Goal: to gain a complete picture of each writing situation
Time: 20 minutes
As a writer, part of your job is to completely understand each separate writing situation. No matter what type of writing task you undertake, the first issue you will deal with will be to understand why you are writing, who you are writing for, and what you are writing about. It is impossible to complete a writing task correctly without understanding each of these elements: Occasion, Purpose, Topic, Audience, Writer. For this activity you will analyze the current writing task based on its rhetorical situation.
Occasion
What is prompting
you to write?
What effect will your writing have on others?
When will your writing be read?
Purpose
What are you trying
to accomplish by writing?
What message do you wish to communicate?
What is most important: informing? explaining? persuading?
Topic
What are you writing
about?
What specific aspects of the topic will you need to cover?
What aspects of the topic do not need coverage?
Audience
For whom are you writing?
What are the characteristics of your audience? How old are they? How educated?
What does your audience already know about the topic? How do they feel about
your topic?
Writer
How much do you know
about the topic? Will you need to do additional research?
What is your opinion on the topic?
How will you maintain a reasonable tone so that you can persuade all
members of your audience?
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