Saturday, February 18, 2012
Bitzer's "The Rhetorical Situation"
Discuss how your learnings and insight from this course--WRTC 540 Professional Editing--reflect the three components of Bitzer's notion of rhetorical situation: exigence, audience, and constraints. Please limit yourself to 300 words. This entry is due Tuesday, Feb. 21, by 11:59 p.m.
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Bitzer defines exigence as “an imperfection marked by urgency” (7). In relating this article to our WRTC 540 class, spelling and grammatical errors could be considered rhetorical exigence because they are capable of positive modification. For example, a comma splice could is exigence because grammatically it is “a thing which is other than it should be” (7). Audience is the second component and another important aspect of editing. Bitzer writes that an “audience consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change” (8). Before the exigence can be defined, you must first know who the writing is intended for. Is it an academic piece? What gender will be reading it? Does it matter? Is this writing to be participated with or merely received? These questions and more must first be answered so that, as an editor, you know who the intended audience is. The last rhetorical component mentioned is constraints. Bitzer explains constraints as being “persons, events, objects, and relations which are parts of the situation because they have the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence” (8). From an editing standpoint, constraints further determine how we edit a piece of writing. For example, if you are editing a piece for a particular publication you may have to cater some word choices to correspond with the beliefs of the publication. In addition, many publications have very stringent guidelines that must be followed, even if you do not agree with the stylistic elements being mandated.
ReplyDeleteGood. I wonder how carrying the error discussion from exigence to audience to constraints might work.
DeleteBitzer’s three components of rhetorical situation have definitely shown up throughout this professional editing class this semester. I think that the component that is the most important is audience. It is also the one that I sometimes struggle with the most. A lot of research can go into finding our intended audience. This weekend, I had to read several copies of a magazine that I was considering for my non-academic genre project and I still was not quite sure if I had narrowed down the audience or not. Bitzer says that, “a rhetorical audience consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change” (8). Writers want their work to have the power to influence those who read it and also want their readers to bring about change.
ReplyDeleteFor me, constraints alter how I produce writing. Word count, such as the limit of 300 words for this blog and style are constraints that immediately come to my mind. But as Bitzer addresses, what about the constraints that come from the rhetor and his method (8). I do not think that I really consider my own writing style as a constraint. But there are instances where I have difficulty with this, such as using APA citation style when I am used to MLA style. Finally, exigence is equally as important as the other components. An exigence is an imperfection or obstacle that is marked by urgency (6). I think editing and revising fall into this exigence category because any piece of writing that I do, I want to quickly fix any imperfection that I encounter.
You're right about the rhetorical audience, that it might consist of reads who might actually take your message and do something with it.
DeleteWouldn’t the purpose of our first assignment be grounded in rhetorical exigence? For example, let’s consider what rhetorical exigence is not: “An exigence is not rhetorical when its modification requires merely one’s own action or the application of a tool, but neither requires nor invites the assistance of discourse” (7). Translating my academic piece for a lay audience is an exercise in modification—I am changing how I write in order to solve a potential communication breakdown. The general public probably doesn’t care about my 100-person sample size. They probably could care less about the wayfinding jargon in my paper, as well, so I have to alter the discourse of my paper to cater to a new audience. On page eight Bitzer says, “It is clear that a rhetorical audience must be distinguished from a body of mere hearers or readers.” To understand this distinction, I have to research my publication to determine the demographics of my audience. How do I do that? I browse the advertisements in the magazine I want to publish in (i.e. Backpacker). As discussed in class, the advertisements are clues to determining the demographics of a magazine’s readership. I learn something about my audience from these advertisements. Most ads are about wayfinding equipment, outdoor clothing, whiskey, SUVS, and health foods. What can these clues tell me about my audience? Well, I can assume that they’re outdoorsy. That’s not much of a stretch, but there is more to uncover from these ads than “My readership likes to hike.” As much as I want to resist it, the ads seem marketed to men. The third component of a rhetorical situation is constraint. I only have enough words to name one specific constraint: a non-academic audience, which is different from an academic audience. New beliefs, traditions, interests, etc.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. You're demonstrating a throng understanding of ideology, that your academic readers are reading with different values than no academic audiences. Though you may have audience members who actually are both ac and non ac readers. But they might read each piece diffently.
