Journal #1

In “The Rhetorical Situation” by Bitzer, a rhetorical situation involves performing a task and is also based on “a response to a situation.” On the other hand, Dirk, in “Navigating Genre,” expands on Bitzer’s idea of “repeating rhetorical situations.” In Dirk’s essay, it is made clear that genres are fundamental to our definition of everyday writing. While everyday writing can be classified as “writing an email, or uploading a witty status on Facebook,” these genres are also functioning as “social actions” and are eliciting a response from an audience. Thus, rhetorical situations and genres are connected through the inner lying theme that a genre is created to make sense of repeating events that each generate a response.

As pointed out by Joey, our knowledge of rhetorical situations and genres now enable us to improve our writing by focusing on the audience and the situation in question. Through our understanding of rhetoric and genre, our writing can more effectively convey the main purpose or message to our audience through careful consideration of the audience’s preconceived notions of the situation and genre which our writing is encompassing. Also, determining which genre is most appropriate to the specific situation can produce a powerful and riveting response from the audience, which is obviously most desired by writers. In effect, a thorough understanding of rhetorical situations and genre enables a writer to become more comfortable with writing effective literary works on genres which are unfamiliar and foreign to the writer. By asking questions to better comprehend the situation involved and the corresponding genre, a writer can certainly convey a powerful message to their audience.