ENG 21011-804 College Writing II: Consumerism in the United States (Hediger): Rhetorical Context

Rhetorical Context – What is it?
Many composition instructors at will ask you to include the rhetorical context for any essay that you write.

What is this?
• "Rhetorical" is an adjective that means "by the act of communication" or "intending to transmit meaning." In a composition class, rhetoric is the art of persuasive or engaging writing.
• "Context" is the situation that surrounds any event.

The rhetorical context, then, is the situation that surrounds your act of writing. What are you writing? Why? For what purpose?

Parts of the Rhetorical Context...

Subject
Put simply, the subject of your essay is your topic. It covers the content of what the essay is about. Obviously, you want to make sure that you are clear about your subject when you sit down to write.
Possible subjects might include:

• the UCF Student Activities fee
• professional women's soccer in America
• mandatory jail time for possession of ecstasy
• the TV show South Park
• Napster, Morpheus, and other music-sharing programs

Purpose
What is your essay trying to accomplish? Your answer will be the purpose of your essay. Depending on your assignment, the purpose of your essay may be to:

• narrate an episode from the past
• relate an event and explain its importance
• review or evaluate a text
• explain a concept or idea
• examine and investigate a problem
• argue a position

Your purpose will be much more specific than these examples, however, because it will relate to a specific topic (the subject) that you've chosen. For example, your purpose may be
• "to argue that the land bordering Tuscarawas County be preserved rather than
developed for more housing."

This is much more specific than just "to argue a position." Depending on your assignment, you may have
several purposes (i.e., to explain why something is a problem, and to argue for a certain solution).

Audience
The audience of your work is the group of people you are writing for. The style, tone, organization,
diction, and content of your writing will be dependent on who exactly it is you want to be affected by
your ideas.

For example, an essay about drug use at Orlando rave clubs might be very different if the
audience was the Florida legislature, the readers of the Orlando Sentinel, high school students, your
parents, or ravers themselves.

Your instructor can provide you with help about who your audience should be. Sometimes, you may be
asked to write to "an educated audience," or your class, or the professor. In this case, you will want to
think about the kind of word choice, style, and structure that best fit this audience.

Occasion (or Situation)
The occasion for writing is the external motivation you have for sitting down to write.

• For instance, if you're writing a memoir about how important the regular Sunday dinner is in your
family, the occasion for this might be the memories you have of the love and companionship you
felt during these times when you were a child.
• Or, if you're writing a letter to a restaurant explaining a problem, the occasion might be the fly in
your soup that made you angry enough to sit down and write.
• Or, if you're writing an essay that argues that the campus should build more parking garages as soon as
possible, the occasion could've been the time you were late to class because you couldn't find a
parking space.
Be careful not to confuse occasion with purpose. The occasion is your personal motivation for writing,
while the purpose is what your writing is intended to do.

Adapted from http://uwc.ucf.edu/files/handouts/Rhetorical_Context.pdf