Week 1 · Chapter

Chapter 1 — The Writing Process & the Rhetorical Situation

English Composition Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~30–40 minutes · Objective 1 (analyze the rhetorical situation — writer, audience, purpose, genre, and context — and approach writing as a recursive process of invention, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection, distinguishing revision (re-seeing ideas and structure) from editing (sentences and surface)) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slide deck, the tutorial, and the quiz all build on it.

In plain language

Writing well starts with a question most people skip: who is going to read this, and what do I need them to do? This week you learn to answer that question on purpose, using the rhetorical situation (the five things every message answers to: writer, audience, purpose, genre, and context). You also learn that good writing is built in stages, the writing process (invention, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection), and that writers loop back through those stages rather than marching through them once. Last, you learn the difference between revision (re-seeing what a draft says and how it is built) and editing (fixing its sentences and surface). That one difference will matter in every piece of writing you do in this course.

Why you already care about this

Picture a club member who signed up to run the sign-up table at a food drive and then got called in to work. Three people need to hear about it. A friend in the club gets a quick text. The club leader gets an email. The community center's events committee, which keeps the official volunteer roster, gets a short formal note. Same news, three readers, three very different messages: 27 words, 61 words, and 74 words. In 1968, the rhetoric scholar Lloyd Bitzer gave a name to the push behind messages like these: the exigence.

You make choices like that every day without naming them. You text a friend one way and email a supervisor another. You explain a problem to a landlord differently than you complain about it to a roommate. You already sense that the reader changes the words.

This chapter turns that instinct into a method you can use on purpose, on any assignment, at work, and in your own life. It also shows you how experienced writers get from a blank page to a finished piece, and why they almost never get it right the first time.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

explain how one message changes for three different readers, and point to the words that changed;
analyze any writing situation with the five questions and name its exigence;
read the course's running draft topic through the five questions before it has a main claim;
describe the writing process as five stages that loop back, and trace one writer's path through them;
sort a change to a draft as revision or editing and say which pass comes first;
use four invention tools to find something to say.

Carry this line with you: a topic is not a plan; the five questions are.

Where we are

This week: what rhetoric is, the five questions of the rhetorical situation, the running draft's first stage, the writing process, revision versus editing, and the tools for getting started.
How they connect: this chapter is the foundation, so there is no earlier week to lean on; every later week asks the five questions and works through the same five stages.
Where we're going next: Week 2, Critical Reading: Summary & Response, turns the five questions on someone else's text, so you can say fairly what a writer claims before you say what you think.

This is the first week of the course, so nothing earlier is assumed. You do not need to think of yourself as "a writer" to start. If you have ever rewritten a text before sending it, you have already revised. Next week you will read like a writer; this week you learn to plan like one.

1. One message, three readers: choose words for the person reading

Go back to the club member with the work shift. The facts do not change: there is a food drive, there is a sign-up table, a work shift gets in the way, and another club member who ran the table last year has agreed to cover it. What changes is the reader.

Choosing what to say, and how to say it, for a particular reader has a name.

Rhetoric is the art of choosing what to say and how to say it for a particular reader and purpose.

People sometimes use "rhetoric" to mean empty talk, as when someone calls a speech "all rhetoric." In this course the word means something more useful. It names the choices every writer makes, whether the writer notices them or not.

Worked example — the food-drive message set. Here are the three versions. All three are illustrative, written for this course and attributed to no one.

Version A, a text to a friend in the club (27 words): "got called in to work, so I can't do the sign-up table at the food drive. found someone to cover it though. tell me how it goes!"

Version B, an email to the club leader (61 words): "I've been scheduled for a work shift during the food drive, so I can't run the sign-up table. Another club member who ran the table last year has agreed to cover it, and I've sent that member the sign-up sheets and the volunteer list. I'm sorry for the late change, and I can still help set up beforehand if that's useful."

Version C, a note to the community center's events committee (74 words): "I am writing to report one change to the volunteer roster for the food drive. Because of a work commitment, I am no longer able to staff the sign-up table. A club member who staffed the table last year will take my place, and the club's leader has approved the change. Please update the posted roster so that questions about sign-ups reach the club's shared email address. Thank you for keeping the roster current."

Now walk through what changed, one reader at a time.

