Rhetorical Situation: Reading

Every text is a response to a specific situation, made by a specific writer, for a specific audience, with a specific purpose, and none of those variables are accidental. Reading non-fiction prose without first asking who made this, for whom, and why is not reading at all. Exigence, audience, purpose, context, and message are not a checklist; they are the conditions that determine what any rhetorical choice even means. A word that creates credibility in one context creates distance in another, and you cannot see that without the frame this unit builds. Get this frame right, and every other analytical move in this course becomes possible.