In Chapter 4, you learned the fundamentals of rhetoric: how to make an academic argument, the rhetorical appeals, and logical fallacies. In this chapter, we will build on that knowledge with some additional rhetorical concepts, borrowing from both modern and classical theories. In particular, we will learn about purpose, audience, and design; the rhetorical canons; genre theory; and rhetorical analysis.

Let’s take a look at the definition of rhetoric, given to us by Aristotle, whose work forms the basis of most Western rhetorical theory: “The ability to observe, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” This definition tells us that rhetoric is really a capacity more than a thing that we do – it involves being able to understand the dimensions of a given writing situation, to understand how we might write persuasively in that situation, and to understand how the context in which we write impacts what we are able to write or what will be the most effective way to write. We call this the “rhetorical situation.”

The Rhetorical Situation

One of the basic tenets of rhetorical study is the rhetorical situation, which is usually explained in a series of relationships visualized through triangles. Using the triangle to visualize parts of the rhetorical situation shows the recursive nature of the relationship between the composition, the creator, and the recipients.

The rhetorical triangle can be used to represent the participants in a speech, piece of writing, or any other communication. Because so many media are available to a communicator today, the label “rhetor” can be used to mean anyone communicating in any medium.

When you engage in rhetoric, you move toward asking specific questions about your writing situation. Writers who actively engage in rhetorical decision-making understand that writers always respond to a rhetorical situation: a context that leads them to make decisions about what purpose their text might accomplish, who their audience is, and what kind of writing would be most effective. This leads us to three basic concepts that can help us make any piece of writing more effective: Purpose, Audience, and Design.

These elements encompass the basic concepts of rhetoric and gives you questions to prompt your analysis of the rhetorical situation of a given writing project. Communicating well means understanding your topic, of course, but also knowing your audience(s) and purpose(s). To that end, you can use the PAD – purpose, audience, and design – as a mnemonic device that will help you analyze a rhetorical situation and make rhetorical decisions to produce effective writing projects. If you consider these questions independently, you will quickly realize that they are inextricably connected as part of the rhetorical situation. As such, a complete understanding of a project’s rhetorical situation requires that purpose, audience, and design should always be considered collectively. To help you explore each question thoroughly, let’s consider them separately, beginning with purpose.

Purpose

 Purpose is defined by what the audience should know, think, decide, do, or be able to do after they read your writing. Purpose helps you begin the writing process by narrowing the scope of your project based on the desired outcome. Your writing might:

• Explain
• Evaluate
• Inform
• Entertain
• Persuade
• Describe
• Narrate
• And more!

Writing can do almost anything, and it’s your job to know what your writing should do and communicate to your audience what your writing is doing. An understanding of purpose is necessary to accomplish this work. To answer the purpose question, consider the end result of your project, and then make the purpose clear throughout your writing. Avoid mistakes, tangents, and unnecessary information that might confuse that purpose.

An easy way to consider the end result of your writing is to ask a series of questions, such as the following:

• Why is the audience reading my writing?
• How will they use it?
• What do you want the writing to achieve?
• What do you want your reader to do after reading?

This is not an exhaustive list, but is a good starting point for considering your purpose.

Once you understand your purpose, you need to make sure that your readers know what that purpose is – we’re not trying to trick anybody here! You should state your purpose clearly and, in most cases, as early as possible. You also need to make sure the document stays focused on your purpose throughout. For instance, in a report, you should state your problem in the introduction and make sure all information that follows clearly relates to that problem (more on reports in Chapter 9 ).

Audience

Your audience is/are the person or people reading what you write. Understanding audience and all that term encompasses is one of the most important and challenging tasks a writer will face. Once you begin the work of understanding and addressing the concept of audience, you are on your way to being a successful writer.

To answer the audience question – who am I writing to/for? – you need to perform an audience analysis. Here are some broad questions to get you started:

• What type of person/people will read your writing?
  • ○ Are you writing for professors? Other students? The general public? Is the audience knowledgeable about the topic? Are they favorably or unfavorably pre-disposed toward your topic/stance?
• Why is your audience reading your writing?
  • ○ What do they want from it? What are they expecting?
• How will your audience use your document?
  • ○ Will they simply read it? Respond to it? Where/how will they engage with it – for instance, online, hard copy, in a classroom setting, in private?