The friend already knows about the food drive and the table. The friend needs the news and nothing else. So Version A skips capital letters, skips details, and ends on a friendly line.
The club leader has to make the table work. The leader needs to know who is covering it and whether the materials got handed off. So Version B adds the handoff: the sign-up sheets and the volunteer list went to the replacement.
The committee does not know the writer and keeps the official roster. It needs a clear request, the reason, and proof that the change is approved. So Version C names the change, gives the reason, reports the leader's approval, and asks for one specific action.

Count the cost of that care. Version C uses 74 − 27 = 47 more words than Version A. Version B uses 61 − 27 = 34 more words than Version A. Those extra words are not padding. Each one answers a question the reader would otherwise have to ask.

In words: the reader decides what the message has to contain, so the same news grows from 27 words to 74 when the reader knows less and has to act.

Misconception check. Students often think that more formal is always better, so the committee note must be the "best" version. That is tempting, because formal writing looks careful. But Version C sent to a friend would read as cold and strange, and Version A sent to the committee would look careless. Formality is a choice matched to the reader. The best version is the one that fits its reader.

Honesty note: word count is not the goal. Version C is longer because its reader needs more, not because longer is better. A message to a busy reader that runs long for no reason fails that reader too.

Memory hook: same news, different readers — different words.

2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write

Why did the three versions come out so differently? Because each one answered a different set of circumstances. Writers have a name for those circumstances.

The rhetorical situation is the set of circumstances every piece of writing answers to, taught in this course as five questions: writer, audience, purpose, genre, and context.

Here are the five, each with the question you ask.

Writer — who is writing, along with the role and knowledge that person brings to the message. Who am I in this situation?
Audience — the specific reader or readers a message must reach, with what they already know, need, and expect. Who is reading, and what do they already know?
Purpose — what the writer wants the message to do, such as inform, request, or persuade. What should this message make happen?
Genre — the recognizable form a message takes, such as a text, an email, a proposal, or a lab report, along with the conventions its readers expect. What form is this, and what does that form require?
Context — the time, place, and circumstances surrounding a message that shape what it has to say. What is going on around this message?

One more term sits underneath all five. Something has to make a message necessary in the first place. Bitzer called that push the exigence, in his essay "The Rhetorical Situation" (1968).

The exigence is the need or occasion that sets a piece of writing in motion.

In the food-drive story, the exigence is the work shift. Before the shift, no message was needed. After it, three were.

Worked example — the five questions for Version C. Take the committee note and answer each question.

Writer: a club volunteer reporting a change.
Audience: the events committee, which keeps the official roster and does not know the writer.
Purpose: to have the posted roster updated.
Genre: a short formal note.
Context: a late change to a community event.

Now read the note again with those answers beside it. The opening sentence states the purpose. The second sentence gives the reason, which a stranger needs. The approval sentence exists because the audience keeps an official list and needs to trust the change. The tone is formal because the genre and the audience call for it.

You may also meet a simpler picture. The rhetorical triangle is a classroom picture of writing as three connected corners: the writer, the audience, and the subject. It is a good first sketch. Compare it with the five questions. The triangle's three corners are writer, audience, and subject. Two of them, writer and audience, are also among the five questions. So the five questions add 5 − 2 = 3 that the triangle leaves out: purpose, genre, and context. Those three are exactly where the food-drive versions differed most.

Misconception check. Students often think audience does not matter, because "good writing is good writing" no matter who reads it. That is tempting, since a clear sentence seems clear to everyone. But the committee needed the approval and the club leader needed the handoff. A message that leaves out what its reader needs is not good writing for that reader. Audience sets the tone, the evidence, and how much you explain.

Honesty note: the five questions and the triangle are classroom models, simple tools you can hold in one hand. Real situations can be messier. A message can have two audiences at once, or a purpose that shifts as you write. The questions still help, because they make you look.

Memory hook: ask the five questions first — then write.

3. The running draft: read a topic through the five questions

All term you will watch one essay grow from a topic into a finished, sourced argument. We call it the running draft. It belongs to no named student; it is an illustrative draft that every week of the course revises.

In Week 1 the running draft is only a topic: "our college's phone policy in lecture classes". A topic tells you what the writing is about. It does not yet tell you what to say. The five questions do that work.

Worked example — the running draft, Stage 1. Read the topic through the five questions.

Writer: a student.
Audience: the faculty senate's curriculum committee.
Purpose: adopt a policy.
Genre: a proposal essay.
Context: a campus where phone use in lectures is unregulated.

