The first step of any successful writing or communications project is to thoroughly consider the rhetorical situation of your writing task. The rhetorical situation is a concept that helps writers more deeply understand how messages and ideas are crafted and communicated across different contexts. You might be familiar with the concept of rhetorical analysis as a reader, but the same concepts are crucial to composing a successful piece of writing.
The parts of the rhetorical situation are as follows:
- Audience: The intended readers of a text.
- Purpose: What the writer wants the text to do in the world, such as affecting how the audience feels, thinks, or acts.
- Genre: What category a text belongs to based on its form, content, style, etc. Examples include a lab report, a persuasive academic essay, an academic journal article, a social media post.
- Exigence: This word comes from a Latin word that means “urgent.” From a writing process perspective, “exigence” refers to conditions that make a piece of text particularly appropriate. These conditions can be other events that are happening at the same time or a tough issue the text addresses.
- Context: Any other factors that affect the creation of the text, such as timing or current events.
The following graphic shows how these elements interact:
The rhetorical situation can help you to remember all of the factors you should consider as you begin a writing task. Some questions to consider as you begin writing might include:
- What is the purpose of this text?
- How does/should the audience shape this text?
- What medium, genre, and/or mode will most effectively convey this information and/or persuade this audience?
- Are there any contextual factors that need to be considered when working on this text?
Your answers to these questions may change your way of approaching the writing project or the feedback you provide for a piece of writing, and you’ll want to double-check throughout that there aren’t mismatches between your purpose, audience, genre, and context.
For example, the Writers Workshop regularly updates our website, which involves thinking through how to best present information about our services to students and members of the campus community. Let’s take a look at how we answered some of these questions when revising our “Locations and Hours” page.
| Rhetorical Questions to Consider | Notes |
| What is the purpose of this text? | The purpose of this page is to clearly and concisely let folks know the hours and locations where they can access the WW. |
| How does/should the audience shape this text? | Students are busy and looking for quick, easily digestible info, so the page should be easy to navigate, provide important info at the top, and avoid unnecessary text. |
| What genre, medium, and mode will be most effective at conveying this information or persuading this audience? | The website is where folks looking for basic info like this are likely to check first. Since this is basic info about accessing services, concise printed text is ideal, as opposed to something that requires more time to comprehend, like a video or infographic. |
| Are there any contextual factors that need to be considered when working on this text? | People seeking this info are unlikely to read a lot of extraneous text; users might also require easy access to other components of the website (for example, to book an appointment). We would also like to direct folks to other important info, including our WW policies. |
Now take a look at our final result:
At first glance, the orange and blue color scheme and branding logos identify the WW as a UIUC campus unit, while the drop-down menus, search bar, and clickable links follow the conventions of a website. More importantly, this page shows attention to purpose and audience engagement. Beginning with an “on this page” list of contents helps users know whether they have found the right page; if someone doesn’t see the information they are looking for listed, they could move on without needing to waste time reading the entire page. These jump links also allow users to immediately navigate to one part of the page without scrolling through the entire page, recognizing that most users will visit looking for very specific info–for example, a student who pulls up this page to check directions on their way to an appointment. The orange buttons link out to other pages, because it is likely that folks who are interested in knowing about WW locations/hours are also interested in learning about our different appointment types, booking an appointment, or seeing our policies. All of these choices reflect deliberate decisions made by the WW based on our unique purpose, audience, and goals. And while academic writing might seem very different from writing copy for a website, academic writers will—consciously or unconsciously—make many decisions regarding these rhetorical elements.