Blog 9 Feb. 20

The text titled “You Can Learn to Write in General” is written by Elizabeth Wardle. Wardle is a professor and director of writing at the Howe Center in Miami, Ohio. The texts audience can be students or young adults who are interested in the differences in writing. Throughout the text Wardle states why she believes writing is very general. She argues that based on the subject you are writing for, your writing habits and techniques will change. Everyone writes in their profession and because all professions are different, all writing within those professions will be unique. Later in the text Wardle talks about rhetorical situations. She believes that when writing you are automatically placed into a different rhetorical situation. Your writing changes for each rhetorical situation you are apart of. This opinion is different from Bitzer’s opinion because Bitzer says that you are able to choose to be apart of a rhetorical situation.

The essay written by Carolyn R. Miller discusses genre and classification of rhetorical writing. millers definition of genre is “a typified response to a recurring rhetorical problem”. Throughout the essay she argues that genre is one of the main determinants of how a discourse works. Miller is a retired professor who while working focused on the exploration of rhetorical genre. Miller argues that there is a collective response for a specific rhetorical problem. For example these rhetorical problems often repeat themselves for a specific rhetorical need. In the essay Miller describes how genre is evolving, socially constructed and situated in activity systems. If a genre is socially constructed that means there is a social norm associated with the genre. Genre boundaries are in flux at all times and they are not perfect. Finally genre is evolving due to increases in technology and changes in the formality of writing.