Rhetorical Thinking and the Writing Process

Remember in elementary when your teacher asked you to write in your journal, then she proceeded to make you read it out loud to the class? Remember what you felt when you began reading? Did that feeling sometimes make you rewrite some of the words you had on your paper simultaneously as you’re reading out loud to the class? Because, I was always concerned with how I wanted my audience to feel afterwards, what I presented was a lot different than what I actually typed out.

Whether you are reading out loud or allowing someone to read your work, the audience is going to be left with an impression. Impression has a lot to do with writing because it has a lot to do with the other person rather than just what you are thinking.

According to Irvin we, “can’t see our audience to gauge how our communication is being received or if there will be some kind of response.

” (Irvin 6) If thinking rhetorically is to think about your audience, your purpose, and your overall message of your work before hand then we should also think about our impression. One thing that Irvin leaves out in the academic process is emotion. “Your success with academic writing depends upon how well you understand what you are doing as you write and then how you approach the writing task.” (Irvin 3) Understanding represents your intellect. Emotion represents your reaction. An impression unknowingly changes the way we write. It changes the words that we use, how we use them and the structure of our sentences.

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Thinking rhetorically and thinking about the impression you are going to leave on your audience seem similar in denotation but the difference is that when you think rhetorically you are thinking about your purpose and your audience.

Thinking about the impression you are going to leave on your audience is thinking about the way you structure your work to connect your audience to your words. In an article written by Livia Pizzichini, a writer on a public UK educational publishing website, about how to leave an impression on a reader, she began with a scenario with an immense amount of imagery. “The page itself seems to break apart as if opening up into a portal. Before your stunned eyes, an arm reaches out of this whirling pulp fiction vortex and a hand slaps you right across the face!” Once the scenario came to an end, she asks “can a writer affect a reader just by words alone?” (Pizzichini, 2013) The scenario alone created a sense of fear that interested me. Books can’t just break open, but you think about that scenario when you open up a book, I’m sure. The emotion when reading leads to the attraction to the words, leaving an impression.

This is an essential strategy because without impressions an answer never arrives. For example in a courtroom, does the lawyer prepare his speeches because they want to teach an overall message or because they want to win the argument? The lawyers overall goal is to win the juries decision. He does this is by leaving an impression with the way he uses his words. Using very emotional words and structuring them to create elaborate scenarios for the jury, triggers emotion. If the lawyer is trying to defend then they create a scenario of misunderstanding triggering an emotion of sympathy leaving the impression that the defendant is “not guilty.” The opposite lawyer is trying to defend his client by creating a scenario of distraught for his client making him seem like the victim. Creating then an emotion of anger, making the jury believe that justice must be served resulting in a decision of “guilty.” Similar to speech in a courtroom, writing is to present an argument and win the final decision.

In an article by William Sullivan a partner and Adam Reich an associate with Paul Hastings LLP in Los Angeles, California, they explain tips for effectiveness in a courtroom; the first tip they explain went “As the opening statement is one of only three opportunities to talk directly to the jury during trial (and arguably the most important), it is imperative that you approach this task with the right mindset. You need to be a storyteller like Aesop or M. Night Shyamalan. This means you need to be engaging, dynamic, thematic, and persuasive. You also need to form a positive connection with your audience and spotlight important issues for them.” (Sullivan and Reich, 2013) Connect with the jury, know the write words, the write mood to set, and argue. The connection will show.

The writing process is all about thinking. But, is thinking solely on the targeted audience enough? We need to think about the emotions of an audience in general. Targeting an emotion versus just a singled person allows for more connection on an intimate level. Connection is rhetorical. You are trying to connect with your audience before writing so you can write especially for them, but writing to one’s emotion leaves that indention. The reaction of the audience is the target. Your argument is won!