Audience analysis means you need to consider the type, knowledge, physical location, disposition, experience, interest, and expectations of your potential audience(s). You’ll want to pay close attention to cultural factors, as well. Differences in culture can significantly inform whether your writing will be effective.

Audience Types

 Audience is a dynamic construct. That means your audience is a moving target. Audiences are living things composed of people and, as you know, people transform, adapt, and evolve all the time. While we use the term “audience” like it’s a singular entity, “audience” is a dynamic, changing group of people – and it’s very often the case that you will have multiple, varied audiences.

In analyzing audience, then, your job is to come up with an “informed guess” about the character and qualities of your reader(s). You may need to do some research and ensure that you understand the following as well as possible:

• Who will see your document?
• How will it be circulated?
• What strategies and language are required to effectively communicate with your audience?

You’ll also want to break your audiences into types and classify them by their role to better understand how they might be involved with your writing. Following are some audience classifications.

Primary Audience

In any audience analysis, the first step is to identify the primary audience – the person or group most directly interested in or connected to your document. You will write principally to this person/group, as your primary audience is the one for whom your document will be most useful and effective. You will have to research or discover their needs, expectations, and communication norms and standards. Some approaches to doing this research are discussed later in the chapter.

Secondary Audience(s)

 Once you have determined your primary audience, you also need to consider any secondary audiences – people who are not as directly involved with your writing, but will still read it for a variety of reasons, and thus are readers who need to be considered.

Consider something as simple as an essay for a class. You might think of your instructor as the only audience for the essay. However, you may be asked to perform peer review – which makes your classmates a secondary audience. University administration might need to look at the essay for any number of reasons – which makes those administrators a secondary audience. Your instructor might like to use student examples in future classes – which makes those future students a secondary audience. You are not necessarily writing for all of these audiences, but you should at the very least keep in mind that they exist and will read your writing.

Let’s consider a non-classroom example, as well, to further illustrate. Consider a corporation’s annual financial report. This document will have a large variety of audiences, including upper-level management, the legal department (as well as other various departments), shareholders, customers, and competition. All of these audiences must be at least considered, and the report should be tailored to each of them to varying degrees. While you don’t want to change your style and tone at different parts of the report based on what you think one audience might like best, you could at least think about what information each audience will be looking for and ensure that that information is easy to find, to read, and to understand.

Communication is not an isolated one-way event, but instead, a circuit involving many people. A combined audience will read most documents you write, especially longer ones. You need to approach audience analysis, then, as a multi-layered event that takes into consideration the social process of communication.

Audience Expertise

 One way that you can further analyze your audience is by breaking it down into four general knowledge categories that describe the reader’s expertise with your topic. These are:

Beyond Expertise

Expertise is incredibly important and helps define a useful audience analysis. But it’s not all there is when considering how your writing will be read and interpreted by an audience. You may also want to consider the following:

• Organizational Hierarchy
• Personality
• Interest level
• Cultural factors

And definitely avoid biased language or language that could be considered sexist, racist, or ableist – for instance, assuming that your audience will be of a particular gender and thus referring to them with gendered pronouns in your writing.

Audience Research

At times, you might have a solid idea of who your audience is, what they expect, and how they will read your writing. However, many times you will need to write to audiences with whom you are initially unfamiliar. In these cases, you will need to do some audience research. There are a number of different ways you might conduct this research – some good options might include:

Audience Research

At times, you might have a solid idea of who your audience is, what they expect, and how they will read your writing. However, many times you will need to write to audiences with whom you are initially unfamiliar. In these cases, you will need to do some audience research. There are a number of different ways you might conduct this research – some good options might include:

• The Internet – always a good place to start
  • ○ Look for artifacts from that group – forums, articles written by them, trade publications, professional organizations, blogs, etc. This allows you to see what members of an audience think about themselves.
  • ○ Look for the values and language that shows their needs, as well as any communication conventions.
• Observation – provides invaluable insight
  • ○ Includes direct interaction and observation of your audience.
  • ○ Gives insight into standards, practices, and norms.
  • ○ Also gives interpersonal cues.
• Surveys – provides statistics and demographics
  • ○ Helps to answer specific questions about your audience.
• Interviews – more personal and open-ended
  • ○ Take more time than surveys.
  • ○ Can get more in-depth, but with fewer people.
  • ○ Avoid “yes/no” questions.
• Focus groups – like interviews, but with a group
  • ○ Participants should interact with you and each other,
  • ○ Use a moderator to stay on task.
  • ○ Conduct multiple to get reliable conclusions.

