Rhetorical Situations and Its effect on literacy Artifacts

Ryan Villasmil

Department of Rhetoric and Writing

ENC 1101

Professor Angela Orozco

October 25, 2023

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Rhetorical Situations can be found littered throughout our lives. Whether in a formal

manner like academic papers, or less formal variety such as text messages or notes we

experience them almost daily. Whether it be in simple news ads, political speeches made by

senate members, writing an essay, or even sending a text message to your friends.

Rhetorical Situations involve basic ingredients such as a text, the author, an audience, a

purpose, and a setting which all come together to make the rhetorical situations (Carroll, 2010).

By conducting a rhetorical analysis of a rhetorical situation, we can figure out how these core

foundations come together to provoke a response from the author. As a result, we create literacy

practices, that we use and develop when we encounter similar rhetorical experiences.

My experience with rhetorical situations began with schooling. Rhetorical situations were

a topic that my teachers heavily stressed, emphasizing how to conduct rhetorical analysis and the

pieces that make them up.

When writing I always had to think of who I wanted to target with this, what prompted

me to write this essay, and what are my limits when writing, or are there any outside factors that

may affect the decisions I made.

The context of the situation which is why are responding to a situation in this manner or

way, the exigence which is the cause or the event that invites the response from the author, the

audience the recipients of the message, and the constraints of the situations (Carroll, 2010). But
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after being heavily influenced by these components I in turn created literacy practices that can be

used specifically for those situations.

Let’s for example take one of my essays from the AP Seminar. From an overview, it can

be difficult to pinpoint all the main components of a rhetorical analysis, but with a closer look,

they can be found.

Firstly, my exigence or the reason that I was creating my essay can be pinpointed to two

different things, the more broadly thought one is that it was my final research project for the AP

Seminar, but there is another exigence hidden there before me writing the paper being that it was

a topic that I was passionate about and cared for. (Carroll, 2010).

I had to do research that I saw as important and needed a new view of fresh air on it. The

purpose of my essay was to pass the AP test, as well as to provide a recollection of the

information that was gathered on my question over the years.

My audience was my teacher who of course was reading the assignment, and the college

board who would eventually read and grade it. Both my teacher and college board were me main

audience that I wanted to target as they were going to be the main readers of my essay. I also had

an unintended audience of people who have been affected by the problem of Hispanic

assimilation and the problems that come with it, which I also have targeted as they can relate to

what I wrote about.

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Lastly, my constraints within this genre were tough. Since it was an AP essay it had to

follow specific formats like having to be under 2000 words, but the essay required multiple parts.

Along with being formatted in a specific manner, it needed to have more than 10 sources used in

the essay and more.

These components came together and influenced the way that I created my essay. Factors

such as: how recent the information in my article was and if I must update it, what information

from my article fit my audience, and the question I had to answer were always in the back of my

mind. Even with all these influences around me, I was able to write an essay that was influenced

by the rhetorical factors around me which in turn earned me a 5 on the AP Seminar test,

accomplishing the goals by first passing the class with said essay and answering the question that

was proposed in my essay.

Depending on the stress of the situation or the context of the situation we choose and

make specific choices that co-align with our goal. Let’s take these screenshots of text messages

between me and people in my life for example.

This screenshot was the day after my girlfriend and I’s anniversary. My goal with the

messages was to show my appreciation for everything that she had done for me, including what

she did for me yesterday. The exigence and purpose influenced my choices, along with the other

rhetorical factors such as she was my audience. Allow me to have fewer constraints due to the

expectations of the genre which made it much easier to get my point across due to the definition

of the genre (Jacobson et al, 2006).

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The genre of text messages which includes any messages that are sent electronically

through “text” allows more freedom and fewer expectations when writing a text message rather

than that of an AP essay where the definition of genre invokes more to be than that of a causal

text message.

But even within the same genre, rhetorical moves, and literacy practices you use can

change as it all depends on the rhetorical situation.

If we take a look at these text messages between my brother and me, we can notice the

difference between the messages. I presented my information with a more straightforward and

less expressive attitude than I was with my girlfriend to whom I was showing support and love.

While with my brother I knew that I just had to tell him I sent him money for my phone, so I

kept my choices limited to get my point across quickly and fast.

Genre plays the role of outlining the rhetorical situations, but the core foundations that

make up rhetorical situations are the true influencing factors in movies and the literacy practices

we use. Rhetorical situations are built around the genre and their purpose. You can almost infer

that without genres, we wouldn’t have rhetorical situations, and vice versa. They need each other

to function effectively.

Rhetorical Situations affect the choices we make throughout our lives. These practices we

develop can carry over the different rhetorical situations that we experience in our lives, creating
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literacy practices that we will carry and use whenever we encounter situations in which they can

be applied.

(Gagich, 2020) They allow us to recognize the skills we have attained through writing

and choose the process that fits us the best, and which we should choose depending on the

situations and factors such as which audience we must target, the genre we are aiming to be a

part of, what message we want to give off, the medium we want to protect our information from,

and lastly the author us.

Having a deeper understanding of rhetorical situations has allowed me as a writer to

evolve and adapt to use specific practices when encountering a situation that it can be applied to.

Being in college I experience more rhetorical situations than ever but as a writer, I now have the

ability and power to get my goal across while keeping other factors such as the audience, events,

and me the author in mind.

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Reference Page

Carroll, L. B. (2010). Backpacks vs. briefcases: Steps toward rhetorical analysis. writingspaces, 45.

https://writingspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Backpacks-versus-Briefcases.pdf

Gagich, M. (2020). 5 An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing. Writing spaces:

Readings on writing, 3, 65-85. https://writingspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/1gagich-

introduction-strategies-multimodal-composing-1.pdf

Jacobson, B., Pawlowski, M., & Tardy, C. (2021). Make your “move”: Writing in genres. Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 4.

https://writingspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/jacobson.pdf