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Steven Soroten
Professor Robert Barrett
Writing 39B
7 March 2016
Thinking About The Rhetorical Situation; The Rhetoric in Practice Project
The purpose of the Rhetoric in Practice Project (RIP) is to apply all the
knowledge that we have acquired about the rhetorical situation and convey a message as
a speaker to an intended audience. For the project portion of the RIP, I decided to create a
presentation to show high school students that there is time in college to change majors
and pursue their dreams. Since I felt that the presentation did not include many of my
own words, I wrote a business letter to persuade and inform school officials about the
positive impact that it will have on current high school students.
When students are deciding on a major, a vast majority of parents want their child
to choose a major that is practical so their child can have a prosperous life, resulting in
many students majoring in business, engineering, or other science, technology,
engineering, and math related majors, more commonly known as STEM. According to
USA Today, in an article Same As it Ever Was: Top 10 Most Popular College Majors,
nursing and general biology rank in the third and fourth spot respectively for the most
popular majors (Stockwell, 1). This ranking demonstrates that majors in the STEM field
have become extremely popular for the current generation of students in college. The
current stigma is that college students should major in STEM because the job market
favors those who major in those fields. However, according to the University of La
Vernes website on a page titled Major Exploration, Job market demands are

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constantly changing and whats hot today might not be hot tomorrow (1). Because there
are unspoken but commonly inferred guidelines to success that comes from choosing a
major that favors the job market, which contradicts the information provided by the
University of La Vernes website, I wanted to convince students that there are more majors
available than just those in STEM fields.
The presentation genre was the most effective way to deliver my message. Many
high school campuses have representatives from colleges talk to the senior class or
interested students about college, and what to expect during college. High school students
are the main audience that I wanted to reach because ultimately they are the ones that are
actively deciding on their major, and my purpose was to convince people that they should
pursue their passions. Lastly I chose this genre because the most convenient way to
provide information to a big group of people is a presentation. The presentation provides
a visual aid while the presenter is talking, so the audience can stay engaged to the screen
and the presenters words. To increase my ethos as a rhetor I created a character named
Andy Rogers who graduated as a double major in mathematics and philosophy. Included
in the presentation is a personal anecdote of how Andy had decided on his major and
ultimately why he chose to double major. This increases the ethos of the speaker because
when the students hear Andys story the students can empathize with him because they
are having the same problems that he had.
In order to productively establish new perspectives in high school students, I
relied heavily on rhetorical techniques, and appeals in order to be as persuasive as
possible. For example, in The Anteaters Guide to Writing & Rhetoric, the rhetorical
fishbowl is introduced as an analogy to explain the rhetorical situation. The rhetorical

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fishbowl gives an overview of the rhetorical situation, defined in the book as, how
every act of communication happens in a particular context and moment in time shared
between the person who is sending the text, (the Rhetor) and the person(s) receiving the
text (the Audience(s)) (Eason, 4). As the rhetor, I had to account for all parts of the
rhetorical situation, ensuring that the genre I chose was appropriate, and would
effectively reach my intended audience. I also thought about how the audience would
react to my message, and consider the ethos that my character possesses so the audience
would find my points persuasive.
When making the presentation I also had to adhere to the conventions of
presentations. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Associations website provides a
list of dos and donts for writing a presentation. One of the dos that the ASHA includes
on the list is, Dont crowd your slides. Use normal case and punctuate sparingly
(ASHA, 1). Throughout my presentation I incorporated this convention by condensing
the amount of words in each slide, so the slide is not crowded and the audience is not
distracted by the text. Another convention that I adhered to in my presentation was,
Dont overuse special effects (ASHA, 2). I displayed this convention in my
presentation by balancing the amount of videos and the amount of text, so that the readers
are not just watching videos for the entire presentation, but they are also engaging the text
and listening to the information being introduced to them. Along with the presentation, I
included presentation notes because I felt that I did not have enough of my own personal
insight. Therefore, the presentation notes allowed me include my comments, and analysis
on the ideas being presented.

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Along with the visual presentation of the project, I included a professional
business letter to school officials. If the letter is written in a professional manner, then the
officials will see my character as a knowledgeable, and reliable, and will allow me to
speak at their school. When writing the professional letter I had to conform to the
conventions of writing a professional letter. The Purdue OWL website provides a
summary of how a professional letter should be formatted and what should be included in
the letter. For example one of the formatting conventions for writing a professional letter
includes having an inside address, which according to the Purdue OWL, is the
recipients addressto a specific individual at the firm to which you are writing (Stolley
et al.). This convention can be seen in my letter to school officials when I include the
address of the school that I want to present at. I also wrote the letter in the most
commonly used form, the block format. When writing in the block format I had to ensure
that the letter was aligned to the left and single-spaced. I also had to adhere to the
spacing, which different than normal because the format of the business letter requires
two spaces between the paragraphs. The letter was a challenge for me because I have
never written a formal letter like this one before and it was difficult for me to change the
style of my writing so the letter sounds professional.
Throughout the process of creating the RIP, I gained a better understanding of the
rhetorical situation. Before the project I was only accustomed to being the audience that
receives the text. Since the project required me to become the rhetor for the first time I
had change a few aspects of planning my project. For instance, when picking the genre, I
had to determine if I was reaching the correct demographic. Not only did I have to think
of reaching the right audience, but I also had to think about how the audience would react

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to what I was saying. By using rhetorical techniques, I was able to develop ethos to be
believable to the audience, with the overall effect of the presentation being persuasive,
and compelling. Ultimately, the RIP required me to critically think of the rhetorical
situation as a whole, and enter the conversation with genuine ideas, and a holistic angle.

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Works Cited:
"PowerPoint Do's & Dont's." Powerpoint Do's & Don'ts. American Speech-LanguageHearing Association, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U,
2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2016.
Eason, Loren, Gross, Daniel, and Romney, Abraham. Chapter 1 Why Rhetoric. The
Anteaters Guide to Writing & Rhetoric. Ed. Eason, Loren. Plymouth: HaydenMcNeil Publishing, 2016. 1-14. Print.
Stockwell, Carly. "Same as It Ever Was: Top 10 Most Popular College Majors." USA
Today College. USA Today, 26 Oct. 2014. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
"Major Exploration." Career Services. University of La Verne, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.