Ede and Lunsford: Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked

1. What’s the essay’s rhetorical situation? What’s the exigence(s)? Audience(s)? Constraints?

2. What do Lannon, Bitzer, and Ede and Lunsford respectively mean by “audience”?

3. What is an “addressed audience”? What is an “invoked audience”?

4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of thinking audience in terms of it being either “addressed” or “invoked”?

5. Technical Writing Examples: What are their respective rhetorical situations? What are their exigences, constraints, and audiences (think “audience” as both addressed and invoked)?

Bitzer: Rhetorical Situation Questions

What is a rhetorical situation?

How does it shape/inform/constitute the ways we speak and write? What are its constituent parts?

President Obama's remarks on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque": What's the rhetorical situation here? What are its specific constituents (exigences, audiences, constraints)? In your estimation, to what extent did President Obama offer a "fitting response to the situational exigence"? Did he, in other words, "hit the mark" in both a timely and fitting way?

Herrick: Overview of Rhetoric

In his "Overview of Rhetoric," Herrick notes the many functions rhetoric holds in professional, social, and personal pursuits (e.g. sports, medicine, love affairs). Where else do we encounter and practice rhetoric?

How does Herrick define rhetoric and what features of rhetorical discourse does he identify? What connections do these ideas have to technical writing? (Draw on Lannon as well as your impressions of what technical means.)

Rhetoric: Public Perceptions