The Rhetorical Situation

Going into the article, I expected it to be kind of interesting. I was just basing that off the title. But I was so wrong. That article was just awful. I feel asleep reading it. Twice. When I first looked at the article, I noticed how freaking long it was. It made me not want to read it. He gave a lot of examples. And some were kind of pointless. And also some of his explanations were confusing. There were times where I had to read stuff twice just to understand what he was saying.  I think he definitely could have shortened the article and still have been able to get his point across. Even a nice picture maybe would have made it just a little bit easier to read. Maybe.

Despite how boring it was to read, I think it did have some really good things you could learn from it. The whole purpose of the article is for us to get a better understanding of rhetoric. He says that “rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to situation, in the same sense that an answer comes into existence in response to a question, or a solution in response to a problem.” This means that rhetorical discourses have to be used to explain something. They come as a response. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was an example he used. Bitzer called it “a most fitting response to the relevant features of the historic context.

 Before reading the article, my understanding of rhetoric was not all that great. But now after reading it, I think I do understand it a lot better.  Also, I think after reading this article, my writing will get better. Or might get better. I make no promises on that. He made me more aware that I need to think about the audience I will be writing for. I need to think of the way they will perceive what I write. Everything I write is an argument, even if the audience isn’t aware of it. When I write I will need to try to convince my audience of my argument.  So I think this was a good assignment to help us be better writers.