Chapter Review and Trace Essay

1. What are the five elements in the rhetorical situation? The five elements in the rhetorical situation are Text, Reader, Author, Constraints, and Exigency. 2. How can a reader use the rhetorical situation to analyze an argument essay? How can a viewer use the rhetorical situation to analyze an image? How can a writer use the rhetorical situation during the planning phase of writing a paper? In an argument essay using the rhetorical situation to analyze the essay will give the exact points of the subject, clearly define the intended audience of the essay, while seeing the authors argument on the particular subject and their position, motives, or degree of expertise. It will keep focus on the events or circumstances that cause analysis to reactions to the situations that lead to the argument, and clearly see the controversy or problem that needs attention in the first place. In analyzing an image, rhetorical analysis will help highlight what stands out about the image, how the text if there is a text ties into the influence of the argument of the image, and how the author of the image feels. A writer can use the rhetorical situation when planning phase of writing a paper to help think critically and make decisions about the writing. Focusing on what is the motivation and who needs to read the argument will help pick the influences and ways to persuade the reader. Deciding how to illustrate the attitudes, beliefs, or afflictions is important to keep the reader’s attention. 3. Why is the audience important in argument? What types of positions might an audience initially hold? What possible outcomes are associated with arguments directed to each of these audiences? The audience is important in order to create common ground and achieve some definable audience outcomes. The audience may initially be a friendly audience, an undecided audience, a neutral audience, a hostile audience, an unfamiliar audience, or a linked audience. Possible outcomes are convincing people to your cause, pushing people away from your cause to the opposing side, people could remain bias, and people could become angry and/or violent towards you and your argument. 4. What is a discourse community? To what discourse communities do you belong? How does a discourse community help establish common ground for its members? A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals.  It helps to establish common ground for its members by having resources and peers interested and sharing in the same beliefs and ideals and having peers to converse with to learn and research subject matter that all or most members enjoy and share interest in. 5. What is the universal audience? What are the special qualities of this audience? Why is it a useful idea? The universal audience is an imagined audience that serves as an ethical and argumentative test for the rhetor. The universal audience is educated, reasonable, normal, adult, and willing to listen. It is especially useful when the audience is largely unknown and you cannot obtain much information about them.