When producing my first draft of project one, I was working in the student center. It was around 5:00 pm so there were a few people there but it wasn’t too loud. It took me about an hour-an hour an a half to think of all eleven elements of what goes into being a “women varsity golfer in high school in Ridgefield, CT”, and about 10 minutes to create the mind map itself. Although it took some time, it is a topic that I am interested in, so I didn’t mind doing the work. It made me think a lot about the relevance of the discourse community and what ecologies goes into it. It made me feel proud about completing the work and being happy with the ideas I came up with. At the same time, I felt a little nervous/anxious about how “good” it is and if it would make sense to other people by just looking at it, but I know that it will be revised and worked on and eventually be a great and proud piece of work.

When reading Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”, it reminded me a lot of my writing process, which makes me feel good that writing isn’t always easy even to the most talented writers in the field. Writing is messy and you have to start from nothing to create something. Lamott talks a lot about how writers start their work off in an informal, and simple way of just writing down whatever they think. They can write pages and pages of words and ultimately end up maybe using one great sentence from those pages, which I find very fascinating. It takes a lot of dedication and patience to be able to sit down and cut out pages of work that you maybe spent a few hours on for only a few words to make it to the public eye. I understand where she is coming from when she says sometimes she wants to give up because she can’t come up with the right words and after some time it can take a lot of mental strain. But she is right when she says you just have to start off with a bad first draft and get some ideas written down, because they can only get better.

My ideal writing process would be to first have some kind of interesting topic to think about. I enjoy to write about things I care about, or have experience with because I can then reflect on my thoughts and personal relations, whether its a person, place, or idea. The idea process would be to automatically have an idea in mind of what I want my piece to look like, and just start writing. If it were to be exactly how I want it, there would be no grammatical, spelling, or punctuation mistakes. There would be no long run sentences, no sentence fragments, and everything would run smoothly. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have any sort of writers block, and the ideas just come to me without thinking too much. It would also be nice if I didn’t have to go back and revise my paper it and I could turn it in without looking over it.

In the first reading, “Strong Writers don’t Need Revision” by Laura Giovanelli, a part that stuck out to me was “revision is not a sign of weakness or inexperienced or poor writing. It is the writing”. Most times when I think of “revision”, I think of a teachers comments on a piece of writing that I need to fix because it isn’t good, or it doesn’t sound right, or something just doesn’t make sense. However, reading from Giovanelli’s point of view, she is saying that revising is a good thing. She says “it is the writing”, because writing wouldn’t be possible without changes, fixes, and additions. No matter how talented a writer is, he/she isn’t perfect. No one can create a perfect piece in one shot. It takes lots of reworking, rephrasing, and modifications for something to be truly ideal. It is interesting to think that writing is a social process, both mentally and physically. A writer must have a conversation in his/her head to see how a reader would respond to the words written down on the page. Editors and peers must also read and give feedback in order to help the writer create a better version of the draft. Without realizing it, revision is everywhere now and all over social media because “writers” are always taking things out, changing words, or adding to their thoughts. The second reading was interesting because the reader got a take of what en editors opinion could be. Formal writers are not perfect, and no matter how much writers want their work to be perfect, and make logical sense, sometimes it only does in their own mind.

Who is talking/writing?

The authors of this text are Carl G. Herndl and Stuart C. Brown. Herndl is a current professor in the English department of the University of South Florida, and at the time it was published he was working as an Associate Professor at the New Mexico State University where he taught and wrote about discourse theory and cultural studies. Brown also taught at the New Mexico State University about rhetorical history and criticism. This text would be considered as a book and was published in 1996.

Who is the primary audience for this text?

The primary audience of this text are rhetoricians who want to be aware and engage in the discussion of what rhetoric means in relationship to our environment. Almost all, if not all, of the contributors of this piece of work have studied the field of rhetoric, and this is a way for many views to come together to create a discussion.

What does the text say “rhetoric” is?: The text says that the rhetorical scene creates symbols in language that creates our understanding of the world. It defines rhetoric on page 4 as a “tool that allowed people to explore significant social and moral issues that make wise or prudent decisions”.

What is the main argument/message of this text?

The main argument of the text is that the environment isn’t something one “goes out and finds”, but something that humans have created through our use of language. We talk about the environment using our words, which is the only way environmental discourse is brought about. Our idea and beliefs about the the environment comes through all sorts of communication and media, and there is not just one environmental discourse, but many (which can make the debate over environmental dilemmas difficult).

What is the texts primary rhetorical purpose?

The texts primary purpose is to educate people on the different perspectives of environmental discourse depending on the point of view from the author.

