Rhetoric and Composition: My New Theory

Throughout this class, I have been exposed to many key terms that I never even knew existed. Through these terms, I realize the importance of what these terms mean to the writing process. Rhetoric is everywhere. There is a reason and purpose for writing in whatever form it may be. With that said, rhetoric and composing are very much intertwined. So therefore, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that my key terms for rhetoric are the same key terms I have for composing.

Audience is an indispensable part of the writing process. You have to know who your audience is because it changes the focus of your persuasion and how your audience will be affected most. According to Bitzer, the audience is “capable of serving as the mediator of the change which the discourse functions to produce” (Bitzer 7). It will be very hard to get your message across if you do not know who you are speaking or writing to. Each targeted audience has their own way of receiving a message and you have to know this before you compose a piece. Exigence is another key term I feel is very important. Exigence is “any imperfection marked by urgency; a defect, obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be” (Bitzer 6). The situation needs to be important and urgent. It needs to get people motivated to move to action quickly.

While I originally thought delivery only applied to rhetoric, I realize that you can compose something such as a poem or short story and read it to an audience. In this light, I believe delivery carries more weight than the other terms. There is nothing worse than when a message is not heard because it was presented by a person with a monotone voice with no enthusiasm or passion for what was being said. Delivery is portrayed when “an orator uses his or her voice and gestures to accompany the spoken words” (Covino and Jolliffe, 43). If a message calls for a booming, exciting voice to get the message across that there is going to be an exciting event happening, then the audience can tell by the delivery in his voice that this event will be worth attending.

The last key term I have for rhetoric and composition is revision. However, this should not be done last in the process of writing. It needs to be done continually. Of course revision is finding errors and polishing sentences, but it is also a type of “seeing again, what the writer does after a draft is completed to understand and communicate what has begun to appear on the page” (Vandenberg 209). I know I make a lot of mistakes on my first drafts, and they are never as good as the final product. However, revision is not just editing. According to Linda Flower and John Hayes, reviewing is “a goal-directed process that can take precedence over and interrupt all other writing processes at any time”. That’s why I believe it should not only be a step at the end, but a habitual process throughout writing.

I never really thought about what a big role reflection plays into the writing process. I always knew it to be “helpful”, but never knew the full effect. In Yancey’s article on reflection, she mentions Harris and how he defines reflection as “how writers draw on, respond to, and rework both their own previous writings and those of others (Yancey 3). It requires us to look at all aspects of our writing and think of it from a different prospective, a different view. And it allows us to use others writing and reflect on what they have done to enhance our own skills and become a better writer. I know from personal experience when we did the reflection on our first main project, it really allowed me to see how far I’ve come and to think about the process I went through that led to the final version. I saw what I did right and what I could have done differently. Even with this reflection, I am realizing how much I have learned just in the few short weeks we’ve been in class. Reflection “can mean revision, of one’s goals…self-assessment…analysis of learning...”(Yancey 6). This assessment and analysis is a crucial part of the writing process that I will now look to with more weight when I write and compose.

My theory of composing has expanded with every new thing we learn in this class and I believe it will continue to do so, and hope it does. When we wrote on our theory of composing about a month ago, I viewed composing as a fluid process that flowed in a logical sequence of events. For example, I thought that you had to have the author first, obviously, then a situation, an audience, etc. But I have come to realize that there is no strict formula for writing and composing. I love the way Russell and Yanez put it by comparing learning to a game. They say, “notice that learning is not neatly "transferred" from one activity to another. A lot of games are played with a ball, just as a lot of fields use the tool called writing. But the ball is different, the rules of the game are different, the object of the game is different”(Russell and Yanez 336). Everything overlaps and is very dynamic and complex. Now I believe that rhetoric and composing have many elements that are the same. My theory of composing at this point in time relies heavily on the fact that no writing is simple or stagnant. There is no one right or wrong way of writing. Everyone has his or her own opinions and ways of expressing themselves, and that is the beauty of writing. There is no other form of self-expression more powerful than the written word. People have their own views and this allows us to think and evaluate all different kinds of ideas that makes the world so utterly unique. Whereas before, I thought there was a strict formula you had to have or certain elements to follow, and for some cases that is still true, but I am coming to realize that I can be as creative as I want to be with my writing. Yancey writes, “the writing public has learned in this case, to write, to think together, to organize, and to act within these forums-largely without instruction and, more to the point here, largely without our instruction. They need neither self-assessment nor our assessment…” This encompasses the very shift I have in my theory of composing. I don’t have to have a teacher to tell me how to write. I can write and think freely because I have been given the tools to do so. I believe my theory of composing will continue to change. And I hope it does. I want to keep learning and expanding my view of the writing process and I will be interested to see how it shifts to a new view after I have successfully completed this class.