Rhetorical situations

In the past week I have done a few very different pieces of writing which have required me to analyze the rhetorical situation of each. In some cases, such as the social media aspect, I may have conducted this analysis unconsciously and instinctively because of its informal structure.


When writing a blog post for English, I first considered the audience (other students and our professor) and what my relationship is with them. Since the professor has authority over me, I would need to address these posts formally and in a thoughtful manner. While writing, I kept in mind the purpose for writing these posts which is to fulfill a course assignment. I conveyed my stance on "Is everyone an Author" by using a supportive attitude to show really do believe everyone is an author. Thinking about a larger context and what others have blogged about the topic helped me add my own voice to the conversation and add on to what they had to say.


Another piece of writing I worked on this week was an Instagram post for my friend's birthday. Since Instagram is a picture oriented social media, I first thought of the design aspect and picked out which visual best represented us together and the words that followed in the caption. Next I thought about the purpose of the post which is to honor her on her birthday. The audience who saw my post consisted of friends and family so I wasn't worried about trying to make it formal. That being said, I could easily convey my stance that she is one of my best friends and I wish her a happy birthday by using a light hearted attitude.


Throughout this whole week I have also been sending texts back and forth between friends and family. One good example is when I was writing to my friends in a group chat asking them for help with my math homework. It helped to think about the design aspect and how I could use it to best explain what I needed help with. I took a picture of the problem that I didn't understand and used it as a visual representation. I then thought about my stance on the subject and used my attitude (anger) to convey that I was frustrated and didn't know what was doing incorrectly. Since my audience only consisted of a few friends, I was able to use informal language but still get my point across