5 Most Important Concepts of Course

Suzann, Candace, Emily A, Lindsay

So far in this course, we have learned a lot of important concepts to enhance our knowledge on “everyday writing”. One of the most important concepts in our opinion is rhetorical situation. Rhetorical situation is the nature context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse. Understanding the basic definition of rhetorical situation enables us to look deeper into the meaning, and add other important concepts onto it. Another important concept of the course that goes hand in hand with rhetorical situation is genre. Genre ties in with almost all of the work we've done in this course, as each piece of everyday writing we do or learn about, is written in a certain style or format, which in a sense is a genre. Going along with rhetorical situation and genre, another significant concept we have learned about is exigence. Exigence is the purpose of a piece of writing, or the realization of a change that needs to be made, and then action taken to make that change. Most of the writing we have done in this course has had an obvious “exigence” or purpose. For example, when people write letters, they have a purpose for doing so. Usually, as the reader of the letter, we can easily depict that purpose. This brings us to the next important concept that goes along with all three of these topics, which is audience. Each piece of writing we have studied has had an audience, whether large or small. Sometimes the audience is just our individual self, sometimes it is a large group, and sometimes it is just one other person. Audience is directly connected to the rhetor, or the persuader of a piece of writing. This brings us back to the idea of purpose, the rhetor sees a change that they want made, they take action for the purpose, and the hope is that the audience will respond. Another important concept we have learned thus far is the importance of materials used. We learned a lot from analyzing what kinds of materials people use for certain pieces of writing. There are different meanings associated with the materials used. For example, using a pen compared to a pencil creates a different effect. The type of paper used when writing a letter has significance. Also, we learned about the major difference between using a computer (digital) and using paper (print) text. We learned how each specific scenario calls for different formats. For example, if you’re writing a letter to somebody significant, you will write in a different style than if you were writing a note to yourself. To sum everything up, we feel that the most important concepts that we have learned thus far are rhetorical situation, genre, exigence, audience, and materials used. It is important to note that in some sense, all of these concepts go hand in hand with one another, broadening our understanding of everyday writing.