Trent Bortz

Dr. Guenzel
ENC 1101
November 21, 2016
How Different Discourse Communities Impact My Writing
Being aware of my constantly changing rhetorical situation has helped me during this
course, as well as in other classes I am in right now. Throughout this class, I have learned how to
write for specific audiences and have begun to define my rhetorical goals. Writing is one of the
most situational processes most literate people go through every day. Something as small as how
the writer such as myself feels can have an effect on how words are written down. Other things,
such as intended audience, genre, and personal opinions can have even greater effects on a writer
and how they write. I am a junior in high school, but I am currently dual enrolled at UCF and go
to school at East River High School in the afternoon. The situations that I write in change
drastically depending on the class I am in and the school I am at. For example, in this class,
Composition I, I generally write professionally, even on blog entries and short reading responses.
On the other hand, in a class at East River, like Anatomy and Physiology, I do not always write
as professionally, and am more liable to use abbreviations and shortcuts (such as w/ for with
and & instead of writing out and). In other classes, like my Survey of Rock Music class,
there is no writing whatsoever, and the only grades are for multiple choice quizzes. These
scenarios go to show how much my writing changes on a daily basis and how I adapt to my
rhetorical surroundings. Composition I has made me much more in tune with realizing my
rhetorical situation and the discourse community I am in and how I need to write in different

scenarios. Being able to do this helps writers, myself included, improve their writing greatly,
create better arguments, and help them better get their points across to their audience.
Rhetorical situations are defined by the context in which writers write (Grant-Davie,
350). According to Keith Grant-Davie, writing contexts are made up of four constituents:
exigence, audiences, rhetors, and constraints. Rhetorical exigence helps answer the questions
Why is this discourse important? and So what? Essentially, exigence shows the purpose of a
discourse and tells a reader what it is trying to accomplish. Audiences can pertain to anyone or
group who reads the discourse, who the discourse is intended for, a group of people that make up
part of a different rhetorical situation, and the role of the audience can be laid out in the discourse
itself. On the outside, rhetors can be just those people who are given credit for any published
work, but in reality, they can also be much more than that. A rhetor is anyone, real or not, who
produces a discourse gives a discourse its authoritative voice. The last rhetorical constituent,
constraints, can stand in the way of a writer achieving their goals in the discourse. They can be
looked at as obstacles, and for this reason, many writers omit their constraints to make it easier to
achieve their goals. This is not a good strategy, and can often lead many writers to not transfer
the truth to their audiences.
Defining my exigence, rhetors, audiences, and constraints has helped me greatly improve
my writing over the course of this semester. For example, throughout middle school and my first
two years of high school, I would usually write sentences that had little to do with my topic until
I finally had typed the amount of words I needed, and then I would slowly come around towards
making my point and trying to convince my audience of something. However, after learning
about exigence and defining my goals in the discourses I produce, I know how to be detailed and
concise, and have every sentence I write really matter in my papers. Similarly, gaining a deeper

knowledge on concept of rhetors has helped me to gain authority in my papers. In ninth grade, I
had to write a paper, and at some point, I tried to back up a claim I made with statistics from a
survey in which I questioned twenty of my friends. At the time, I thought I was providing
sufficient evidence, and my teacher did not really tell me how to improve my writing strategies.
Looking back now, knowing that rhetors are not limited to myself when I create a discourse, I am
much more capable of telling an audience facts that are more trustworthy, which gives my
writing credibility. Instead of including statistics from a survey I produced myself, I would most
likely use statistics from a large database. By doing this, large databases and professional
researchers used as sources in my writing can help me be looked at as more credible, because
without these other rhetors, my sixteen-year-old self would not be. Understanding audiences has
helped me improve my writing by making it more professional and acceptable. Knowing your
target audience, but keeping your discourse accessible to anyone who decides to join your
audience by reading your work, is an important skill to have. In my writing before dual
enrollment, I would refer to things only my teacher and classmates would know about without
any explanation to others who might read my discourse. Even when my mother read my essays,
she regularly was confused on certain concepts I would address or acronyms I would use. Now I
know that my discourses need to be accessible to more people, and I can better explain concepts
to my audience before I start delving into my paper by defining terms and things they should
know. Lastly, I think a writers constraints is the most important constituent of the rhetorical
situation to understand. Before the tenth grade, I was a writer who usually left out major
constraints and counter arguments from my writings. I thought that these would hurt my
discourse and show weaknesses in my arguments. Although it seemed this way at first, I realized
that including obstacles and constraints to my argument in my discourse can actually benefit my

writing show strength in my arguments. Learning to refute a counter argument in my Advanced

Placement (AP) Seminar class has helped me strengthen my writing and argument as well as
learning how to further assess constraints in my writing in Composition I.
Another important concept that I was first introduced to in Composition I is the discourse
community. Every day, I actively participate in over ten discourse communities. A group of
people can qualify as a discourse community if they meet six qualifications. All discourse
communities have a set of common goals, intercommunicate, communicate information and
feedback, utilize more than one genre, have a specific lexis, and have threshold levels of
membership (Swales 220-222). Something like the group of people in a math class or members
of a basketball team can be a discourse community. At the same time, members of the team
might also be members of a larger discourse community in a league. Knowing what discourse
community I am writing for at any given time and where I stand within that community has
helped me write better because I have become more aware of my rhetorical surroundings.
Before learning about the discourse community this semester, I would write for my
English and history classes in a very similar fashion. I would write whatever I thought would
earn me a good grade and blindly hope for the best. Now, I use knowledge of the discourse
communities I write for to achieve the specific goals I have in each community. Instead of trying
to impress my teachers by writing sentences with complicated structures and words outside of
my vocabulary, I now consider my goals in any certain discourse community before I produce a
text for it. While writing for my AP United States History class, for example, I consider the fact
that I want to get an A grade on the assignment and understand how events coincide, so I write in
a straightforward manner that meets the assignment requirements. In a similar way, while
texting a teammate of mine and explaining a play to him, I know that he does not want to know

about what the point guard has to do in a certain situation if he is a center. I tell him what he
needs to know in order for him to be successful, so we as a team can win more games.
Understanding what information and feedback my audience needs has been vital in improving
my writing effectiveness.
A recurring theme in Composition I this semester has been adapting to changing
requirements and situations. Understanding concepts like rhetorical situation and discourse
community, as well as my part in each of them, has helped me steadily improve my writing skills
and my effectiveness in my papers. Knowing my rhetorical goals, how to write, who I am
writing for, and my obstacles has helped me stop writing without a purpose, and shown me how
to demonstrate my credibility, prove my arguments, have focus, and have a clear line of
reasoning. Also, further understanding different aspects of the discourse community have helped
me transfer only needed information to my audience and create more concise, detailed
discourses.