What is a Rhetorical Situation?
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The various parts that
make up a piece of writing.
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A tool you can use to better prepare your writing or study the writing of others.
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Text/Medium
Author
Audience
Purposes
Setting
Parts of a Rhetorical
Situation

Text
Any form of medium humans use to communicate
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Medium
(what it was
created in)
Tools
(what was used to
create it)
Cyphers
(how it
is understood)
Text

Author
Background affects how
something is written
Audience
Background affects how
something is understood
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“Purposes
“It is the varied purposes of a rhetorical situation that
determine how an author communicates a text and
how audiences receive a text”
(Purdue OWL)

Author Purpose Audience Purpose
Informative Persuasive
to inform to persuade
to describe to convince
to define to influence
to review to argue
to instruct to change
to advise to advocate
to illustrate to support
Passive Active
to feel reassured to gain evidence
to be entertained to make informed decisions
to learn to be engaged
to enjoy to interpret
to be advised to judge
to review to crticize
to understand to disprove

Setting
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Community/ConversationGroups involved with the issue who discuss/communicate
PlaceWhere writing and reading happen
TimeSpecific moment in history
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Work Cited
“Rhetorical Situations.” Purdue OWL. Purdue, 2014.
Web. 23 Aug. 2014.