The author of the text, “The Rhetorical Situation”, is Lloyd Bitzer. He studied rhetoric at Edgewood College in 1962, and later earned his doctorate degree at the University of Iowa. He went on to profess Speech at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This journal article comes from “Philosophy and Rhetoric”, and was established in 1968. It is an academic journal article published by Penn State University Press that talks about rhetorical theory and ethics. The main audience for this text is Bitzer’s colleagues in the field of rhetoric and philosophy. The text says that “rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action” (Bitzer 4). Bitzer says rhetoric is highly situational and is the same way we think of morals, as lying can be wrong but not immoral. Bitzer’s main point of the article is to point out how a situation itself generates the rhetorical situation which consists of three components, an exigence, audience, and contraints. The exigence in the reasoning behind words, such as when a world problem arises, an author will speak out about the problem to share his/her ideas. The audience of the rhetorical situation are the listeners that are capable of being impacted or changed in some way. In his words, the “rhetorical audience consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change” (Bitzer 8). The constraints of the rhetorical situation are the boundaries of the situation, such as the time limit, the way of communication, and the audience. Rhetoric is a situation created by a response to an exigence. Bitzer views rhetoric as things that we do, that creates changes in the material world. The point of this article is to inform others that rhetoric is conditional depending on the situation and circumstances.

The author of the text, “Rhetoric is Synonymous with Empty Speech”, is Patricia Roberts-Miller. She is a professor of rhetoric and writing who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. The primary audience of this text are the students that are studying rhetoric and writing. She wrote this article for her students, and others to understand her point of view on meaning of rhetoric. The text implies that rhetoric hides the truth by using long, intellectual words, but she says that simplicity and the truth are not connected. She starts off with the rhetorical views of Plato and Aristotle. Plato says rhetoric is misleading others and lies, while Aristotle says rhetoric is about persuasion and the act of persuading what we think is best. The use of the words “empty speech” is false in Roberts-Miller’s mind as everything produced by humans has rhetoricity in it. Miller believes rhetoric is the cause and consequence of thoughts. It is discussion through communication with others. Rhetoric creates thinking, and speaks out on it. She also says that it can be good and bad, but never neutral. This means that there is a meaning to everything, and everything exists for a reason. One author can write an article consisting of lies and false evidence, while another author can write about the truth. She states that “rhetoric is a contingent, pragmatic, and generally verbal way of approaching problems we face as members of communities” (Miller 10). It is problem solving, even though there might not be one correct answer. It is important to language, communication, and writing, and can be used in many different ways. The texts primary purpose is to educate and to inform others. She is stating what rhetoric is in order to let others know what it means and why it’s important to everyday language.

The author of this text is Jenny Edbauer. She is currently working in the English department of the University of Kentucky. The text is a scholarly journal article taken from “Rhetoric Society Quarterly” also known as “RSQ”, which is a well known official academic journal comprised of articles of rhetorical studies. It was published in the fall of 2005 by Tayler and Francis, Ltd. The primary audience of this text is other scholars, researchers, and students in the field of rhetoric in order to broaden their knowledge on new and various content. This is because she addressed the field multiple times. The text says “rhetorical situations involve the amalgamation and mixture of many different events and happenings that are not properly segmented into audience, text, or rhetorician” (Edbauer 20). She also states that “rhetorical situation is better conceptualized as a mixture of processes and encounters” (Edbauer 13). The main argument of this text is Edbauers contradiction/addition to Bitzer’s model that rhetoric is solely situational and is “the external conditions of material and social circumstances” (Edbauer 6).  Edbauer believes this definition is too simple, and adds the points of Craig Smith and Scott Lybarger who “revise Bitzer’s relatively autonomous notion of exigence by making it more interactive with other elements of the situation” (Edbauer 12), such as the people, objects and events. The text’s primary rhetorical purpose is to inform and entertain others on the fact that rhetoric is much more than one solid definition, which is what she means by “rhetoric ecology”. This includes “ the dimensions of history and movement (back) into our visions/versions of rhetoric’s public situations” (Edbauer 9), and comparing concepts that may not seem related. This is found when she compares the baboon DNA to DNA in domestic cats. Even though they aren’t related, they can still be connected in some way. The text is trying to create an open mind upon the readers to think of rhetoric on a broader scale, that can be found in all kinds of situations.

— Oscar Wilde.

Rhetoric is a concept that varies on its definition depending on the situation. Vaguely, it is how people communicate and the deeper levels of what communication is through language. To understand rhetoric, you should know the context of the speaker, which means the background of the author, the point he/she is trying to get across, and who he/she is trying to have an effect on. These characteristics are all important to know in order to have a good understanding in the reasoning of language and communication. Rhetoric explains why people say things, how people say things, and what exactly they are saying. It explains why we may say the same idea to different people but in different words. It is why we may say things differently depending on the situation, such as who we are talking to, where we are talking to them (such as in private or public), how we are communicating (in person, over the phone, or over text), and how much time we have to speak. I believe rhetoric is the art of communicating through speech and writing. I have an idea of what rhetoric is through high school english classes, where we have analyzed articles by the tone of the author and the audience that the speaker is talking to. Rhetoric is when someone is trying to pursue another person to do, say, or think a certain way about a topic. They do this through rhetorical appeals such as ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is persuasion based off of emotion, pathos is based off of authority and expertise, and logos is based off of logic/reasonableness. The author is trying to make another person feel a certain way, and the listener is trying to understand the author’s point of view. It is never neutral, because everything people do or say always has some kind of purpose, which gives words an important meaning.