DeleteBitzer’s three components of rhetorical situation are evident in this course for a number of reasons. The first component, exigence, is something that needs to be changed. Things like “death, winter, and some natural disasters” (6) as Bitzer describes, are permanent things and thus cannot be modified. I would argue that the reason for editing is to take some kind of exigence and finding ways to change it. We have seen in class a lot of instances where you can choose to do one thing or another in terms of editing, but it is how you choose to justify what you did that matters. A conversation must be had as to what you do. As editors, we must work with the author(s) to discuss the best way in which to proceed. The second component, audience, plays into what I just previously mentioned with exigence. When addressing a rhetorical audience, especially relating to editing, those who we work with must want to see change and to argue for or against it. We have a discourse between one another and whoever else is involved to see the process through to the end and ensure that the purpose for our editing does not eclipse the purpose the author intended. The final component, constraints, just shows that there are always instances where we will disagree upon the required change for the exigence. We all have seen in this course that we have been taught different strategies to editing and therefore we make different decisions. In order to see the change through to its necessary end, we must work together to get past these constraints and focus on our purpose, for this course it is the completion of an edited work. I can see how these three components come into play with regard to editing.
ReplyDeleteWhat examples from class are there? How have some of the things we've done respond to a certain exigence?
DeleteOf Bitzer’s three components of rhetoric, it seems that audience is the one we’ve considered most explicitly in class. As we modified the piece for parents of a seriously ill child, it was clear that technical aspects of the writing like point of view and the approach to male and female expressions significantly affect an author’s ability to communicate effectively with a certain audience. For example, changing to third person, or using plurals instead of “he or she” made the piece too impersonal. Using “he or she” constantly made the reading too cumbersome and destroyed the conversational tone; on the other hand, ignoring the “he/she” issue by using only “he” would alienate a present-day audience. We’ll continue to consider audience as we modify our own writing for a popular and an academic publication. We’ve also considered various constraints, particularly those imposed by certain style guides (e.g. MLA or APA) or publication types (e.g. academic vs. non-academic). But I don’t think we’ve directly considered exigence much yet, as most of our editing so far has dealt with the grammar and style issues. In looking at the piece for parents of ill children, we really didn’t consider whether it was an issue that needed addressing at all; it seemed self-evident that it was. However, it is clearly the domain of an editor to judge whether a piece has a worthwhile purpose, fills a need, or addresses an important issue. Thus it would be important for any author (including us, as we begin our projects with the hope that they might be publishable) to consider this issue carefully before investing time and effort in a writing project.
ReplyDeleteYou say, "In looking at the piece for parents of ill children, we really didn’t consider whether [exigence] was an issue that needed addressing at all; it seemed self-evident that it was."
DeleteThis is a good point, because it tells us something about outselves and how we perceive need and urgency: that everybody should be concerned about such issues. But how many times do such nonprofits have to fight for funding, to persuade us they need assistance?
The project that we are undertaking for our 540 editing class has helped me to relate to Bitzer’s rhetorical situation and its components: exigence, audience, and constraints. Bitzer conceived a rhetorical situation as a context in which writers and speakers create discourse. In this sense, our project which requires us to convert an academic research paper into a non-academic article represents a rhetorical situation. Under such a situation, we are not only faced with an exigence of revising our academic paper into a non-academic genre but also with the challenge of reaching out and influencing a new non-academic audience.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, as we research and identify potential publications for our non-academic paper we are actually trying to identify our audience and their constraints – attitudes, beliefs, values. In doing so, we are trying to identify the right context for our modified article – the right publication, right audience, and constraints – so it may have a desired effect on its readers. Bitzer states that “Standard sources of constraint include beliefs, attitudes, documents, facts, traditions, images, interests, motives and the like;” we are, therefore, faced with the task of assessing the beliefs, attitudes, interests, and motives of not only our audience but also our own motives while modifying our paper for a new audience.
In a way we are responding to a rhetorical situation, a real situation that requires us to adapt our paper for a real audience and address related constraints in order to influence our readers to act and respond to our papers in the way we want them to. We are not revising our original paper for just “any audience”; instead, we want to identify and reach out to those readers who are concerned with the issues raised by our paper.
You say, "we are, therefore, faced with the task of assessing the beliefs, attitudes, interests, and motives of not only our audience but also our own motives while modifying our paper for a new audience."
DeleteTrue, but how difficult is it to really determine those beliefs? If a publication's scope is narrow, it might be simple to figure out the readership. But if the scope is broader, like an entertainment publication, you might have various demographics of audiences reading the same magazine. It's harder tro pinpoint their ideologies to write for. And so, you have to write with just a general readership in mind.