Each of these methods has strengths and drawbacks, and the one you choose should depend on the context and scope of your project. Often, a combination is best, and you may need to incorporate additional methods. This is not an exhaustive list.

For all your best efforts, keep in mind that your analysis will yield an informed guess – but one that is vital to the success of your writing.

Design

When you are tasked with a writing assignment, the genre or form of the final product is often specified (for instance, perhaps you are told to write a report). Knowing the conventions of that genre (more on that later) gives you a basic set of ideas for what the document should look like, but many decisions remain as you work to design a document that is visually appealing, easy to read, and meets your audience’s expectations. A document’s overall appearance affects the reader’s attitude toward the document and determines whether the reader can find and engage with information simply and efficiently.

When thinking about the design of your writing, ask yourself: What should it look like? There are two primary concerns for design. First, there is the actual format of the page and arrangement of words on the page. Oftentimes, parts of this will be determined by what genre you are writing in – more on that later in this chapter. Second, there is incorporation of any visuals, graphics, or figures that you need in your writing. Each of these will be fully covered in Chapter 8: Visuals.

The Rhetorical Canons

In Chapter 5, you learned about the rhetorical appeals, a concept from classical rhetoric that helps us understand how to persuade and how others are trying to persuade us. Here, we will learn about another concept from classical rhetoric: the rhetorical canons. The canons are five tenets of rhetoric described by the Roman rhetorician Cicero, and they are: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Although these canons were originally created with a focus on public speaking, they are also applicable to writing.

In fact, you might notice a similarity between some of the canons and the stages of the writing process, as outlined back in Chapter 1. This would be an apt observation, and part of what the canons do for us is to help understand how rhetoric is created – the process of rhetoric, as it were. However, they also help us to understand how rhetoric functions. Here, we will describe each of the canons and their importance for rhetoric.

Invention

Invention is the process of coming up with what you are going to write – finding something to say. In fact, its root word, the Latin invenire, means “to find.” Invention concerns what you are going to say, rather than how you are going to say it. This might include the brainstorming and prewriting processes described in Chapter 1 – and it might also include analyses of purpose and audience as described earlier in this chapter. So, for more on invention, see those sections.

Arrangement

Arrangement concerns how one organizes their writing. In ancient times, arrangement involved fitting the content of a speech into a specific, prescribed pattern. However, now we have a variety of different choices in how we arrange something. For Cicero, the canon of arrangement also correlated directly to the appeals – one should rely primarily on ethos in the introduction to establish authority, on logos in the body to give details and show the logic of an argument, and on pathos in the conclusion to stir the audience to action.

Of course, this pattern does not fit all modern writing situations. For instance, sometimes, you might want to employ pathos early on to engage an audience, or you might save ethos for a section that may arouse skepticism in your audience.

The takeaway here is that arrangement is actually a rhetorical concern. We might think of organization as something that’s rote, mechanical, or perfunctory, but good organization is persuasive in and of itself. Furthermore, how you arrange a piece of writing should primarily be governed by the context of your writing – especially your purpose and audience.

Style

 Where invention is concerned with what you are going to say, style is concerned with how you say it. Many think of style simply as grammatically correct writing – but in fact, it is far more than that. Like arrangement, style is rhetorical, not incidental or superficial. Rather, it is about how ideas are expressed in language in a way that is customized to particular contexts.

Beyond grammar, other stylistic concerns might include:

• Figures of speech
• Jargon
• Tone
• Clarity
• Coherence

Your stylistic choices can impact a reader’s perception of you and your writing very deeply, in a positive or negative manner. For this reason, stylistic choices should always be very carefully considered, and great attention should be paid to avoid anything that might be read as a stylistic error. When you are considering style, think about how you can persuade your audience not only with the content of your argument but with the way in which you express that content.

Memory

 Memory is often the most difficult canon for folks to connect with modern writing, since we don’t have to memorize our writing nearly as often anymore. While memory initially had a lot to do with mnemonics – memory aids that would help orators remember their speeches – there is a lot more to memory than just memorization.

