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Writing for the Web: Rhetorical Rationale

Understanding Public Writing in Circulation

Some formal guidelines for the Rhetorical Rationale:

The questions below are meant as a guide for you to discuss the story of your composition. Please dont answer
these questions bullet by bullet, but rather use them as areas of consideration to discuss how and why you
composed your project the way you did. What drafts did you go through? What feedback did you receive from
your peers? What changed your thinking on your project?
Please compose your document in prose/paragraph format, and do not turn your rationale in as a series of
bullet points.
I consider it of high importance that you connect with the scholarship that we discuss in class. How have
the concepts we discussed in class informed your composing process? This is not a formal research report; your
quotes will not have to be in MLA/APA format (just page numbers is fine), but I expect you to consider how
the critical concepts we discuss in class are present within your project.
For this project, your rhetorical rationale should run between 1000-2000 words. Please also upload your
rationale as an MS Word document. Your written document should adhere to standard formatting (1 margins,
Times New Roman font, etc.).

1. Rhetorical Situation
What was your rhetorical situation? More specifically:
o What is the exigence(s) (besides satisfying an assignment and earning a grade)?
! Said another way, why did you create this text; what purpose does it serve? Who is the
audience? Are there multiple audiences?
o Defend the extent to which your text functions as an appropriate response to your exigence(s)

2. Public
What public(s) are involved in either the creation or consumption of your web text? In other words who is
your audience? Does the audience share authorship with you?
How does your web text address a public audience?
In what ways is your audience diverse? What shared values are present?
What, if any, response did you receive from your text? Did your audience reply?

2. Agency
How did agency come into play in the creation of your web text? What conscious agency was present on
your part? What unconscious influences could have shaped your text?
What type of identity did you adopt while composing in this genre and how, if at all, was it different from
the one(s) you assume while composing in other genres?
Do you feel like your web text effects change? Why or why not? How so?

3. Kairos
Consider your web text in terms of kairos. What considerations did you have before you composed your text
to ensure your intended delivery? What considerations did you have to contend with after you composed
your text?
What sort of kairotic struggles did this web text produce, if any? What contexts did you have to contend
with? What sort of deliberations were involved in composing?
Did your means of production (MS Word for example) differ from your means of delivery (Wikipedia for
example)?
Were any other collaborators needed for the success of your web text?
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Writing for the Web: Rhetorical Rationale
Understanding Public Writing in Circulation

4. Circulation
How will this text reach its intended audience? Who was the initial distributor? How will it circulate?
What strategies, if any, did you use to draw attention to your text once it was published?
Do any factors of access affect how your web text will circulate? Is the audience restricted in any way?

5. Fair Use
How does your text qualify for Fair Use?
Did you cite your sources properly? Did you need to?
What, if anything, was difficult or confusing about the Fair Use/citation process?

6. Techne
How did you demonstrate techne in your web text? What technical knowledge was required?
What morals or cultural values are represented in your source text? In other words, how does your text or
your source text function in light of a larger cultural discourse?
Who does your text include or exclude? Does your text empowered or disempower through the nature of its
design?

7. Reflection
What did you learn from doing this project?
If you had more time or could re-do this project, what might you revise, change, and/or do differently?
In what ways was this project similar to a traditional academic essay? In what ways was it different? Which
do you prefer composing? Why?

8. Etc.
Did you run into any complications/limitations/problems with this project that you want me to know
about?
Is there anything else you would like to tell me/explain to me about your project?