Week Two Journal Entry

In order to understand how genre and rhetorical situations are connected, the two components must first be defined. Genre can be defined as different categories or different styles of writing or literature. These various categories can include prose, poetry, nonfiction, drama, and everyday writing. Genres can even be broken down into various sub-genres. For example, prose can be split into many sub-genres such as mystery, romance, adventure, science fiction, horror, fantasy, and more. Now that the understanding of genre has been established, rhetorical situation must be defined. First, rhetoric is the study of communication. Rhetorical situation is a rhetorical event that consists of an issue, an audience, and a set of constraints. When one evaluates a rhetorical situation, they do so by asking questions about a certain piece or writing. These questions can include but are not limited to: What questions is the text addressing, who is the intended audience, what is the writer’s purpose, and what situational factors have affected the author. One can apply the same approach to evaluating a rhetorical situation to evaluating a piece of everyday writing. For example, when examining a piece of everyday writing such as a person’s personal diary, the examiner can investigate and question the work in a similar fashion to rhetorical situation. The evaluator can ask what the purpose of a specific entry was, if the author intended for the entry to be read by an outsider, what emotions the author was feeling at the time, and what frequency did the author write in his or her journal. Like rhetoric, a set of constraints can be applied to everyday writing. For example, when writing a diary entry the audience is constrained to privacy and to the thoughts of only one person. Rhetoric and everyday writing are forms of communication.  Everyday writing, as defined in class, can be communication with oneself (intrapersonal), communication with another person (interpersonal), or communication to the general public that occurs on a daily basis. I also liked how Austin made the distinction between formal and informal (social media for example) everyday writing. By understanding genre and rhetoric, we can better approach and evaluate everyday writing.