Memory also has to do with drawing on collective memory – the memories that we share as a society. This comes through in our writing in a variety of ways. First, when we do research, we are drawing on the collected memories of a particular field of study. Second, if we employ any examples or expect our audience to know certain pieces of information, then we are relying on collective memories that are shared with our audience. Finally, we draw on collective memory to understand the conventions of a genre and what our audience expects from our writing.

Memory, then, is integral to writing, even in the modern day, and can even be used persuasively. For instance, if you draw on a particular example that you know your audience will be familiar with, they will be more positively disposed to you because you have demonstrated an understanding of their experiences and/or values and showed that you share in them.

Delivery

 Delivery has to do with how your audience will actually receive your argument. In ancient times, delivery was primarily concerned with effective habits of speaking. However, delivery is perhaps the canon most impacted by modern advances in writing and technology.

When thinking about delivery, we have to think through questions about genre, circulation, and medium. Ask yourself questions such as:

• What genre should I write in? Is this an essay, memo, email, report, etc.?
• What medium should I use? Am I delivering online, hard copy, offline but onscreen? What are the constraints and affordances of my medium?
• What formatting choices should I use to enhance readability?
• Will my writing be circulated – as in, will multiple people read it – and if so, how and how widely?
• Are there usability or accessibility concerns that I should be aware of in my delivery?

Effective delivery, then, is highly context-dependent. Delivery interacts with many of the other concepts discussed in this book – purpose, audience, and design; document design; multimodality; genre; etc. Importantly, it is something that you should consider early in the writing process. Many folks wait until the end to think about delivery, and then find that they have to change a lot of things to make their delivery effective.

Conclusion

Each of the five canons is integral to any piece of writing. Because of that, you should consider them throughout your writing process. You can also use them as a technique for rhetorical analysis – if you are asked to analyze something, ask yourself how effective the delivery is, or look at how it is arranged. These are excellent starting points for any effective rhetorical analysis.

Genre Theory

 You’ve probably heard the term genre before. Perhaps you’ve heard it used to refer to genres of music, like pop, rock, country, rap, etc. – or genres of movies like action, horror, comedy, and romance. These are all certainly genres – but what exactly is a genre? Can you come up with a definition?

If you were to say that a genre is a category of something, you wouldn’t be far off. Genres help us understand how rhetoric and discourse work by creating classification and types. Carolyn Miller, one of the most respected theorists of genre studies, defines genre as “typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations”. That definition might seem a little complex, so let’s see if we can break it down.

We’ve already talked about rhetoric being situational and contextual. Miller argues that there are particular rhetorical situations or writing contexts that happen over and over again – for instance, being asked to write a paper for a class. When this happens, we develop common ways of responding to that recurring situation – and that common response becomes a genre. So, a somewhat simpler definition might be “a common response to a rhetorical situation that occurs fairly often.”

For Miller, genre has five primary features:

1. It refers to a conventional category of discourse based in large scale typification of rhetorical action – this is basically what we’ve already said
2. It is interpretable by means of rules – there are always rules to a genre, like having a thesis statement for a persuasive essay.
3. It is distinct from form – This means that genre is more than just formatting choices – it also involves how we write. So, genre is not just about delivery but about style and arrangement as well.
4. It serves as the substance of forms at higher levels – this tells us that while genres are distinct from formatting, it determines formatting choices.
5. It is a rhetorical means of mediating private intentions and social exigencies – This one is a bit more complex. What Miller means here is that, as a writer, there is always tension between you and society. You want to say something, and society wants you to say it in a particular way so that it is understandable and acceptable to them. So, genre is a way of negotiating this by relying on agreed-upon norms.

While genre might certainly be things like romance, comedy, or action, it can be letters, reports, blogs, and emails as well. Genres are common responses to recurrent rhetorical situations, with their own rules determining how they are usually written.

There are two key principles to using genre effectively. First is understanding which genres are appropriate for which situations, and second is understanding genre conventions.

In order to use genre effectively, we have to first choose the genre that will be most effective in a given situation. Sometimes, this will be determined for us – we will be asked to write in a particular genre. At other times, we will have to figure it out ourselves. Which genre is most appropriate will be determined by context, purpose, and audience:

The familiarity and comfort created by using the right genre will help to make your writing more effective. Conversely, using an inappropriate genre will be counter-productive – it will often be jarring for your audience and will hinder you accomplishing your purpose.