Look at what those five answers already decide. The audience is a committee of faculty members, so the writer cannot rely on student slang or assume the readers sit in the same lectures. The purpose is to get a policy adopted, so the essay will have to propose something specific and explain why. The genre is a proposal essay, so readers will expect a problem, a proposed change, and reasons. The context is a campus with no rule at all, which is the situation that makes the proposal worth writing.

Notice what is still missing. The draft has no main claim yet: no sentence that says exactly what the writer thinks the committee should do. That sentence comes in Week 4, when the topic is narrowed into a working claim. For now, the five questions have turned a vague subject into a writing situation with a reader, a goal, and a form.

Misconception check. Students often think that once they have a topic, they know what to write. That is tempting, because picking a topic feels like the hard part. But "phones in lecture classes" could become a complaint to a friend, a news story, or a proposal to a committee. The topic alone cannot tell you which. The five questions can.

Memory hook: a topic is not a plan; the five questions are.

4. The writing process: loop through five stages

Ask a group of people how they write, and many will say they sit down and write it, start to finish. Then ask them how many times they rewrote their last important email. The real answer is usually more than once.

The writing process is the stages a writer works through to produce a finished piece, taught in this course as invention, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection.

Here are the five stages in order.

Invention is the stage of finding and generating ideas, both before a draft exists and whenever a draft runs out of them.
Drafting is the stage of getting ideas down as connected sentences and paragraphs without stopping to perfect them.
Revision is re-seeing a draft's ideas, focus, and structure, which changes what the draft says and how it is organized.
Editing is improving a draft's sentences and surface: word choice, sentence shape, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Reflection is the stage of looking back at a finished piece to name what worked, what changed, and what to try next time.

Inside editing sits one last pass. Proofreading is the last surface pass inside editing: a slow, careful check for typos and small punctuation errors.

The order above is the usual starting order, but it is not a one-way street. The process is recursive, which describes a process that loops back: the writer returns to an earlier stage whenever the work needs it, instead of passing through each stage once in a straight line.

Worked example — the committee note's path. Here is how the writer of Version C actually got there.

Invention: listed what the committee might need to know.
Drafting: started writing the note.
Invention again: stopped mid-sentence, because the writer did not know who keeps the roster, and went to find out.
Drafting again: finished the note with that new fact.
Revision: reorganized the note so the request came after the reason.
Editing: combined two sentences and fixed a spelling error.
Reflection: noted that the next time, finding out who reads the message should come first.

Count the visits. The note took 7 stage visits across the 5 stages. So 7 − 5 = 2 of those visits were returns to a stage the writer had already visited. The return to invention in step 3 is what recursive means in practice: drafting sent the writer back to find something out.

Where did this way of thinking come from? It has a history. In 1972, Donald Murray published "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product", arguing that teachers should coach the work of writing rather than only grade the finished page. In 1973, Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers made freewriting a standard tool for getting ideas moving. In 1981, Linda Flower and John Hayes published "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing", which described writing as a set of mental activities a writer moves between, not a straight line. This course's five stages are a classroom model that grows out of that tradition.

Misconception check. Students often think good writers get it right the first time, so needing several drafts means you are bad at writing. That is tempting, because you usually see only the finished version of other people's writing. But experienced writers revise constantly; the loops are how good writing gets made. Needing a second draft is not a sign of weakness. It is the process working.

Memory hook: five stages — and many loops.

5. Revision versus editing: re-see first, then polish

Here is the distinction that will earn or lose the most points in this course. Revision and editing both change a draft, so they are easy to blur. They change different things.

Revision changes what the draft says and how it is built: its ideas, its focus, its structure. Editing changes how the sentences read: their words, their shape, their grammar, their punctuation, their spelling. Revision asks, "Is this the right message for this reader?" Editing asks, "Is each sentence as clear and correct as it can be?"

Worked example — sorting the committee note's change log. Between the first draft and Version C, the writer made 7 changes. Sort each one.

Added the sentence naming who will take the writer's place. Revision: new content the committee needs.
Cut a sentence complaining about the work schedule. Revision: it did not serve the purpose.
Moved the roster request from the first sentence to the end, after the reason. Revision: a change of structure.
Rewrote the main point from "I can't do it" to a request to update the posted roster. Revision: a change of focus and purpose.
Combined two short sentences about the table into one. Editing: a sentence-level change.
Added a comma after "Because of a work commitment". Editing: punctuation.
Fixed a misspelling of "roster". Editing, and more exactly proofreading, the last pass inside editing.

