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Thomas Johnsen
Erin Workman
ENC 2135
23 November 2015
Theory of Writing
I had heard of the Theory of Evolution, the Theory of Knowledge, and the Theory
of Time, but I had yet to explore and comprehend the theory of writing. As most people
coming into ENC 2135, I had no comprehension or knowledge of a theory of writing. So
when my professor asked me to brainstorm a theory of writing, I was confused and
dumbfounded because I did not know how to proceed. After much reflection and
thinking, I produced my first theory of writing, which was that writing is a skill that
affects all aspects of ones life and can be very powerful. When done well, writing can
influence you to buy a product, change your opinion on an issue, and inform you on the
most complicated topics. My initial theory of writing was developed based on my past
experiences with writing and my limited knowledge on the topic. Nevertheless, as the
course progressed, so did my theory of writing. The course work helped me get a better
understanding of writing and craft a new theory of writing that I believe to be more
developed and fine-tuned than my initial theory of writing. The journals and Course
readings taught me more about writing, why we write, and what writing can be used for.
While the major assignments gave me the work needed to understand how all the key
terms come together, my theory of writing is that one writes for the purpose of
communicating his or her thoughts and ideas to his or her intended audience due to a
rhetorical situation. In this writing one must research, reflect and chose an appropriate

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genre to present the writing in for him or her to successfully get his or her purpose
across successfully. The key terms of my theory of writing are purpose, audience,
rhetorical situation, research, genre, and reflect. The key terms are all interconnected.
Assignment one taught me that an authors method with getting his or her
purpose across in his or her writing is dependent on who the audience is and what the
rhetorical situation is. Furthermore, the purpose of an authors writing can also be
influenced by who the audience is and what the rhetorical situation is. For example, one
of the pieces that my group and I analyzed for this assignment was President Obamas
2009 inaugural address. What we discovered is that Obamas purpose in this discourse
was to inform the people of his intentions as president of the United States and to
persuade the American people to believe in his objectives as President. This was not
unexpected because of the fact that it was an inaugural address and that is what is
expected to be the purpose of most if not all inaugural addresses. In other words, the
purpose of the address is tied to the genre of the inaugural address. Furthermore,
President Obama tried to accomplish his purpose in persuading the American people to
believe in his intentions as president by trying to appeal to his audience. For instance,
when Obama tried to persuade the audience that we must all unite to begin again the
work of remaking America, he first alluded to how our ancestors came together and
sacrificed their lives for the common goal of making America better for generations to
come. He made this reference because of the common knowledge of the respect and
admiration that Americans have of their ancestors. In general, he believes that the
American people will feel more motivated to work together in remaking America if it has
been done before by our ancestors (Johnsen, Assignment 1 page 5). Overall,

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assignment one helped me see the importance of purpose, audience and rhetorical
situation in ones writing and helped show me how those key terms are interconnected.
Assignment two taught me the importance of audience and how the audience
effects the genre and research of a paper. In this assignment, I was instructed to write a
research paper on a topic related to my intended major. As a finance major, I chose to
investigate the extent that the introduction of the internet has changed finance. The
papers intended audience were those who are interested in finance, those who practice
finance, and those who are interested on the effects that the internet has had on the
business world. Many of the decisions that I made on how this paper was going to be
written, such as the genre and the tone, were decided based on the intended audience.
In my Genre 2 for Assignment 2, I wrote the way that this research paper will be
directed to this audience is that it will be written in an informative and an analytical
genre. Additionally, the tone of the paper will be informative, objective and reflective
because that is what my audience will expect and want from this type of paper. I also
reflected on the audience to decide on the type of information to research. I decided to
find and use sources that were primary sources, analytical, and written with the support
of statistics and evidence because those are the type of sources that are the most
appropriate and effective for my field. Overall, If I had not reflected on the audience to
decide on the genre of the paper and the type of information to research, the paper
would not have been as successful in getting its purpose across.
Assignment three taught me the importance of genre in writing and how it relates
to audience and purpose. In assignment three, we were asked to create a composition
of three different genres to communicate to a targeted audience about our research