Once you have selected a genre, you must understand and employ its genre conventions. Genre conventions are the “rules” of a genre – the things that give them their recognizability. Conventions can comprise a wide range of textual elements, including particular phrasings, themes, word choice, stylistic choices, formatting, document design, etc. Think of comedy, for instance – a comedy with no jokes would be very odd, right? This is because jokes are a genre convention of comedy.

Importantly, if your audience is familiar with your chosen genre, they will expect to see its conventions used. So, using those conventions will help ensure rhetorical effectiveness. Therefore, if you are writing in a genre that you are unfamiliar with, step one should be to learn its conventions. Here is a list of steps you might take to learn a genre’s conventions:

1. See if there are any lists available. For some genres, there may be lists of rules or conventions published online.
2. Look at examples – one of the best ways to learn genre conventions is to look at other examples of that genre.
3. Identify patterns, trends, and themes in the examples that you’ve found.
4. Determine which patterns, trends, and themes are most important.
5. Practice, test, and revise!

Once you fully understand genre, you can use it to craft pieces of writing that maximize effectiveness, are comfortable for your audience, and help achieve your purpose.

Rhetorical Analysis

 You may be asked to perform a rhetorical analysis in one of your classes – and the ability to analyze rhetoric is a valuable skill in general. But what actually is rhetorical analysis, and how do you perform one?

We’ve been talking a lot about rhetoric, so let’s talk about analysis first. An analysis is an examination of the structure or elements of something, usually done for purposes of evaluation and critique of that thing.

Importantly an analysis is not a summary. Whereas a summary identifies the main points of something, an analysis discusses its makeup, strengths, and weaknesses, and/or effectiveness. A simple way to put it is that a summary answers the question “what does it say?” whereas an analysis answers the question of “how and how well does it say it?”

Keep in mind, too, that in an analysis you are usually making an argument or reaching a conclusion about the object of analysis. Think of that conclusion as the starting point for your thesis statement and as a summary of your overall evaluation of the object. Then, use the rest of your analysis to discuss the elements of the object that helped you reach that conclusion.

When you do any type of analysis, you should choose specific elements of your object to study, and a specific framework to study them with. This will help you focus your analysis, help it make sense to readers, and make it clear what is within and outside of the scope of your project. This is where the “rhetoric” in rhetorical analysis comes in. In a rhetorical analysis, you are choosing to examine the rhetorical elements of a text and to use the framework of rhetorical theory for your analysis.

That might sound like a difficult, complex task, but it’s simply a culmination of what you’ve learned about rhetoric so far in this book. A rhetorical analysis would ask you to use the concepts we’ve discussed so far – the rhetorical appeals, logical fallacies, PAD, the rhetorical canons, and genre theory – to analyze a text. Importantly, you don’t have to use every single one of those in every rhetorical analysis – just the ones that are relevant to the text that you are analyzing.

In order to read as even more un-biased and objective, you should use evidence in any analysis that you write. It might seem like analysis is an opinion-based style of writing, and there is certainly some subjectivity to it, but most readers will be looking for analysis that is as objective as possible. This evidence might take a variety of forms, and could include things like:

• Other analyses of similar objects.
• Other analyses that use the same frameworks (so, other rhetorical analyses in this case).
• References that define or discuss the concepts you are using for analysis (for instance, if you are analyzing something’s pathos, you could use a source that defines pathos).

So, to summarize, a rhetorical analysis should examine the elements of a text using the concepts of rhetoric and provide evidence backing up that examination in order to make an evaluation of the text. Here are some quick tips that can help you do that effectively:

1. Organize based on the elements of the text – either in the order in which they appear or by order of importance
2. Check to make sure your analysis includes a thesis statement that discusses the overall conclusion of your analysis
3. Be sure to discuss connections between pieces of the text
4. Examine the rhetorical situation – what is the purpose and audience of the text you’re analyzing?
5. It’s perfectly okay to include context. Discuss when, where, how, and why a text was published and/or circulated.
6. Use specific examples from the text to support your analysis. For example, if you say a text makes strong use of logos, show us exactly where it’s doing so.
7. Avoid providing your opinion on the topic of the text or whether you agree with the argument. Focus on the argument itself and its merits or flaws.
8. Tell your reader what the focus of your analysis is and what analytic frame you are using in your introduction.

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