Theory of Writing
My theory of writing is that having a good understanding of the rhetorical situation makes you a more effective writer. That means that understanding your subject, audience, context, and personal character are crucial. WRIT 1122 was almost pretty much entirely based on learning about what the rhetorical situation was and how to find each component. But before that, the extent to which I understood the rhetorical situation came from what I learned in high school. In my junior year English class, we spent a great deal of time going over the three appeals of rhetoric: ethos, pathos, and logos. Along with that, we read a book called Everything's an Argument that taught us about what each of the appeals meant. The purpose of the class was to identify each type of appeal in any type of writing. We also learned that any type of writing, whether it be an advertisement, newspaper article, or even a movie trailer has some type of argument in it that uses one of the appeals. From there, we learned how each of those appeals can be used in our own writing. Ethos deals with character, or who you are as a writer. You use ethos when you want to show your audience that you know what you’re talking about and that they should listen to you. For example, experience in whatever topic you’re talking about gives you credibility and a stronger ethos appeal. A paper written about a medical condition is much more likely to be taken seriously if it were written by a doctor rather than a college student. Pathos deals with emotions. A good example of pathos appeal is the super depressing ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan. That commercial uses images and the song to appeal to viewers’ emotions to persuade them to do something. The last appeal, logos, deals with logic and persuading by the use of reasoning. This can