Exigence, audience and constraints can each be related to our coursework in 540. Bitzer defines exigence as being rhetorical when it is "capable of positive modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be assisted by discourse" (7). Similar to what Lisa said, I would consider poor grammar to be a rhetorical exigence. Jumping off of Bitzer's example of air pollution, poor grammar's positive modification — "good" grammar — invites discourse involving ways to improve said grammar, whether it be through practice, using a style guide, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs we've been discussing in class for our first project, audience is one of the most important aspects to consider when beginning a new assignment. As Bitzer says, " The rhetorical audience must be capable of serving as mediator of the change which the discourse functions to produce" (8). For Project 1, we must take into consideration the audience that we are writing to. I wouldn't necessarily write about women's talk shows to an audience of white collar working men. Like Stephen said, the change in our projects must appeal to our new audience.
Bitzer says constraints include "beliefs, attitudes, documents, facts, traditions, images, interests, motives and the like" (8). I agree with Aimee's example about the constraints between non-academic and academic-style audiences. We will edit our projects for different audiences based on these constraints, and we will get two different products based on those outcomes.
I like how you're weaving not only Bitzer but your classmates' voices into your response.
DeleteNote how much audience plays a role through all three of these elements, something that you've shown here.
In this course we have learned the importance of exigence by addressing issues with articles and editing for political correctness, for example the use of he/she. We have also considered audience and the constraints or beliefs of those articles for whom they were written. I find Bitzer’s notion of the nature of the rhetorical situation interesting. There is an order in discourse that needs to be addressed. The situation itself is the foundation that the presenter needs to pay special attention to when composing a valid argument and not just the exigence, audience and constraints. This foundation determines whether the discourse presents on an idea effectively that is able to persuade the audience into making a change in their ideologies. I found Blitzer’s description of rhetorical audience, which invites change, interesting. Blitzer points out that neither scientific nor poetic discourse need an audience in the same sense to be effective. This is because a scientific audience consists of people capable of receiving knowledge, and a poetic audience consists of people capable of participating in aesthetic experiences induced by poetry, but both scientific and poetic works can be created without having to please an audience.
ReplyDeleteHow might you see our discussions of, for example, he/she an exigence? How might that play out in Bitzer's terms?
DeleteWhen I read about exigence, I immediately thought about a rough draft. Bitzer defines rhetorical exigence as something that requires “positive modification.” (7) We have examined and edited pieces that are not as extreme as injurious acts or air pollution, but present an issue that can be solved through communication and composition.
ReplyDeleteWe can conclude from this particular exigence that the audience would be the writer and the necessary change to be the enacting of “good grammar”, as Megan R. pointed out. I thought it was interesting that Bitzer wrote about the audience as those influencing discourse and mediating change. What makes our field different from others (like science) is that it requires an active audience. For example, when I rewrite my paper for the first project, I will consider the needs of that specific audience that can utilize the information.
Constraints would include, going along with the Project 1 example, the format of the publications we’re submitting to. We must consider the length, style, demographic and tone of our work to tailor it effectively. This would also tie into the “fitting response” that Bitzer talks about on page 10. We know we did the job right when our audience can take our work and interpret it in the way we had intended. I wouldn’t want something I submitted to be misconstrued, therefore all three of these factors are important to consider when writing/editing.
A very nice discussion, especially about constraints. You've situated this project into Bitzer's notions.
DeleteIn order for words to reach an audience, and really have an impact, they must carry an understanding of Bitzer’s rhetorical situation and its three constituents. Bitzer maintains that exigence “specifies the audience to be addressed and the change to be effected” (7). In WRTC 540, we have discussed the importance of identifying the audience of the writing, whether it is a letter from a daycare to parents, or a scholarly article for submission at a journal. What rhetorical response does the writer intend to elicit from the audience?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Bitzer, the audience serves as “mediators of change” (7). In order to be effective, the rhetoric must reach an audience. The audience is an entity who can choose to be influenced or not by a rhetor’s words. We have discussed the concept of meeting the needs of the audience—what do they need to know? For example, we discussed the ability to determine the audience of a magazine through ads, which shows what the readers are concerned about. The rhetor must have an understanding of audience in order to best reach that group.
In every rhetorical situation, constraints might modify the rhetor’s desired audience response. For example, if I would like to submit to Ms. Magazine a well-researched article about the portrayal of women in erotic literature, I must consider restraints. Does this topic appeal to the interests of Ms. readers? Does my article clash with the beliefs and motives associated with the magazine? The rhetor must identify the constraints so that they may not conflict with the exigence of the rhetoric.
Those are great questions you could ask to such audiences as those of Ms. magazine. That's something to think about for any publication.
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