The Rhetorical Situation
                                                  Jennifer Campbell

Every text (written, spoken, or visual) is the product of a specific rhetorical situation. This is the context in which the text is written. The most basic elements of the rhetorical situation are:

The Author Who is communicating? What is the authors persona?

The Audience Who will be receiving the text? What does the author know about them, their position, their values, etc. that will influence how the text is written?

The Topic and Purpose What will the communication be about? What does the author hope to accomplish with the communication?

If any of the elements of the rhetorical situation change, the resulting text must change accordingly. Consider a few basic examples:

A history professor is teaching two courses one is a core freshman course and the other is a senior honors course. Both courses cover World War II and the professor assigns an essay in each class asking students to discuss the causes of the war. The audience and the topic/purpose are the same for all essays, but because the authors are different, the professor will expect different texts and evaluate them accordingly. The senior honors texts will be expected to be more thorough in their research, more subtle in their analysis, and more skillfully written. An essay that would get a B in the freshman course might not get a passing grade in the senior course.

If you are writing up a grocery list: you are the author, and you have little concern for your persona. You are writing to your future self, who will need to remember what to get at the store. The content is a list of items and the purpose is to remind. Now, if you are making a list so your friend can go to the store for you, the author and topic/purpose are the same, but the audience changes. You will thus need to change the text and be more specific. For example, you know what variety and brand and size of things you would get for a pasta dish, but your friend might not, so you would add more detail to make sure he gets the 16 oz. Classico sauce instead of the 32 oz. Ragu.

There is a good chance that in your academic life and career you will develop friendships with mentors and superiors. In any conversation you have with these friends, the author and audience are essentially the same, but your personas will shift and your discourse will change based on our topic and purpose. If you are discussing a concert and eating cheesecake, your voice, tone, style, etc. will be very casual and friendly with both of you on equal footing. If you meet in the office to discuss an important project, the conversation will be more formal and, while still friendly, it will be clear that one person has more authority to give advice and directions.

In your writing and in analyzing other texts it is important that you always consider the rhetorical situation; keep these factors in mind and adjust your writing or evaluation accordingly.

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