That gives 4 revision changes and 3 editing changes. Check the count: 4 + 3 = 7.

In words: four of the seven changes re-saw the message itself, and three polished its sentences.

Order matters. Do the big pass first. If you polish a sentence and then cut it during revision, the polishing was wasted. That is why revision comes before editing in the model, even though writers sometimes fix a typo they notice along the way.

Misconception check. Students often think revising means fixing grammar. That is tempting, because grammar corrections are what many people remember seeing on returned papers. But fixing grammar is editing. Revision re-sees the draft: it adds, cuts, moves, and refocuses. A draft can be grammatically perfect and still need revision, because it says the wrong thing for its reader.

Memory hook: revision re-sees; editing polishes.

6. Invention tools: find something to say, then save a baseline

The hardest moment in writing is often the first one. You know the five questions, but the page is blank. Invention tools exist for exactly that moment. Here are four.

Freewriting is an invention tool in which the writer writes without stopping for a set time and does not pause to correct anything. Set a timer for ten minutes and keep your hand moving. If you get stuck, write "I am stuck" until something new comes. Elbow's Writing Without Teachers (1973) is where many teachers first met this tool.
Listing is an invention tool in which the writer jots down every idea, detail, or question about a topic as a quick list before choosing among them. Do not judge the list while you make it.
Reporter's questions are an invention tool that asks who, what, when, where, why, and how about a topic to turn up material to write about.
Talking it out is an invention tool in which the writer explains the topic aloud to a listener, or records the explanation, to discover what they think. Many writers find their main point by hearing themselves say it.

Worked example — the reporter's questions on the running draft's topic. Here is what the six questions turn up for "our college's phone policy in lecture classes":

Who is affected? Students in lecture classes, the faculty who teach them, and students who rely on phones for a documented need.
What is happening? Phone use in lectures is unregulated.
When does it matter? During lecture sections.
Where? In lecture classes on campus.
Why would a committee care? Because a policy decision is theirs to make.
How could it change? Through a policy the committee adopts.

Several of those answers are questions the writer cannot settle yet, such as what the policy should say. That is fine. Invention is allowed to raise questions; later stages answer them.

The diagnostic write. Early in this course you will write one more thing, and it will not be graded. A diagnostic write is an ungraded piece written in one sitting at the start of the course and kept as a baseline to compare against later work. Write it the way you write now, without polishing. Save it somewhere you will find it again. In Week 15 you will set it beside your later work and point to what changed.

Before you start, pick one of these two reflection prompts and answer it in a sentence or two. They count the same; choose whichever you prefer.

(a) Which invention tool do you expect to use most, and on what kind of writing?

(b) Which stage of the writing process do you usually skip, and what might change if you stopped skipping it?

Misconception check. Students often think invention is a waste of time, and that the real work starts with the first sentence of the draft. That is tempting, because a list of ideas does not look like progress. But a draft written without invention usually stalls in the middle, and the writer ends up doing the invention anyway, only later and under more pressure.

Memory hook: stuck is a stage, not a verdict.

