Rhetorical Situations

When writing the essay on television’s negative effects the first thing I did was read the article multiple times. I tried to pick out the important parts, so that I could become more familiar with his stance on the topic. One of the Rhetorical situations in this assignment was to take a stance on the topic, without directly summarizing what McCall said. The object was to explain ourselves and not use researched facts. You were also supposed to give examples, which could be personal, and after reading Purdue Owl’s “Rhetorical Situations” I believe that an implied rhetorical situation was to not let McCall persuade you into believing what he believes. When I began writing the diagnostic essay I didn’t really think into it as much as I should have. I think I let McCall influence me a little bit. Before I read the article I didn’t really have a strong stance on the topic, but as I kept reading, the more and more I started to agree with McCall. What shaped most of my essay, was the fact that we weren’t supposed to analyze the essay.  My main focus throughout this essay was to make sure that these were my thoughts and, and not just me copying McCall.

Choosing a side was difficult during my writing process. I wasn’t sold either way until I read the article a few times. McCall researched the topic well and had a lot of good points, which I agreed with. There were so many reasons to follow McCall’s stance on the topic, while there were few to argue against it. I also thought of who my potential audience would be. I decided that a mother would be most likely to read an article like this and I felt that it would be easier to reach out to her with my writing if I agreed with McCall. When I got my recommendation sheet back I was surprised that I did as well as I did, because I didn’t feel that I fully understood the assignment, but I liked the choices I made within my essay, and the side that I took. After reading the presentations, I wouldn’t change anything about my essay. In Purdue Owl’s “Rhetorical Situations” it states that a rhetorical situation involves somebody using some sort of communication to modify someone else’s perspective. Even though I may have let McCall influence me, I still modified his perspective with my own.

Breanna H.
407 Words