Let's Catch Our Breath

We have made it half way through the semester so far, and we have gone over some of the biggest topics writers will come across in a career.

Rhetoric

First let's define some key terms from the rhetoric lessons:

1. Rhetoric- Bitzer defines this as a means of altering reality though thought and action; a mode of communication. I can also understand it as venue for discourse to persuade. There has to be a purpose to the discourse.
2. Rhetorical situation- a couple of Bitzer's definitions of this include, "a rhetorical situation must exist as a necessary condition of rhetorical discourse, just as a question must exist as a necessary condition of an answer; many questions go unanswered and many problems remain unsolved; similarly, many rhetorical situations mature and decay without giving birth to rhetorical utterance." A rhetorical situation begins with the author. It is the discourse that occurs between the author, audience, purpose and constraints. This is vital to a writing.

3. Exigence- coined by Bitzer, "An imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be." This is the occasion and the obstacle that is to be overcome in a writing, each rhetorical situation needs this. This is what needs to be persuaded.

4. Constraints- As defined by Bitzer, "made up of persons, events, objects and relations which are parts of the situation because they have the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence."

5. Audience- "audience consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change.", Bitzer defined. This is who the "rhetor" is writing to, and as long as the author knows the group of people they are hoping to reach, they can gear their writings and purpose towards them and achieve persuasion.

6. Discourse- “the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action.” (Bitzer) The communication between the author and the writer, the communication between the characters in the story. This is where the rhetoric is shown and is utilized as an outlet.

These terms define rhetoric best for my understanding because it really breaks it down. Going into this class, I don’t think I’ve even heard of rhetoric. So our first reading on Bitzer went over my head and out the door. These six words take the main topics focused on in our first rhetoric reading and lay out the basics.

Composition

Now let's look at some key terms from the composition lessons:

1. Coherence- “the verbal stitching holding textual fabric together” (Halverson and Cooley)

2. Form/structure- “set of relationships between the parts which creates the whole” (Stalter)

In the two topics of rhetoric and composition, there was overlap in the two terms of “audience” and “rhetoric”. I believe this is happening because as we have learned, rhetoric is in everything. “Rhetoric” itself is easily defined in each topic because it is so general- that is must have a purpose. The purpose present in rhetoric and composition is meant to affect the audience. Without an audience, a written work would have no purpose, for there would be no minds to influence. It seems that all writing it linked together in the end, stemming from the same base of rhetoric.

Knowledge

At this point in the semester, I believe that you start with some knowledge, like basic instincts. But as you add to your schemas and are introduced to new ideas and ways of thinking then your knowledge grows. In this class, I have been able to bring old knowledge to the surface, add to knowledge that I already had ingrained in my mind from past English courses, and make room for new knowledge in all that I have learned from the rhetoric and composition lessons.