Key terms

rhetoric — The art of choosing what to say and how to say it for a particular reader and purpose. (first used: 1. One message, three readers: choose words for the person reading)
rhetorical situation — The set of circumstances every piece of writing answers to, taught in this course as five questions: writer, audience, purpose, genre, and context. (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
writer — In the rhetorical situation, who is writing, along with the role and knowledge that person brings to the message. (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
audience — In the rhetorical situation, the specific reader or readers a message must reach, with what they already know, need, and expect. (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
purpose — In the rhetorical situation, what the writer wants the message to do, such as inform, request, or persuade. (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
genre — In the rhetorical situation, the recognizable form a message takes, such as a text, an email, a proposal, or a lab report, along with the conventions its readers expect. (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
context — In the rhetorical situation, the time, place, and circumstances surrounding a message that shape what it has to say. (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
exigence — The need or occasion that sets a piece of writing in motion; the term comes from Lloyd Bitzer's essay "The Rhetorical Situation" (1968). (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
rhetorical triangle — A classroom picture of writing as three connected corners: the writer, the audience, and the subject. (first used: 2. The rhetorical situation: ask five questions before you write)
writing process — The stages a writer works through to produce a finished piece, taught in this course as invention, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
invention — The stage of finding and generating ideas, both before a draft exists and whenever a draft runs out of them. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
drafting — The stage of getting ideas down as connected sentences and paragraphs without stopping to perfect them. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
revision — Re-seeing a draft's ideas, focus, and structure, which changes what the draft says and how it is organized. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
editing — Improving a draft's sentences and surface: word choice, sentence shape, grammar, punctuation, and spelling. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
reflection — The stage of looking back at a finished piece to name what worked, what changed, and what to try next time. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
proofreading — The last surface pass inside editing: a slow, careful check for typos and small punctuation errors. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
recursive — Describes a process that loops back: the writer returns to an earlier stage whenever the work needs it, instead of passing through each stage once in a straight line. (first used: 4. The writing process: loop through five stages)
freewriting — An invention tool in which the writer writes without stopping for a set time and does not pause to correct anything. (first used: 6. Invention tools: find something to say, then save a baseline)
listing — An invention tool in which the writer jots down every idea, detail, or question about a topic as a quick list before choosing among them. (first used: 6. Invention tools: find something to say, then save a baseline)
reporter's questions — An invention tool that asks who, what, when, where, why, and how about a topic to turn up material to write about. (first used: 6. Invention tools: find something to say, then save a baseline)
talking it out — An invention tool in which the writer explains the topic aloud to a listener, or records the explanation, to discover what they think. (first used: 6. Invention tools: find something to say, then save a baseline)
diagnostic write — An ungraded piece written in one sitting at the start of the course and kept as a baseline to compare against later work. (first used: 6. Invention tools: find something to say, then save a baseline)

Summary

Rhetoric is choosing what to say and how for a particular reader and purpose.
The same news needs different words for different readers: 27 words for a friend, 74 for a committee.
The rhetorical situation is five questions: writer, audience, purpose, genre, context.
The exigence is the need that sets writing in motion; Bitzer named it in 1968.
The rhetorical triangle shows writer, audience, and subject; the five questions add purpose, genre, and context.
A topic is not a plan; reading it through the five questions turns it into a writing situation.
The writing process has five stages: invention, drafting, revision, editing, reflection.
The process is recursive: writers loop back, and proofreading is the last pass inside editing.
Revision re-sees ideas, focus, and structure; editing polishes sentences and surface; revise first.
Freewriting, listing, the reporter's questions, and talking it out help you find something to say.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

A tenant's heater breaks. The tenant texts a roommate, "heater's dead again, wear a sweater," and then writes an email to the landlord. Name two of the five questions whose answers change between the two messages, and say one thing the email must contain that the text does not.
A bus rider waits forty minutes for a bus that never comes and then writes a complaint to the city's transit agency. What is the exigence, and who is the audience?
A job seeker makes four changes to a cover letter. Change (a) replaces the opening paragraph about their hobbies with one about the job they want. Change (b) fixes "recieve" to "receive". Change (c) moves their strongest experience from the last paragraph to the second. Change (d) splits one very long sentence into two. Sort each change as revision or editing.
A volunteer writing a neighborhood newsletter article moves through these stages: invention, drafting, revision, drafting, editing, reflection. How many stage visits are there, how many were returns to a stage already visited, and which step shows that the process is recursive?

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Audience and genre both change. The roommate already knows the heater has failed before and only needs a heads-up, so a short text works. The landlord is responsible for the repair and may not know the history, so the email is a different genre with different expectations. Purpose changes too: the text warns, and the email requests a repair. The email must contain what the landlord needs to act, such as which unit, what is wrong, when it started, and a clear request for the repair. The text leaves all of that out because the roommate does not need it.
The exigence is the forty-minute wait for a bus that never came: that event is what made the complaint necessary. The audience is the city's transit agency, the organization that runs the buses and can act on the complaint. Naming the audience tells the rider what to include: the route, the stop, and the time, so the agency can check what went wrong.
Change (a) is revision, because it changes the letter's focus and content. Change (c) is revision too, since it changes the structure. Change (b) is editing, and more exactly proofreading, because it fixes a spelling error. Change (d) is editing, because it changes a sentence's shape without changing what the letter says. So there are two revision changes and two editing changes, and the two revision changes should come first.
There are 6 stage visits. The five stages are invention, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection, so 6 − 5 = 1 visit was a return to a stage already visited: the second drafting step. That step, going back to drafting after revision, shows the process is recursive. Revising sent the writer back to draft new material instead of moving straight on to editing.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week the five questions become a method for reading someone else's text before you respond to it.

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