Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Rhetorical email-JF



The rhetorical situation presented in the email is somewhat confusing. The author, audience, and setting are all misleading. The email seems to be written by the president, Barack Obama, to the, “friend,” who in this case is Ms. Jarmer. The setting, judging by the subject of the email, is unclear as well. On the other hand, the purpose and text were very clear; the author wants to collect a donation of three dollars to assist Barack Obama and his purpose which is likely his campaign. It only took a few moments for me to question the validity of this email. First of all, the title of the email is, “RE: Hey,” implying two likely false points: one, that Ms. Jarmer already sent an email to the President of the United States with the subject line, “Hey,” and two that the response to said email is the request of a donation. Secondly, he opens the email with the word, “friend,” suggesting that the President of the United States is friends with Ms. Jarmer. Thirdly, he salutes the email by using only his first name, again suggesting he is on a first name basis with Ms. Jarmer. Overall, this email does not show a good understanding of the implied rhetorical situation.

Due to the aforementioned questionable fragments of the email, the audience cannot identify the author without reasonable doubt. If the purpose of the situation is to gain donations, the article fails to assure the audience of not only the use of said money as well as the person asking for it. If the audience is supposed to be Ms. Jarmer, the author fails to appropriately address or convince the audience of the purpose. There are no problems with communicating the text of message, but the text itself is lacking and fails to show a good understanding of the situation. The author of the text is uncertain because of the aforementioned reasons; the setting is unclear. Both of these show problems with the understanding of the situation. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the actual author of this email didn’t even consider the rhetorical situation when he or she emailed the audience (which I find very amusing considering the author seems to consider Ms. Jarmer his or her friend, but they didn’t even consider the fact that the friend happened to be a Rhetoric instructor). In a sentence, the email does not show a good understanding of the implied rhetorical situation because it fails to meet the requirements for a rhetorical situation.

1 comment:

  1. Good catch on the email title, I had not even realized that it made it seem like Ms. Jarmer sent an email to the President. Who knows though, maybe our very own Marla Jarmer has government ties and is some kind of vigilante! I kid, of course. Now onto the rest of my review of your article.

    I feel like you were able to cover the majority, if not all, of the problems that were in the email. You also stated these in your post quite clearly, I do not believe I found myself having to read any sentences of yours multiple times, thinking to myself, "What is trying to be said here or there?" I would have definitely liked to have thought that for the email we were given, you would think they would be much more clear with their meaning, especially since they are from a United States president or even someone working for him.

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