication style and tactics to fit a given audience, context, and purpose? What would it mean to NOT take a rhetorical approach to communication? What is an alternative approach? In the simplest terms, a rhetorical approach means that each communication situation is unique and can be analyzed based on understanding the various components of that specific, individual rhetorical situation.Īs you read this first section, consider how you’ve already been taking a rhetorical approach to communication. Throughout this text you’ll find that each aspect of technical communication is informed by rhetoric, and each stage of the communication process demands a rhetorical approach. A rhetorical approach might be contrasted to something like using a template to write a specific genre or document: rather than learning various conventions and applying those same conventions each time you writing, a rhetorical approach means that you remain flexible and responsive to the requirements or needs of that specific situation. While some things that make “good” writing are consistent across various situations, each time you write, you have to consider the goals, context, audience, etc. Taking a rhetorical approach to writing involves recognizing that no two writing situations are exactly alike, and that what might work for one situation may not be appropriate in the next. It also means that making choices about effective communication relies heavily on what you want to do. Rhetoric can also refer to a systemic investigation of how language works to shape the world and to get things done.įraming all language as rhetoric, or acts of communication as rhetorical, means looking at language and communication in terms of how people intentionally use language to accomplish specific goals. While the term rhetoric often relates to persuasion, the field of rhetoric has evolved to include understanding how language functions between a speaker or writer and an audience. Some frame all communication is an act of persuasion: viewing all communication as persuasive means that even when you are composing a technical manual, for example, you are working to persuade the reader to see things a certain way, to take some specific action, to recognize a particular concern, etc. Rhetoric often refers to recognizing and understanding the available means of persuasion.
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