ENGL101: English Composition I

When we write at the college level, we consider more than just the method of writing. The method includes our grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary. Writing in college is rhetorical, which means we consider how the reader will interpret your text. Who will read what you write? Why will he or she read it? What do you hope they gain from reading it? How do you present it to them? All of these elements work together to make up what we call "the rhetorical situation".

Specifically, the rhetorical situation asks you to consider your context. To do this, think about who you are writing for (your audience) and why you are writing to them (your purpose).

Read this article. What advantages can you see by approaching a decision with a rhetorical perspective?

The first rhetorical elements that influence the rhetorical situation is your audience: who are you writing to? Considering your audience impacts everything you write, from the tone you use in an email to the sources you integrate into a research paper.

Study the definitions and reflective questions in this table. Keep in mind that you should consider who you are writing to (your audience) and why you are writing to them (your purpose). How should your tone vary when writing an argumentative essay versus an informal email?

Read this article about taking your audience into consideration as you write. Great writers consider their audience first. Ask yourself the audience analysis questions before you begin your next writing assignment.

The second rhetorical element that influences the rhetorical situation is purpose. You have an audience, but why do you want to write for them? What are you trying to achieve? Purpose determines how you write to your audience, but also how your audience receives your writing. Aside from thinking about your own purpose, think about why the audience may be interested in reading your work. Read this article and think about the different types of purposes you might see in academic writing. How would each of these purposes change the way you write an academic essay?

Before you start writing, it is important to determine your purpose. Knowing what you want to achieve will help guide your ideas you draft. Read this article and think about how purpose influences what and how you write.

An often overlooked element of the rhetorical situation is medium. Medium (or the plural "media") is the means or way an author uses to present a composition to their audience. This can be through a written essay, a video, an email, or a social media post, to name a few. Medium is directly impacted by your audience and purpose, since the medium you select should be the one that best engages your readers and holds their attention. 

In your own experience, how do you see media used to engage with an audience and present a purpose? How does changing media impact the rhetorical situation?

In his fourth century treatise "Rhetoric", Aristotle presented four appeals speakers and writers use to effectively persuade an audience:

1. Ethos (the composer’s credibility);
2. Pathos (the emotional pull of the composition);
3. Logos (the logical support for the composition); and,
4. The less frequently noted kairos (the timeliness of the composition).

The first three appeals work in balance with one another in some call the "rhetorical triangle".

As you read this chapter, consider these questions: How are the rhetorical appeals used in balance? What might occur if one appeal was left out? How does re-balancing the appeals (say, by making logos stronger than pathos) affect a composition?

Ethos is the Greek word for character, and rhetorically ethos refers to a writer or speaker's credibility. When a writer has a strong ethos, readers trust his or her ideas and are inclined to concur with the argument's line of reasoning. Read this article to better understand ethos and the strategies you can employ to build your own ethos as a writer.

Ethos is something the author builds through the choices they make as a writer. When a writer shows goodwill to the reader or audience, the reader is able to trust the writer. Read this article about ethos and think about the three ways writers can show goodwill to their audience.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" offers clear examples of ethos. For example, by addressing the letter to "my fellow clergymen", Dr. King places himself among a group of leaders. Seeing him as a leader allows the reader to trust his statements. Read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and list the statements that evoke ethos.

Pathos is the Greek word for "emotion", and the rhetorical method of pathos refers to appealing to the emotions of one's audience in order to persuade. Without offering evidence, pathos can be little more than an invalid, emotional response in your writing; however, using all rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, and pathos) is the best way to strengthen an argument. Make sure to provide appropriate evidence when using pathos in your arguments.

Logos is the Greek word for "logic". Logos refers to a logical rhetorical appeal when making an argument.

This article explains logos through the use of inductive and deductive reasoning.

Kairos is a fourth rhetorical appeal, but it is not included in the rhetorical triangle. Kairos appeals to the timeliness of an argument, but can be difficult to pin down. When considering kairos, think about why an audience would need the information you are presenting right now. What is important about your purpose in this exact moment?

As you read this article, think about how the purpose of an argument can change with time. How might an audience adapt over time, changing the way a message is presented or received?

Read this article to learn about logical fallacies and how to avoid them. Logical fallacies occur when the chain of reasoning breaks down, which invalidates the conclusion. Try to identify any logical fallacies in your writing by revisiting one of the writing activities for this course or another course.

Watch these videos on logical fallacies. As you watch, think about how the narrator finds logical fallacies used in persuasive appeals. How can you use these same skills as you read and conduct research?

Writing does not occur in a vacuum. That is to say, writing is a process that involves more than sitting down at a desk and plugging words into a computer. When we write, we brainstorm and prewrite, we draft, we ask for feedback, we revise, we ask for feedback again, and we revise some more.

The process is recursive, meaning that is ongoing and turns back on itself frequently. For example, you may have a great idea for an essay and begin by brainstorming. After a bit of brainstorming you realize your idea is too broad and needs to be narrowed down. Then you do some research into your newly narrowed topic. The research you find makes you go back again and change the way you stated your topic’s main idea. As you begin drafting you realize some of your research fits nicely, but other pieces of research are of no use and you need to go back and do more research. And so on...

Read the following chapter and answer the following questions: How does the process approach differ from the product approach? Which do you prefer when writing an essay? Do you find that you follow any of the steps in these chapters when writing essays? Which prewriting activity works best for you?

Read this article on the writing process from prewriting to publishing. Do you find that you follow these steps when writing essays? Which prewriting activity works best for you?

Asking friends and classmates for their opinions can be a helpful step in the writing process. Try the suggestion in this article about using Microsoft Word's tracking and commenting features to help organize your peers' feedback.

Read this article on the pre-writing method called freewriting, and watch the linked video. Have you ever suffered from writer's block? Do you think freewriting would be a helpful technique to combat writer's block? Why or why not?

Read this article to learn about several methods of brainstorming. Previously, we took a look at freewriting to help combat writer's block. This article reviews the freewriting method and several other techniques, such as creating lists, developing concept maps, thinking of journalistic questions, identifying topic levels, and cubing. Which of these techniques do you feel will be the most helpful when starting an essay?

Read this page. Why is outlining important? Try the exercises at the bottom of the page to increase your outlining skills.

Read this article to learn about effective reading, note-taking, and writing strategies. Which of these writing strategies will work best for you?

Read this article on reading and interpreting literature, which will help improve your own writing skills.

Read this article about the link between writing and critical thinking. As we write critically, we also develop skills to think and interpret more deeply. As you read, consider how you need to rethink topics and issues as you write about them. How does your thinking change as you plan, research, and draft an essay?

This sonnet by Emma Lazarus starts a conversation about the Statue of Liberty. While it and Dan Sanchez's article below discuss same topic, they do so in different ways. The purpose, audience, tone, and context is different in each example. How they use ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos differs as well.