Journal 1: Words that Matter (Word Count: 365)

Writing is an activity developed to bring new understandings through an alternate form of communication. This form of communication allows thoughtful and carefully chosen vocabulary and structured sentencing to most efficiently display possibly an idea or even to form communities with similar ideologies in an interactive environment through text. In terms of rhetoric, Lloyd F. Bitzer stated that written context is a general condition of human communication and is not synonymous with a rhetorical situation. However, rhetorical situations can be subjective as well, because in order for it to be defined at rhetoric, it must first give a clear presence of a situation; with the indisputable purpose of the writing in question to attempt in creating an altered reality.

Writing Key Terms:

Communication, reason, application, organization, recording, and audience. I chose communication, because writing to me is one of the most important forms of communication and personal favorite. It allows me to thoroughly think about responses and allows an in depth self-analysis about what I would like to communicate and how. I chose reason because through every written text there is a reason to communicate. I chose application, because there is always an applied methodical approach in writing a text. Lloyd F. Bitzer stated that questions involving rhetoric focus upon the orator’s application of his/her method and the creation of discourse. Especially important to rhetoricians who use application to distinguish among and characterize various types of speeches. I chose organization, because I believe it is crucial to organize your writing to effectively reach your communication goal efficiently. Organization allows any form of written material to make sense if given the correct and organized outline. I chose recording, because writing is a form of recording dates, events, ideas, etc. If previous civilizations did not record their existence or past events, how would we be certain of history and how could we use past ideas to innovate new ones. I chose audience, because how you formulate your writing is based on your targeted audience – if you were giving a presentation to your classmates, you would use different vocabulary and formal addresses than if you were giving a presentation to the CEO of a company you worked for.