Rhetorical Situation Analysis

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Katy Saevang ENGL 20M Section 2 February 25, 2013 The Rhetorical Situation Draft 2 The Rhetorical Situation The way a person writes depends on the rhetorical situation. Rhetoric is the art of using language effectively and persuasively, so the situation would be trying to persuade audiences based on the writer’s writing or the speaker’s speech. The rhetorical situation refers to the writer’s purpose for writing, the audience the writer is writing to, the persona the writer takes on in his/her writing, and the broader social context of the situation. Learning how to write and read in a conversional way, using linguistics, contributes to writer’s purpose, the way s/he chooses their audiences, the way they writer, and the meaning of their…show more content…
When completing an academic assignment, the writer first needs to determine who her audience is then she will be able to set her writing tone and style. For instant, if she wrote to chemistry professors, her writing tone, style, and word choices would have to be more complex and scientific than if she wrote to preschool students, which would be more simplified. Charles Bazerman states on page 656 that in order to know how to write, “The beginning student studied rules and practiced set forms derived from the best of previous writing; analysis and imitation of revered texts was the core of more advanced study of writing.” It explains the student learning as a reader from other writers on how to formulate his/her own tone and style of writing. This passage shows the word choices and phrases that Bazerman chooses; the words chosen describe how he writes. It represents his tone and style of writing, which is professional and formal. In the essay, Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenom by Marianne MacDonald the persona is formal because it is an essay that is written to be reviewed by professionals within their fields. “The number of readers is huge, but hard to nail down. Some estimates might be drawn from an on-line quiz.” (MacDonald pg. 28) Although the style is formal, it is an easy read. The word choices the author uses are easy to pick up on.…show more content…
It can also include the writer’s beliefs and past experiences in different types of situations (Student Writing Handbook pg 30). Depending on the kinds of background and expertise the writer has had, these aspects have a major effect on what the writer writes. The writer’s expertise, combined with the type of audience the writer is writing to and the purpose of the written piece determines the presentation of the context. The article of “Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenom” informs people what fan fiction is, as well as why people came up with fan fictions for Harry Potter. People come up with these fictions because there are normally vague concepts that are not explored thoroughly. People feel that the author leaves “spaces” that the readers themselves can incorporate their own writing into, which leads to the readers writing their own stories (MacDonald pg. 29). This can possibly show that MacDonald might have stumble upon fan fiction about Harry Potter, which lead to her writing her essay about what fan fictions are and why people write them. By reading what the writer had written, sometimes the writer’s persona will hint at similar relations that the writing may have with the writer’s own personal experiences. Depending on the type of audience, persona, and purpose of the text, there might not be a way to identify the context within the written
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