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topic. In the process of picking the three genres, I had to take into account who the
audience was that I was trying to reach and what my purpose in the assignment was. I
chose one of the genres to be a blog because of its known effectiveness in getting
information, ideas, and thoughts to the finance community. As I discussed in assignment
threes short assignment 4:
I chose one of the genres to be a blog because my intended audience are
those interested in finance, those who practice finance, and those who are
interested on the effects that the internet has had on the business world. I
know that most financial experts and economists communicate his or her
ideas, data, and information to this specific audience with their own
personal blogs. So it would make sense for me to chose a blog as one of
the three genres since it is a proven method of communicating economic
and financial ideas to this intended audience.
Purpose and genre are interconnected to each other because of the importance
that the writer picks the right genre to get his or her purpose across successfully.
For example, purpose was also a decisive factor in my process of selecting the
three genres for assignment three. The second genre I chose was a photo essay
because of one of my purposes being to successfully illustrate the magnitude of
the changes and effects that the introduction of the internet has had on the stock
market and the banking industry and fortunately a photo essay effectively shows
this by showing the audience the changes and effects rather than simply writing
about them.

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I chose purpose as one of the key terms because of its obvious importance in
writing. A writing without a purpose would neither have meaning nor exist because there
would be no reason for its existence. People always have a reason for why theyre
writing whether it be to inform your friends of how your day is going, to help remind you
of an important meeting, or to help keep a daily record of events and experiences. As
Grant Wiggin argues, the point of writing is to have something to say and to make a
difference in saying it (Wiggin).
Reflection is another important part of my theory of writing. Reflection allows
writers to mature as writers. Taczak argues that reflection enables writers to recognize
what they are doing in that particular moment (cognition), as well as to consider why
they made the rhetorical choices they did (Taczak). This recognition and
acknowledgement of what a writer is doing helps writers identify problems in his or her
writing, which is the most important thing that a writer needs to know to be able to
improve as a writer. The process of reflection also allows writers to reflect on on how the
audience reacts to a particular genre of writing for a specific rhetorical situation, which
permits the writer to know what style works and what style does not work. And with this
new knowledge, the writer is able to change his or her style of writing to better
communicate his or her idea(s) or thought(s) to his or her audience. On the other hand,
reflection is also a part of the writing process. Yancey defines reflection as dialectical,
putting multiple perspectives into play with each other in order to produce insight
(Yancey). Writers reflect on outside materials, such as past experiences and outside
sources, to write his or her work. In general, reflection is important in writing because of

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its crucial role in both a writers development as a writer and in the writers writing
process.
Another important feature of my theory of writing is the importance of rhetorical
situation in writing. Rhetorical situation exists every time someone writes. Lloyd Bitzer
defines rhetorical situation as a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations
presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed
if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as
to bring about the significant modification of the exigence (Biltzer). Rhetorical situation
is the position of your writing in relation to various elements that affect your writing
choices. These rhetorical situations aid the writer in determining the purpose, the
audience, the genre, and the context of his or her writing. These decisions are very
important in the writing process, specifically in the brainstorming phase of the writing
process. In all three major assignments I had to identify and reflect on the rhetorical
situation before beginning to write. For example, in the second assignment, I identified
that I was writing on a business topic that would interest the finance community. With
this knowledge, I was able to narrow down the purpose (to effectively communicate
what I discovered on the topic to my audience), the audience (the finance community),
the genre (informative and analytical), and the content (background information,
statistics, and evidence). After knowing the purpose, the audience, the genre, and the
content of my paper I was confident in what I had to do to write a well written effective
paper.
My theory of writing could be adapted and applied to other writing situations both
inside the classroom and outside the classroom because my theory of writing helps me

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better understand what goes into writing a successful written piece and has taught me
how to write in different genres and for different audiences. My theory of writing helps
me better understand that my writing style is dependent on what the rhetorical situation
is and who my intended audience is. For example, if I were to write to a close friend, my
writing style would be informal, light, and written with a personal tone, while if I were to
write a letter to my congressmen, my writing style would be formal and serious.
Furthermore, knowing the importance of who my intended audience is, helps me better
understand what my purpose is and how to best get my purpose across to the intended
audience. It also helps me understand that each writing has a genre that can be used to
most effectively get one's purpose across. For example, a writer will choose to write
and create a brochure if his or her purpose in writing is to advertise his or her product or
service in a creative and effective way. But this writer will not write a journal to advertise
his or her product or service because it would not be an appropriate or effective way to
advertise his or her product. My theory of writing would also prove useful when writing
papers for my classes in the spring because of how the purpose, rhetorical situation,
and audience effect how I write the paper. For example, if I have to write a paper for my
microeconomics class on an economic topic then the genre of the paper would be
informative and analytical because that is how economic papers are written to
successfully get my purpose across to my intended audience. With this knowledge, I
believe that I can successfully get my purpose across to my intended audience for any
future writing assignments.

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